Hamburg merchant and trader, owner of the export and import company H. Bey & Co., as well as the subsidiary Bey & Zimmer. Both had branches in West Africa (Lagos, Sapelea, Warri) from where ‘colonial goods’ and commodities (e.g. palm kernels) were transported to Hamburg. The company was one of four important ‘principal trading firms on the Benin River’, and played a central role in importing works of art from the Kingdom of Benin to Europe. Bey & Co. undersigned the petition written in 1896 to the British Vice-Consul of the Benin River District demanding action against Ọba Ovonramwẹ because he had stopped all trade in that area (Dau, 2022[239] Hans, Lidchi, Schmidt, 2021[236]).