Christian Gottlieb Teichelmann

Teichelmann came from humble origins. He was born in the Saxon village of Dahme (part of Prussia from 1815), the son of a master clothmaker, and, after an early schooling, was apprenticed as a carpenter's assistant at the age of 14. After several years practising his trade in Saxony and Prussia, he took private lesson to qualify for entry into the Royal Building Trades School in Berlin, where he studied from 1830 to 1831. During this period Teichelmann, after mixing with students who had missionary contacts, enrolled in Jaenicke's Mission school in 1831, where Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann was a fellow-student. There he received a thorough education in Latin, Greek, Hebrew and English, together with theological and historical studies.[1]

Teichelmann and Schürmann then enrolled in the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Society's seminary at Dresden in 1836, obtaining their ordination as Lutheran pastors in early 1838. Later that year they travelled to Australia on the Pestonjee Bomanjee, arriving in Adelaide on 12 October.[1] One of their fellow passengers happened to be George Gawler who was there to take up his appointment as the new Governor of South Australia.[1]

Notable problems arose when the evangelical Gawler, an evangelical enthusiast himself who had proven supportive of their work, was replaced by George Grey, who insisted rather that aboriginal people be instructed only in English, preferably in schools run by the state. The German missionaries at the time were the only ones thoroughly at home in native languages and gifted with a practical empathy for the customs and modes of Aboriginal life.[2]

• "Teichelmann, Christian Gottlob (1807-1893)". German missionaries in Australia. Griffith University.