[4] Hans Kirchenpauer von Kirchdorff (1613–1648) came to Hamburg as a merchant, being granted citizenship of the city at the height of the Thirty Years' War, in 1640, which meant renouncing his aristocratic title.

[1] After 1806 Gustav Kirchenpauer's father faced ruin on account of the Napoleonic trade restrictions known as the Continental System, the city having fallen under French control earlier that year.

[4] Many of his contributions appeared in "Hamburgische Zeitschrift für Politik, Handel und Handelsrecht", a newspaper focused on commerce, politics and legal matters.

In 1839 he joined with the historian and city archivist Johann Martin Lappenberg (and others) to create the Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte,[2] taking on the presidency of the economic history section of it.

[9] Because of his free trade stance, in February 1840 he was made librarian and, simultaneously, secretary of the Hamburg Commercial Deputation [de] (forerunner of the city's Chamber of Commerce).

[10] The senate mandated him to represent the city in renegotiations covering the important Elbe Shipping Commission [de], intended to update an act originally dated 21 June 1821.

The act was in urgent need of modification due to changed usages and the widespread acceptance that tolls on shipping both inhibited economic growth and ran counter to the increasingly mainstream free trade principals of the time.

[10] The appointment also allowed him the opportunity to pursue his passion for natural science: he devoted much time to studying under a microscope the life forms clinging to the buoys at the mouth of the estuary.

[16] The output of this self-taught scientist caught the attention of the academic establishment and on 7 April 1875 he found himself inducted into the Leopoldina Academy of Sciences (" Sacri Romani Imperii Academia Caesarea Leopoldino-Carolina Naturae Curiosorum"), remaining a member till his death in 1887.

Following the completion on unification in 1871, he became Hamburg's representative in the Bundesrat, the (nominally) upper house in Germany's bicameral legislature, retaining this mandate till April 1880[4] when he was succeeded by Johannes Versmann.

The senators repeatedly found reasons to postpone substituting the gold-based German gold mark, which they feared would deal a fatal blow to Hamburg's sovereignty.

[20] Eventually the city's own chamber of commerce proposed a compromise deal which the central government accepted, and which effectively increased the value of the silver-based Hamburg mark at the time of the changeover.

[19] However, the expansion and speeding up of rail transport and shipping saw European agriculture coming under price pressure from continents where land and labour were relatively abundant and inexpensive.

Traditionally Altona was a separate rival municipality, downstream along the Elbe from Hamburg, but by this time he two conurbations had become contiguous, meaning that Bismarck's application implicitly threatened to place a massively disruptive frontier through the middle of what the business community regarded as a single urban entity.

[19] Kirchenpauer was so enraged by Bismarck's tactic that he resigned from the Bundesrat within 24 hours, and negotiation with the central government of the entire matter was taken on by his successor as the Hamburg representative, Johannes Versmann.

[19] Versmann proved a little more pragmatic than Kirchenpauer, and eventually, on 25 May 1881, a "package deal" was concluded which provided both for an enlarged freeport area and Hamburg's entry into the German customs union.

[19] There had been compromises on both sides, but in the eyes of many, Hamburg's economic clout had combined with the stubborn intransigence of her senators to leave the city with a privileged status in the rapidly industrialising new Germany.

[19] Kirchenpauer had been chairman of Hamburg's Schools and professional training board [de] since 1869, and after 1880 he took a step back from his habitual role as the senate's expert on trade and commerce, concentrating instead on transforming the city's public education provision.