Georg Christian Kessler was born on 30th March 1787 in Heilbronn as the fourth child of the Municipal Court Assessor Johann Wilhelm Kessler. Kessler’s father came from Walldorf on the Werra in Thuringia, where he served as a city councilor and a court inspector of the Principality of Saxony-Meiningen. In 1780, he moved to the imperial city of Heilbronn on the Neckar, where he married Johanna Gesswein, a tailor’s daughter. He then worked in legal services, as a writing master and was also a city councilor. He was, moreover, an accomplished organist and composer, acclaimed both at home and abroad. Georg Christian’s mother died when he was 11 years old. He attended school until the age of 14 in his native Heilbronn. Rather than following his father’s wishes for him to take up an apprenticeship as a silversmith, he instead decided to move north to Neuwied on the Rhine and to train as an office worker in a paint, spice and leather shop.