Johann Friedrich Krummnow

Johann Krummnow
Born	Johann Friedrich Krummnow 1811 Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, Germany
Died	October 1880 (aged 68–69) Penshurst, Victoria, Australia
Other names	Johann Friedrich Krumnow, J. F. Kromnow
Occupation	Tailor, preacher
Known for	Australia's first intentional community based on the principles of shared property and fervent prayer

Johann Friedrich Krummnow (or Krumnow) (1811 – 3 October 1880) was a German-born settler in Australia. He arrived in South Australia in 1839 and in 1852 he founded a community named Herrnhut located near Penshurst in western Victoria. This was Australia's first intentional community based on the principles of shared property and fervent prayer. Krummnow died at Herrnhut in October 1880.

Johann Friedrich Krummnow was born in 1811 in Posen, Kingdom of Prussia, (later known as Poznań, Poland) and was raised in a German community. He worked as a tailor, cobler and teacher and was an adherent of a variety of the Moravian Brethren within the Lutheran faith. He arrived in Port Adelaide, on 22 January 1839 from Hamburg on the ship, Catharina, with a group of dissidents, 'Kavel's People'. On board ship he taught girls but was deemed "not completely satisfactory and the community did not allow him to teach in Australia". Although thwarted in his ambition to be ordained as a Lutheran pastor, Krummnow held regular prayer meetings in private homes. By 1842 he was a naturalised English citizen and was legally able to purchase land. At Lobethal German settlers provided Krummnow with the funds for land purchases to establish a community: Krummnow wanted it based on his own principles of shared property and fervent prayer. The Lobethal settlers rejected Krummnow's vision and legally disputed his right to the land titles. After 1847 he spent three years as a missionary: living and working with Indigenous Australian communities around Mount Gambier.

Krummnow is described by Theodore Hebart in 1881:

Another disturbing factor of these early days was the activity of the separatist and visionary, Johann Friedrich Krummnow. He was a queer fellow, deformed and gnome-like in appearance, with a positive genius for bobbing up in the places where he was least wanted, sowing the seeds of trouble and mischief wherever he went. Clandestine prayer-meetings in Light's Pass, exorcising of evil spirits, land dealing at Lobethal – these were but some of the side-issues of his main scheme – the realisation of a communistic settlement.

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