Carl Muecke (editor)

Rev. Dr. Carl Wilhelm Ludwig Muecke PhD., DTh., MA. (16 July 1815 – 4 January 1898), occasionally written Mücke, especially in German language newspapers, was a German-born clergyman, plant pathologist and German-language newspaper editor in the colony of South Australia.

Muecke was born in Möckern, near Magdeberg, and was originally destined for a career in mining, which he studied at Frieberg, but after experiencing an accident in the mines, his father sent him to the University of Bonn, where he took his degrees. He served for a time as an observer on the Luxembourg border during the 1831 war between Belgium and Holland. He began teaching chemistry, and became an activist for the cause of compulsory education in State schools. He was an excellent speaker, and much in demand at the Handwerkerverein, a workers' education society in Berlin. One of Muecke's brothers established a Liedertafel in association with the Verein, which after his death erected a monument to his memory.

During the repressive Eichhorn ministry Muecke published some anti-authoritarian pamphlets, for which two of his fellows were punished. He moved to Berlin, where he had a hand in editing educational year-books.

Following the Revolutions of 1848, Muecke left Germany for South Australia aboard Princess Louise, arriving in August 1849. Also on board were two of the Schomburgk brothers: Otto Alfred Carl Schomburgk and his wife Maria Charlotte Schomburgk (née Von Selchow) and Richard Moritz Schomburgk, and Pauline Henriette Schomburgk (née Kneib), who were married at sea. He was naturalized as a British subject in September 1849, one of the few times his name was written as Mücke.

He first settled as a farmer near Gawler, but agriculture had no great attraction for him, and in 1859 he accepted an invitation to serve as pastor of the Lutheran Church at Tanunda, and shortly afterwards settled in that town. Over the next twenty years he also served several other Lutheran congregations: Lyndoch, Concordia (5 km ENE of Gawler), Schoenfeld (near Freeling) and King's Belt (near Sheaoak Log). At each of these pastorates he was closely associated with the church school and intellectual life of these towns. He was at the forefront of agitation for equal voting rights for naturalized Germans, and gave popular and stimulating lectures on scientific subjects.

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