Martin Basedow lifts South Australian education, as teacher, journalist, MP; pushes for Roseworthy College

Martin Basedow was briefly South Australian government education minister and helped started Roseworthy Agricultural College, pictured in 1896.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia

(Frederick) Martin Basedow parallelled his father-in-law Carl Muecke’s devotion to education, newspapers and liberalism in 19th Century South Australia.

Educated in Germany by his father and at the gymnasium at Winsen, Basedow taught in the Vierlande region near Hamburg, before sailing on the Pauline in 1848 to South Australia, hoping to earn more as a teacher. Initially, he could get work only as a stationhand in the River Murray district.

He was naturalised in 1850 when he opened a Lutheran school at Tanunda and was licensed with a £100 salary from the South Australian central board of education. His school, of 80 pupils, was praised for its order and science teaching.

In 1863, Basedow set up Tanunda Deutsche Zeitung newspaper after part owning Süd-Australische Zeitung.

Basedow gave evidence to the 1868 select committee, advocating education be free, compulsory, broad, humane and moral. In 1870, Basedow changed his paper's name to the Australische Deutsche Zeitung and in 1874 moved to Adelaide where he and Carl Muecke amalgamated it with Süd-Australische Zeitung to form the Australische Zeitung, the only South Australian German-language newspaper.

Muecke, who had been Tanunda District Council chairman, was elected to represent Barossa in the House of Assembly in 1876. Briefly, in 1881, he was government minister for education. He sought better conditions for teachers and opposed payment by results, which he believed led to rote learning. In 1879, his moves resulted in the founding of Roseworthy Agricultural College, which his paper had long advocated.

In 1891, Basedow represented South Australia at the Universal Postal Congress in Vienna. In 1894-1900, he also represented the North Eastern District in the Legislative Council, trying to promote German legislation on sickness, accident, invalidity and old-age insurance.

Although Basedow may have decided not to stand for election in 1900 because of pro-Boer sympathies, he had built cultural bridges as a president and trustee of the Deutsche Club but also director of several public and private institutions in Adelaide.