August Ludwig Christian Kavel

August Ludwig Christian Kavel (born September 3, 1798 in Berlin ; † February 12, 1860 in Langmeil ) was a German Lutheran theologian and co-founder of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Australia .

Life

George Fife Angas

Lithograph of the Australian village of Klemzig (1846)

Born in Berlin as the son of a tailor, Kavel attended the Berlin High School in the Gray Monastery and then studied theology . He was ordained in 1826 and pastor of the Prussian community in Klemzig .

August Kavel and his congregation in Klemzig were adherents of the old Lutheran faith . After increasing reprisals directed against Old Lutherans by the Prussian government, it was decided to emigrate in Klemzig. Kavel therefore met in 1836 with the English businessman George Fife Angas (1789–1879) and discussed with him a possible emigration to the newly founded English colony of South Australia . Angas managed to raise enough money to support Kavel in his plans. In 1838 Angas chartered four ships for the emigrants, the Prince George , Bengalee , Zebra and Catharina .

The Prince George and the Bengalee started on July 18, 1838 in Hamburg with a total of 250 people on board. Via Plymouth , where they picked up Kavel, they drove towards Australia. The ships Zebra and Catharina followed at intervals of about a month . The first ship to arrive in South Australia was the Prince George . The Bengalee followed . Most of the emigrants from Klemzig went ashore here on November 20, 1838. Not far from Adelaide, they founded a settlement on the banks of the Torrens River , which was named after their German home village of Klemzig . Klemzig became the first German settlement on the Australian continent .

The next ship to arrive in South Australia was the Zebra on January 2, 1839 with 187 emigrants . The information on this varies. Other sources speak of December 28, 1838. Most of the passengers on the zebra came from the village of Kay near Züllichau . They founded a settlement near Glen Osmond , now a district of Adelaide, with Dirk Meinerts Hahn, who came from the island of Sylt , and named it Hahndorf in his honor . The last ship with Lutheran emigrants for the time being was the Catharina . The majority of these emigrants also settled near Glen Osmond.

In the period that followed, Kavel acted as the spiritual leader of the settlers and negotiated the acquisition of land. They wrote letters encouraging Old Lutherans who had stayed back at home to move to the southern continent.

It shouldn't be long before they succeeded. At the end of October 1841, other Prussian Old Lutherans arrived on the Danish ship Skjold . Their spiritual leader was the Saxon pastor Gotthard Fritzsche (1797–1863). The emigrants from this ship later settled near Adelaide and founded Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills and Bethanien in the Barossa Valley . Other ships with old Lutheran emigrants from Germany followed. A large part of the German settlements on the Australian continent emerged in South Australia, but also in the neighboring state of Victoria ( Herrnhut , Gnadenthal , Tarrington ) and in New South Wales ( Walla Walla ).

The village of Langmeil was founded near Bethanien in 1842 , where Kavel moved with some of his followers. Kavel's request to the settlers of Klemzig and Hahndorf to do the same was unsuccessful and created tensions. Between Fritzsche and Kavel there were soon disputes about the theological orientation of the newly founded Australian Lutheran Church. The result was that the religious community split in August 1846. Kavel's group was called the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Australia . Fritzsche took over the leadership of the Evangelical Church of South Australia .

August Kavel died in Langmeil in 1860 as a result of a stroke .

Work (selection)

• Farewell words of the Evangelical Lutheran pastor August Kavel addressed to part of his congregation and his fatherland when he emigrated to South Australia , 1838

Commemoration

• In the cemetery in Langmeil, Australia, there is a memorial in honor of Kavel to this day.

further reading

• Theodor Hebart: The United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia ... 1838–1938 . Lutheran Book Depot, Adelaide 1938.
• Wilhelm Iwan : To Australia for the sake of faith: An episode of German emigration . Luth. Book Association, Breslau 1931.
• David Schubert: Kavel's People: Their Story of migration from Prussia to South Australia ... Second edition, with corrections. Highgate (SA), 1997.
• Chris Illert: Traditional German Folkstories from the Barossa Valley / Traditional German folk tales from the Barossa Valley . East Corrimal (NSW), 1988.
• Jakob Anderhandt: German-Australian fairy tale of freedom of belief . In: Hermitage: Journal of Literature , No. 14, Ludwigsburg: Valentin Verlag, 2007, pp 9–37.

Footnotes and individual references

1. ↑ ^{a b} Augustin Lodewyckx: The Germans in Australia . tape 32 , p. 37 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c} The monument in honor of August Kavel at www.germanaustralia.com, accessed on August 6, 2017
3. ^ "The emigration of the Kavel group to South Australia" at www.germanaustralia.com, accessed on August 6, 2017
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Language Island Research - German Language Islands in Australia . GRIN, 2002, ISBN 978-3-638-13285-5 , pp. 3 .
5. ↑ ^{a b c} “Australian emigration of Old Lutherans from Prussia” on GenWiki, accessed on July 7, 2017.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} "German Settlement of South Australia in the 19th Century - Overview" at www.germanaustralia.com, accessed on August 6, 2017.
7. ↑ JF Krummnow and the “Herrnhut” municipality, Victoria - Krummnow in South Australia on germanaustralia.com, accessed on July 7, 2017.