Georg Hermann Ritter

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Georg Hermann Ritter (born December 15, 1827 in Leese near Hanover, † December 25, 1874 in Tokyo ) was a German pharmacist and chemist who, as a lecturer in natural sciences, most recently at the Japanese Kaisei Gakkō in Tokyo , gave German expertise to future Japanese scientists has conveyed.

Life and professional development

Georg Hermann Ritter was born on December 15, 1827 as the son of the bailiff Ludwig Siegfried Heinrich Ritter and his wife Maria Agathe née Soltau in Leese near Hanover. On February 3 of the following year he was christened Georg Hermann in Leese.

Georg Hermann was four years old when his father died in November 1832. In 1834 the mother moved with the boy to live with relatives in Lüneburg . Here he visited the Johanneum and completed his schooling in 1842. Since he was particularly interested in scientific topics, he then completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist. Until 1850 he worked in various regional pharmacies in order to further deepen his professional practical knowledge. This was followed by the management of a pharmacy in St. Louis (USA). In 1854 he returned to Germany.

Immediately after his return, he began studying natural sciences at the University of Göttingen . Here, among others, the chemist Friedrich Wöhler was one of his teachers. Ritter graduated successfully in 1857. He then took up a job at the agricultural research station in Möckern near Leipzig. During this time he made several business trips to Moscow, Paris and St. Petersburg. From 1859 he was a lecturer and laboratory practitioner at the Polytechnic School in Hanover. He submitted his dissertation on ultramarine to the University of Göttingen in 1860. In the same year he received his scientific recognition as a PhD.

Teaching activity in Japan

In 1870, through the mediation of the merchant Julius Adrian, Georg Hermann Ritter received an invitation from the Japanese Meiji government to continue his work with students in Japan. The aim of his assignment was to impart German teaching and scientific expertise for the training of scientific personnel and for young professionals in the Japanese economy. He was originally supposed to teach at Kanazawa High School , but the plans were abandoned. Instead, he was - initially for six months - committed as a teacher in the fields of chemistry and physics in the chemical laboratory of the Osaka Academy in Osaka , where, among other things, Takamine Jokichi was his student. His contract was renewed again and again, and the Japanese Ministry of Education published his lecture notes as textbooks. On June 6, 1872, Ritter had the opportunity to demonstrate his teaching and experimental work during a visit to the educational institution by the Meiji Tenno. It was an extraordinary honor for a foreigner like Ritter to be able to attend such a visit by the Japanese emperor. In March 1873 he was appointed to the Kaisei gakkō, founded in 1862, which later became the University of Tokyo . Here he also worked as a lecturer in the fields of chemistry and physics. On July 9, 1873, on the occasion of a visit by the Meiji Tenno, he was given the opportunity to demonstrate his work with the Japanese students.

At the end of 1874, Ritter fell ill with smallpox and died on December 25, 1874 in Tokyo. He was buried in the Yokohama Aliens Cemetery.

Appreciation

At the Yanaka cemetery in Tokyo, Ritter's students left a 2.5 m high memorial stone with the inscription “In memory of Herr Hermann Ritter Dr. phil. dedicated - by his students ”, inaugurated in May 1875. In order to continue the work he had started in the natural sciences outside of the university, former students founded the Scientific Society for Chemistry in Japan in 1877.

literature

  • Takeshi Ozawa: Hermann Ritter (1828–1874), a pioneer of western natural sciences in Japan . In: Historia Scietiarium . Volume 19, No. 3, 2010, pp. 255 ff.
  • Gerhard Glombik: Georg Hermann Ritter on the homepage of the Johanneum High School in Lüneburg, September 2013

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Günther Feegel: church records and Japanese science . Homepage of the Samtgemeinde Mittelweser, press review of February 10, 2013, accessed on November 14, 2018.
  2. ↑ a b c d Gerhard Glombik: Georg Hermann Ritter on the homepage of the Johanneum Gymnasium Lüneburg, September 2013, accessed on November 14, 2018.
  3. ↑ Hermann Ritter on the website of the German Society for Natural History and Ethnology of East Asia , accessed on November 14, 2018.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Ritter, Georg Hermann
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pharmacist and chemist
DATE OF BIRTH December 15, 1827
PLACE OF BIRTH Leese near Hanover
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1874
Place of death Tokyo