Johannes Menge blazes the trail for minerals, Barossa Valley, higher education in the colony of South Australia
Johannes Menge educated himself in languages, philosophy, medicine, religion and mineralogy.
A visionary polymath, with a touch of eccentricity, Johannes Menge was an inspiring figure for early South Australian German settlers.
Born in Steinau, Hesse, Germany, in 1788, Menge had little formal education but keenly learnt languages during extended wandering through Europe. Adding to his knowledge of philosophy, medicine and religion, Menge gained an honorary degree of professor of mineralogy from Lubeck University in 1821.
After his wife’s death in 1830, Menge moved to teach languages in London, where he met George Fife Angas, chairman of the South Australia Company.
Menge arrived on the Coromandel at Kangaroo Island in 1837, taking up Angas’s offer of a job as the company’s mine and quarry agent and geologist.
When his eccentricity led to dismissal, “Professor” Menge moved to the South Australian mainland, travelling widely and having a major impact of the search for minerals, while engaging many other interests.
Menge guided German immigrants to settle in the Adelaide Hills and Barossa Valley (“New Silesia”). Menge inspired Pastor August Kavel to take on a much larger section (11,200 ha) of Angas’s land in the valley for a German settlement.
Menge lived for a while in the valley in a cave on the banks of Jacob’s Creek at its junction with North Para River. He diverted the creek’s flow to create an island where he grew vegetables. He also wanted to build a school there where he would teach oriental languages.
Menge had other visions for higher education. When governor George Grey and his wife wanted Menge to teach them the Hebrew language, he refused because the governor wouldn't establish a school of mines and industries. Menge was among the first Germans granted British citizenship, after a delay of eight years, in 1847, when Germans in South Australia gained their own newspaper, Die Deutsche Post, edited by Menge.
