Samuel Hebich

Samuel Hebich (1803-1868) was one of the three pioneer Basel Mission missionaries to Southwestern India--Canara, Coorg, South Mahratta, Malabar, and Nilagiri. He, along with Johann Christoph Lehner and Christian Leonard Greiner commenced Basel Mission station, the first German mission station in India, at Mangalore.

He was born near Ulm, Württemberg in Germany. Having decided to set up institutions in parts of India that had not experienced German Protestant missionaries, the Basel Mission (BM) Society decided to send three missionaries to India. In 1834, he was one of the first three missionaries summoned by BM for missionary service in Southwestern India—BM Society became the second Continental Society other than the Tranqueba Mission to take up work in India - BM already had an institution to train missionaries. Although the institution didn't have plans to direct missionary work, yet they had trained people from the British and Dutch mission societies who were already engaged in evangelistic work. The largest number of trainees were supplied to Church Missionary Society and were sent to India to serve at their mission stations - Initially, East India Company didn't permit non-British missions to work in the territories occupied by them; however, with the revision of the Charter of 1833 removed that obstacle allowing non-British Missionary Societies to operate in Indian subcontinent—By 1821, the Basel Mission Society begun establishing mission stations of its own in Western Russia and Gold Coast in West Africa.

Johan Christopher Lehner, Christian Lenhard Greiner, and Samuel Hebich sailed to Malabar Coast boarding the ship "Malabar" on 15 July 1834, and they reached Kozhikode, also known as Calicut, on 14 October 1834. They were warmly received by Nelson, a British judge in Calicut. On hearing their mission to go Mangalore, Nelson wrote to his friend Findley Anderson, a Sub-collector of Mangalore, asking him to do all he could to help them. They finally arrived at Bokkapattana in Mangalore on 30 October 1834. With the help of Anderson, a house was bought from a Parsee for 4,900 rupees in Mangalore, that ultimately became the base for first German Basel Mission station in India.

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