Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm

Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm, engraving by PJ Laminit, 1810

Title copper from Der Worms Zweyter Part

Plate XIV from The Birds First Part

Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm (born October 16, 1758 in Augsburg ; † December 12, 1811 there ) was a Protestant pastor and writer with a focus on natural history .

Life

Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm was the son of the Augsburg copperplate engraver and art publisher Christian Wilhelm, owner of Martin Engelbrechtschen Kunsthandlung - the fourth of 14 children. He attended high school at St. Anna from 1767 to 1777 , studied theology, philosophy and philology in Leipzig from 1777 to 1781 with Professors Ernst Platner , Samuel Friedrich Nathanael More and Johann August Ernesti .

From 1781 he was in the service of the Protestant Church in Augsburg, 1782/83 he was also a substitute teacher at the grammar school at St. Anna. From 1786 to 1796 he was a deacon of the Barfüßer parish, from 1796 to 1806 a deacon at St. Jakob and from 1806 to 1811 pastor of the Barfüßer parish. In 1787 he married Christina Johanna Regina Preu, the marriage remained childless. Wilhelm was a member of several natural research associations: " Society of Natural Research Friends of Berlin ", "Natural Research Society of Halle", "Patriotic Society of Doctors and Natural Scientists of Swabia" and "Regensburg Botanical Society".

Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm was a popular preacher and author of articles for calendars, almanacs and magazines (mostly anonymous). Since 1792 the conversations from natural history have been published by his father’s publishing house in weekly deliveries, with illustrations by well-known Augsburg engravers. Total volume of the work: 25 volumes (with a total of 1469 illustrations), 19 volumes by Wilhelm himself. Reprinted from 1808 by Pichler in Vienna. From 1798 French translation of the "Insects" at Haag in Basel (3 vols.).

plant

• About Augsburg. Against the untrue representation of this imperial city in the geographic, statistical, topographic lexicon of Swabia. Along with an attachment. Augsburg, 1791. (Co-author: Ludwig Friedrich Kraus).
• Mirabeau's memory. From the French. Augsburg 1791.
• Conversations from natural history. Augsburg. The mammals I. Theil, 1792. - The mammals II. Theil, 1792. - Amphibians, 1794. - The birds I. Theil, 1795. doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.58979 - The birds II. Theil, 1795. doi : 10.5962 / bhl.title.58979 - Der Insecten I. Part, 1796. - Der Insecten II. Part, 1797. - Der Insecten III, 1798. - Theil. The fish I. Theil, 1799. doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.9411 - The fish II. Theil, 1800. doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.9411 - The worms I. Theil, 1801. - The worms II. Theil , 1802. doi: 10.5962 / bhl.title.62821 - Man I. Part, 1804. - Man II. Part, 1805. - Man III. Theil, 1806. - The Plant Kingdom I. Part, 1810. - The Plant Kingdom II. Part, 1810. - The Plant Kingdom III. Theil, 1811. - The Plant Kingdom IV. Theil, 1812.
• Confession and communion services. Augsburg, 1794. 2nd edition 1801
• Sermons on the Sunday and Holiday Gospels throughout the year. Augsburg 1813.
• Description, application and illustration of the most excellent medicinal plants currently in use in two volumes . Engelbrecht, Augsburg Vol. 2 1820 Digitized edition of the University and State Library Düsseldorf

meaning

Wilhelm's main work, the “Conversations from Natural History”, is a typical product of the German Enlightenment . They want to offer meaningful reading and disseminate useful knowledge that should bring about "a more sensible view of nature and a little more protection of so many innocent creatures". The presentation of the individual objects takes place in an entertaining way and is shaped by the spirit of natural theology .

Wilhelm developed the material for the "conversations" through an intensive study of literature. He was not a naturalist but an encyclopaedist .

With their illustrations, the “Conversations” are in the final phase of the great Augsburg tradition of copper engraving , together with the work of the two Augsburg butterfly researchers Jacob Hübner (1761–1826) and Christian Friedrich Freyer (1794–1885).

literature

• Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm's tomb. In: Fifteenth report of the Natural History Association in Augsburg. 1862, pp. 101-107.
• Günther Grünsteudel , Günter Hägele, Rudolf Frankenberger (eds.): Augsburger Stadtlexikon. 2nd Edition. Perlach, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-922769-28-4 , p. 932.
• Eberhard Pfeuffer (Ed.): Fascinated by nature ... Early Augsburg naturalists and their pictures (Jacob Hübner, Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm, Christian Friedrich Freyer, Johann Friedrich Leu, Jakob Friedrich Caflisch, Andreas Wiedemann), Wissner, Augsburg 2003, ISBN 978- 3-89639-392-0. ( Memento of March 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

Wikisource: Gottlieb Tobias Wilhelm  - Sources and full texts