Christian Friedrich Gotthard Westfeld

Christian Friedrich Gotthard Westfeld (born June 2, 1746 in Apfelstädt , † March 23, 1823 in Weende ) was the last monastery administrator and leaseholder of the Weende monastery. He campaigned for the liberation of peasants from forced labor .

Education and professional career

Christian Westfeld was born in 1746 in Apfelstädt in the Duchy of Gotha as the son of the pastor (and later superintendent in Ichtershausen and Gräfentonna ) Tobias Westfeld. He first attended grammar school in Göttingen , then the university , where he studied theology, later also mathematics and natural and political sciences.

After his studies he was first rector at the city school in Bückeburg and on April 11, 1768 at the age of 21 by the Count of Schaumburg-Lippe as "chamber councilor cum voto et sessione in collegio camerali". As a member of the chamber council, he made Herder's appointment there from Bückeburg . He dealt with the replacement of the manual and clamping services of the peasants by monetary payments and wrote about it in 1773 a price paper on the termination of the gentleman's service .

He was later appointed by the government of the Electorate of Hanover as monastery administrator of the Wülfinghausen monastery . He now dealt with the replacement of peasant official duties on the domains of the electorate and the monastery chamber . He later became a monastery administrator and leaseholder of the Weende monastery near Göttingen and developed the monastery property into a model agricultural operation.

He dealt not only with questions of administration and agriculture, but also with scientific questions, besides mineralogy also with the theory of colors. With his work The Generation of Colors, a Hypothesis (1767), Goethe deals with several pages in his color theory . Westfeld also published on the influence of the moon on the earth , on the introduction of a patent tax (1809) and on other scientific and agricultural topics. From 1797 he was a member of the Royal Society of Science in Göttingen and enjoyed a high reputation there.

During the Napoleonic period, Westfeld was a member of the imperial estates of the Kingdom of Westphalia for the linen department .

Works

• About the termination of the gentleman's service. Lemgo 1773 (Online: LLB Detmold )

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• Wilhelm von Gümbel:  Westfeld, Christian Friedrich Gotthard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 191 f.
• Ernst Böhme, Michael Scholz, Jens Wehner: Weende village and monastery from the beginning until the 19th century . Goettingen 1992.
• Christian Friedrich Gotthard Westfeld . In: New Nekrolog der Deutschen , 1st year, 1823, 2nd part. Ilmenau 1824. pp. 807 f.
• Wilhelm von Gümbel:  Westfeld, Christian Friedrich Gotthard . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 42, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1897, p. 191 f.