4711 - House Number 4711

House Number 4711

On October 3, 1794, in view of the French troops standing just outside of Cologne, the city council approved a plan proposed by the guard-committee to number all houses in the city without exception and to install what would be considered appropriate lighting for each location. Orders were given to install the lighting immediately, while the numbering was left to fate.

On October 6, 1794, French troops occupied the city. On October 7, 1794, the city council decided that every local government official had to hand in an inventory of all citizens and non-citizens in his district within 48 hours. Furthermore, the guard-committee received autorisation to number the houses as agreed previously.

On October 20, 1794, Senator Gottfried von Gall noted in his diary that the numbering and the written documentation of the houses which started eight days earlier was being continued.

The printer Heinrich Josef Metternich (a council member) applied for permission to publish an address calendar. This calendar was supposed to include, amongst other things, the house numbers which had recently been assigned. He also sought permission to collect all the relevant details.

In the second address book of Cologne (1797), the widow of Wilhelm von Lemmen seel. was still listed as the tenant of the Klöckergasse house, which had been given the number 4711.

Wilhelm Mülhens was listed as the tenant of the house no sooner than in the third edition of the address book of Cologne; his occupation was listed as "in Speculationsgeschaeften" (which translates to speculator). He is not yet listed under the manufacturers of Eau de Cologne in the mercantile directory.

In 1811, the continuous house numbering was changed to a system of numbering streets separately, as is common today.

In the preface to the 1813 French edition of the address book, the publisher Thiriart claimed that there had not been any house numbering before the arrival of the French in the city ("inconnu á Cologne avant l´arrivée des armées françaises au bord du Rhin") and that the order to number the houses had been given in 1795.

In 1854 Peter Joseph Mülhens moved from Glockengasse 12 into a newly constructed commercial building with a neo-gothic facade at Glockengasse 26-28. Glockengasse 12, which had been assigned the number 4711 in 1794, remained vacant for a period of time and was torn down after it was sold.

The depiction of a French military officer painting the house number 4711 on the facade of the house in the Glockengasse while sitting on his horse is a product of advertising. A piece of tapestry, a gobelin which had been ordered and made in the 1920s, served as a model. A scenic version spread widely in the 1950s and the 1960s.