Heinrich Walther Gerdes

Heinrich Walther Gerdes (born August 24, 1690 in Hamburg , † January 1742 in London ) was a German theologian and librarian .

Life

Heinrich Walther Gerdes was born in Hamburg in 1690. He attended the Johanneum in his hometown until 1708 . Then he studied Protestant theology also in Hamburg. In November 1714 he applied for a preaching post, took up the profession of pastor and came to Darmstadt.

Gerdes earned by sermons in the court orchestra of Darmstadt residential palace the favor of the Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt , of him in May 1717 after the death of Georg Christian Clay to court librarian appointed in Darmstadt. During his tenure, Johann Philipp Jung began cataloging the library holdings. Gerdes was less interested in the actual work of a librarian than in researching the history of Hesse. Soon after taking office, he wrote an annotated collection of sources on Hessian history. He made numerous trips a. a. to Glückstadt, Denmark, Sweden and England. After his theological doctorate in 1723 at the University of Giessen , he was dismissed as director of the court library. He then became a pastor at the Swedish Church in London. In 1726 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society in London.

Gerdes, who had a keen interest in linguistic issues, acquired the library from Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer in the late 1730s .

Gerdes died in London in 1742 at the age of 51.

Publications

• 1723: Dissertatio Theologica Inauguralis, De Christo Unico Abrahami Semine, Cui, Absque Ulla Alia Mediatione, Omnis klēronomioi Ex Promissione Debetur, Ad Explicationem Loci Gal. III. v. 20 ..., casting.

literature

• Lexicon of German Librarians. Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen, supplement 55, Leipzig 1925, p. 72ff.
• Erich Zimmermann (Ed.): Electricity through the centuries. Contributions to the history of the Hessian State and University Library Darmstadt. Frankfurt am Main 1967.
• University and State Library Darmstadt (Ed.): Neue Mitte (n). The library buildings of the Technical University of Darmstadt. Darmstadt 2014.