Gebhard Friedrich owner

Gebhard Friedrich Eigner, photography

Gebhard Friedrich Eigner (born October 21, 1776 in Vorsfelde , † April 5, 1866 in Braunschweig ) was a German teacher , librarian and museum director.

Life

Gebhard Friedrich Eigner was born in 1776 in Vorsfelde in the Principality of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel . In 1795 he studied at the Collegium Carolinum in Braunschweig and from 1796 at the University of Helmstedt Philology . He then worked as the educator of the young Count von Veltheim before he became sub-director at the Great School in Wolfenbüttel in 1801 . In 1803 he worked at the page institute in Braunschweig and subsequently in Kassel . After the end of the French era , he joined the second Braunschweig reserve battalion as a captain in 1813. In 1814 he became a mathematics teacher at the Martino-Katharineum Braunschweig and then worked at the Collegium Carolinum , of which he was appointed co-director in 1825.

Prince educator

In 1815, Duke Friedrich Wilhelm von Braunschweig appointed Eigner to be the tutor of his sons Karl (born 1804) and Wilhelm (born 1806). The Duke died on the battlefield on June 16 of that year. Eigner carried out the task of the prince educator until 1823. However, he did not succeed in establishing a trusting relationship with the prince, although the difficult character of his older brother Karl had to be taken into account. Ferdinand Spehr attested somewhat drastically in his biography in 1877: "Pedantic, stiff, not very flexible and not suitable for the educator of a future sovereign". After the adult Duke Charles II took over the affairs of state in 1823, he transferred Eigner to the Duke August Library in Wolfenbüttel as senior librarian in 1827 . According to Ferdinand Spehr, he entered the library “only when official obligations prompted him to do so.” In 1830, Charles II was overthrown by an uprising among the Braunschweig population. He was followed by his younger brother Wilhelm, who brought the owner back to Braunschweig from the Wolfenbüttel "exile" and installed him in his old offices.

Museum director

In the years from 1827 to 1831 and again from 1831 to 1866, the owner was the director of the ducal art and natural history cabinet, the forerunner of today's Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum , in Braunschweig. His directorate, a typical courtly "favoritism" position, is judged negatively today: "The little that can be credited to the owner is that under his aegis the art collections were separated from the natural history collections ..."

The owner, unmarried all his life, died at the age of 89 in April 1866 in Braunschweig.

Honors

Owner was 1818 Councilor and appointed in 1853 by Duke Wilhelm Privy Councilor. He was the bearer of the Knight's Cross of the Order of Henry the Lion .

literature

• Otto von Heinemann : The ducal library to Wolfenbüttel. A contribution to the history of German book collections . 2., completely new. Aufl. Wolfenbüttel 1894 (reprint Amsterdam 1969), pp. 218-219 ( digitized version ).
• Jochen Luckhardt : Owner, Gebhard Friedrich . In: Horst-Rüdiger Jarck , Günter Scheel (ed.): Braunschweigisches Biographisches Lexikon - 19th and 20th centuries . Hahnsche Buchhandlung, Hannover 1996, ISBN 3-7752-5838-8 , p. 159 .
• Ferdinand Spehr :  owner, Gebhard Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 750 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Bernhard Kiekenap : Karl and Wilhelm. The sons of the Black Duke. Volume I, Appelhans Verlag, Braunschweig 2000, ISBN 3-930292-39-4 , p. 31f.
2. ↑ Ferdinand Spehr :  owner, Gebhard Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 5, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 750 f.
3. ↑ Jochen Luckhardt (Ed.): The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum and its collections. Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-7774-2295-9 , p. 217.
4. ^ Braunschweig address book for the year 1849 , Verlag Gebr. Meyer, Braunschweig, p. 11.