Pastor Daniel Fritzsche founds Australia's first Lutheran seminary at new Lobethal township in Adelaide Hills in 1842

The southern hemisphere's first Lutheran college and seminary (1845-55), with parsonage (at right), at Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. Pastor Daniel Fritzsche, who led the first service of thanks, named Lobethal (Valley of praise).

The first Lutheran theological seminary in Australia was started at Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills in 1842 by pastor Daniel Fritzsche.

Fritzsche had led out the third group of Old Lutheran refugees from Germany to South Australia who started the Lobethal settlement in 1842.

Pastor August Kavel, who led out the first group of German refugees in 1838, came from a poor background. Fritzsche, son of the town musician, went from his Liebenwerda, Saxony to the Dresden Gymnasium and then studied theology at Breslau University. Graduating in 1823, he taught a school for Jewish children, and was ordained in 1835. When Fritsche renounced the state church, he became an itinerant pastor, narrowly escaping being arrested several times.

In 1840, Fritzsche went to Hamburg where he was invited to be pastor of a group of 250 Lutherans waiting to emigrate to Australia. After many difficulties with money and ships and long delay in Hamburg, the 250 migrants embarked in 1841 on the Skjold for South Australia. The voyage saw more than a fifth of the party die.

Arriving in 1842, Fritzsche’s group headed at first to Hahndorf but heard about good land in the upper Onkaparinga. They gave Johann Freidrich Krummnow, who’d had arrived in South Australia three years earlier and was a naturalised English citizen, funds for buy land for the community.

Krummnow wanted the settlement based on his own principles of shared property and fervent prayer. The settlers at Lobethal (meaning “Valley of praise”) rejected Krummnow's vision and legally disputed his right to the land titles.

Fritzsche, who married his young fiancée Dorette Nehrlich on arrival in South Australia, was distinguished for his devotion to the cause of education in Lobethal and beyond. He encouraged pioneer settlements to support schools and build churches. An excellent musician, he encouraged music in his congregations.

In 1845, St John's, later the oldest Lutheran church in Australia, was built at Lobethal.