How it started
History
B.Grimm was founded in 1878 when German pharmacist Bernhard Grimm and his Austrian partner, Erwin Mueller, started a chemist's shop, the Siam Dispensary, on Oriental Avenue off New Road. The shop, one of the earliest incorporated businesses in the country, prospered and it was soon appointed official pharmacist to the Thai royal family.
As early as 1900, the company had secured a partnership with global heavyweights like Siemens Corporation. In 1903, Adolf Link was hired as a manager to help expand the growing business. After King Chulalongkorn returned from his grand tour in Europe, he began putting in place measures to modernize the country to bring it more in line with European nations.
Following the outbreak of World War I, all of the assets in Siam (then Thailand) of Adolf Link, a German national, were seized on orders of the British government and was sent with his wife, Erma, and their two children, Herbert and Gerhard, to concentration camps in India.
The Links had much credibility in Thailand and they knew the Thais had not taken away their assets on their initiative. The family returned to Thailand in 1920 after the war had ended in 1918. In 1928, Prince Bhanurangrsi built on his property the new premises for the company at Wang Burapha, and King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambhai Barni presided over the opening of the new offices.
Herbert Link reopened the company in Thailand in 1949, while brother and partner Gerhard remained in Germany to help expand the B.Grimm name in Europe. In 1953, Gerhard Link was appointed Thailand's honorary consul and later its consul general in Hamburg.
From Wikipedia’s article on B.Grimm, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2