Carl Strehlow

Carl Friedrich Theodor Strehlow (23 December 1871 – 20 October 1922) was a German Lutheran missionary and ethnologist in outback Australia who headed the Finke River Mission in Hermannsburg, Northern Territory from 1894.

Strehlow was born in Fredersdorf (today part of Zichow), Uckermark in the Prussian province of Brandenburg. From 1888 he was educated at the seminary of the Bavarian Lutheran Church in Neuendettelsau, Ansbach, graduating in 1891. He was preparing to migrate to the United States of America when he received a call from the Immanuel Synod in South Australia. He was ordained in July 1892 at Light Pass, South Australia.

Strehlow began his missionary work among the Dieri Aborigines in the Killalpaninna (Bethesda) Mission on the Cooper Creek in South Australia working for J. G. Reuther. He learned the Dieri language sufficiently that he was able to assist in finishing the translation of the New Testament in his two years there. In 1894 the Immanuel Synod bought the abandoned Finke River Mission at Hermannsburg and appointed Strehlow to head the mission there. He immediately established order and daily discipline amongst the Christians in the community. He led it for 28 years until his death, and is recorded to have only ventured away further than Alice Springs four times. The first of these was in 1895 to marry his German fiance, Frieda Johanna Henrietta Keysser who had travelled separately to South Australia at Point Pass. They eventually had six children.

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