Karl Gutzlaff
| Karl Gutzlaff | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
8 July 1803 Pyritz, Pomerania, Prussia |
| Died | 9 August 1851 (aged 48) British Hong Kong |
| Resting place | Hong Kong Cemetery |
| Occupation | Missionary, translator |
| Title | Reverend |
Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (8 July 1803 – 9 August 1851), anglicised as Charles Gutzlaff, was a German missionary to the Far East, notable as one of the first Protestant missionaries in Bangkok, Thailand (1828) and in Korea (1832). He wrote widely read books, such as Journal of Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 1832 and 1833, with notices of Siam, Corea, and the Loo-Choo Islands (1834). He served as interpreter for British diplomatic missions during the First Opium War. Gutzlaff was one of the first Protestant missionaries in China to wear Chinese clothing. Gutzlaff Street in Hong Kong was named after him.
Born at Pyritz (present-day Pyrzyce), Pomerania, he was apprenticed to a saddler in Stettin, but was able to secure admission to Pädagogium in Halle, and associated himself with the Janike Institute in Berlin.
The Netherlands Missionary Society sent him to Java in 1826, where he learned Chinese. Gutzlaff left the society in 1828, and went first to Singapore, then to Bangkok with Jacob Tomlin of the London Missionary Society, where he worked on a translation of the Bible into Thai. He made a brief trip to Singapore in December 1829, where he married a single English missionary Maria Newell. The two returned to Bangkok in February 1830 where they worked on a dictionary of Cambodian and Lao. Before the work was completed, however, Maria died in childbirth, leaving a considerable inheritance. Gutzlaff married again, this time to Mary Wanstall, in 1834. The second Mrs. Gutzlaff ran a school and a home for the blind in Macau. She died in 1849 in Singapore, and was buried there. Gutzlaff's third marriage was to Dorothy Gabriel in England in 1850.
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