ScienceGerman

Christian Leopold von Buch backs 'Prinzessin Luise' bringing eminent German intellectuals to South Australia in 1849

Christian Leopold von Buch backs 'Prinzessin Luise' bringing eminent German intellectuals to South Australia in 1849
Famous 19th Century German geologist Christian Leopold von Buch helped finance the chartering of the 356-ton Prinzessin Luise/Princess Louise, under Captain Bohr, that brought the Berlin Emigration Society group to South Australia in 1849.

Christian Leopold von Buch, who defined the Jurassic age and was one of the 19th Century’s most important geologists, was a sponsor for what has been called “the single most important group of German intellectuals to come to Adelaide” in 1849. Von Buch influenced Charles Darwin’s work and was called the greatest geologist of his time by another famous German colleague Alexander von Humboldt.

Humboldt was also a patron of the Schomburgk brothers: explorer Robert, botanist Richard and physician Otto. Humboldt had intervened when Otto was arrested in 1839 for political activities. By 1848, Richard and Otto, as black-listed liberals, saw little hope of their dream of German democracy being achieved and formed the Berlin Emigration Society of mainly professional and business men and artisans.

With help from Humboldt, the Berlin Academy of Sciences and a generous 300 thalers from von Buch, the Schomburgks were able to join others in chartering the Prinzessin Luise (Princess Louise) that took 162 men, women and children from Hamburg in March 1849 and arrived, via Rio de Janeiro, in Port Adelaide in August.

Besides the future Adelaide Botanic Gardens director Richard Schomburgk, others in this group to become eminent in the South Australian community included musicians and composers Gustav Esselbach and Carl Linger (who wrote the "Song of Australia"), the naturalist Marianne Kreusler, scientists and politicians, educationist Dr Carl Meucke, painter Charles Schramm, wine maker Herman Buring and Ulrich Hubbe, “father of the Real Property Act” that enabled the Torrens title system.

The Princess Louise group as a company in 1850 bought land (Section 44 of the Hundred of Muddla Wirra) about four miles from Gawler Town on the Gawler River. Several families funded a church and school to be built in a township they called Buchfelde after Christian Leopold von Buch.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

Richard Kleeman, William Bragg's first research assistant (sitting, second from right) with a group of physics research students (and professor J.J. Thomson) at Cambridge University in 1907. William Bragg (top right), professor of pure and applied mathematics (and physics) at Adelaide University had arranged for Kleeman's special admission to the university.
Science >
Richard Kleeman, from farm boy at 13, in South Australia's Barossa Valley, adds to search for atomic structure
READ MORE+
Daniel and Caroline Lemke and their children. At left: The organ built around 1857 by Lemke for Immanuel Lutheran Church at Light Pass in South Australia's Barossa Valley.
Design >
Daniel Lemke, Johann Krüger bring Germanic tonality from Bach's time to earliest organs built in Barossa Valley
READ MORE+
Professor Edward Stirling, a promoter of women's rights, pictured with students and to the left of Laura Fowler, the University of Adelaide's first woman medical and surgery graduate in 1891. Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Universities >
Edward Charles Stirling a brilliant all-round scientist; helps start Adelaide University medical school in 1885
READ MORE+
Astronomical Society of South Australia member and inventor A. W. Dobbie with the last of his three Newtonian reflector telescopes he built in the garden of his home in Baliol Street, College Park. Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Science >
Astronomical Society of South Australia first in Australia from 1892; lively small group loses the observatory in 1952
READ MORE+
Augusta Zadow was a major force behind forming the Working Women’s Trades Union in South Australia in 1890.  Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Women >
Augusta Zadow teams with Mary Lee to fight scourge of sweatshop conditions in 1890s Adelaide factories
READ MORE+
Carrying on the Adelaide Liedertafel tradition in good and bad times: some members the choir in the late 1880s (left) and 1928 (right). Images courtesy Adelaider Liedertafel
Music >
Adelaider Liedertafel 1858 German male choir survives tough times in war years to be one of Australia's oldest
READ MORE+