EducationGerman

T. W. Boehm creates a successful Hahndorf Academy but battles finances, conservative Lutheran antagonism

T. W. Boehm creates a successful Hahndorf Academy but battles finances, conservative Lutheran antagonism
T.W. Boehm and the Hahndorf College (formerly academy) that he'd originated in the Adelaide Hills town in 1857.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Schoolmaster T. W. (Traugott Wilhelm) Boehm founded the Adelaide Hills German School that became Hahndorf Adademy and then Hahndorf College. Boehm, with his parents and family, was among the group who arrived at Port Adelaide on the Zebra with Captain Dirk Hahn) in 1839.

He was educated at the local Old Lutheran Church school and from around 1849 had more training to become a teacher. This was firstly under Pastor Gothard Daniel Fritzsche at the Old Evangelical Lutheran Church in Lobethal and at Bethany and Tanunda under the Rev. Dr Carl Wilhelm Ludwig Muecke. 

Boehm began teaching at Hahndorf Lutheran church school in 1854. Three years later, he opened a private school in his home. Fundamentalist Lutherans criticised it for using secular textbooks as well as the traditional Bible and catechism. Dr Muecke experienced the same antagonism from conservative Lutherans, who considered him a dangerous liberal.

Boehm’s school was highly successful and called the Hahndorf Academy in 1870. Next year, a new building was started that grew to two floors with a tower. In 1874, the South Australian government annual grant of £70 to the school ended. In 1877, unable to meet expenses, Boehm sold the school at a loss to the Lutheran Church for £700. He was retained as principal, with the school renamed Hahndorf College in 1879 but the old name persisted.

Among the school's notable students at the school were Thomas Coombe, cricketer, businessman and philanthropist; Louis von Doussa, lawyer and parliamentarian; Alfred von Doussa, businessman, sportsman and politician; Henry Ernest Fuller, architect; Ebenezer Teichelmann, New Zealand surgeon, mountaineer, photographer and conservationist. 

After disputes with the church, Boehm in 1883 bought back the school but was forced by insolvency to close it in 1884. In 1886. he sold the building to D. J. Byard, an Oxford-educated Germanophile, who ran it in the same tradition until 1912 when it closed. Boehm moved to Murtoa in Victoria where he founded a private school in 1887. It also was taken over by the Lutheran Church about 1894 and became Concordia College that moved to Adelaide in 1904. Boehm, who’d remained as music teacher, retired with his daughter to Warracknabeal in Victoria.

Other related ADELAIDE AZ articles

Highgate Primary School (left and top right) and Unley High School (bottom right), in Adelaide's southern suburbs, from 2028 delivered a Reception to Year 10 French bilingual binational programme harmonised with the Australian curriculum.
International >
Highgate Primary and Unley High schools in Adelaide deliver French bilingual binational programme to Year 10
READ MORE+
The Kitchener bun, named after British field marshall Lord Kitchener, was the new name for the Berliner in South Australia during World War I. Another South Australian German food icon, bung fritz (right), also faced a name change threat.
Food >
War declared on the Berliner and fritz but South Australians’ taste for German treats remained undefeated
READ MORE+
Adelaide College of the Arts acting course students in college theatre productions – Left: Jack Sumner and Patrick Klavins in Mouth Machine. Right: Lachlan Scown and Evie Leonard in Dreamers. 
Education >
Acting talent depth in South Australia also sustained by Adelaide College of the Arts with course origins in 1986
READ MORE+
Rostrevor Hall/House, a mansion from a 19th Century estate on the Adelaide foothills, became the focal point of the Christian Brothers College opened in 1923.
Heritage >
Rostrevor College takes CBC Adelaide boarders; grows from 1923 into major Catholic college on old foothills estate
READ MORE+
Theodor Scherk (inset) with the Lobethal district school that he headed in the 1860s before becoming an MP with a keen interest in education. School image (1860) by H. G. Mengersen, courtesy State Library of South Australia
German >
Theodor Scherk: from Lobethal schoolmaster to South Australian MP backing free education, school of industries
READ MORE+
The Australian Science and Mathematics School students do not have to wear uniforms and have control of their learning.
Technology >
Specialist school of science and maths at Flinders University has STEM approach in unconventional style
READ MORE+

 

 
©2025 Adelaide AZ | Privacy | Terms & Disclaimer | PWA 1.1.58