Person
Schleinitz, Georg Gustav Freiherr Von (1834 - 1910)
- Born
- 17 June 1834
Bromberg, Prussia - Died
- 12 December 1910
Saxony, Germany - Occupation
- Hydrographer and Governor
Summary
Georg von Schleinitz entered the Prussian Navy in 1849 and spent much of the next forty years exploring the South Pacific. From 1874 to 1875 he sailed to the Kerguelen Islands, New Guinea, Melanesia, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa collecting anthropological data on the way. In 1880 he was put in charge of the Admiralty Hydrographical Office and began documenting his past expeditions. The work was eventually published as Die Forschungsreise S.M.S. 'Gazelle' in den Jahren 1874 bis 1876 unter Kommando des Kapitän zur See Freiherrn von Schleinitz - a five volume set published between 1889 and 1890. von Schleinitz resigned from the navy in February 1886 and went to New Guinea as the first governor of the protectorate of the New Guinea Co. He became the first European to bring labourers from the New Guinea islands to work on the mainland (Kaiser Wilhelmsland / Papua New Guinea) and together they built new towns. von Schleinitz also established a shipping service and carried out more scientific expeditions, including one up the Sepik River in 1887.
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Details
Chronology
- 1849 - 1886
- Career position - Entered the Prussian Navy
- 1874 - 1876
- Career position - Commander of the imperial corvette Gazelle and explored the Pacific and beyond
- c. 1880 - 1886
- Career position - Head of the Admiralty Hydrographical Office
- 1886 - 1888
- Career position - First governor (Landeshauptmann) of the protectorate of the New Guinea Co.
- 1888
- Life event - Returned to Berlin and retired due to ill health
Published resources
Book Sections
- Firth, S., 'Schleinitz, Georg Gustav, Freiherr Von (1834-1910), hydrographer and governor' in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Bede Nairn, ed., vol. 6 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1976), pp. 90-91. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A060103b.htm. Details
Resources
- Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q117148. Details
- VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/67239825. Details
- 'Schleinitz, Georg Emil Gustav (1834-1910)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-921834. Details
McCarthy, G.J.
Created: 20 October 1993, Last modified: 12 February 2018
- Foundation Supporter - Committee to Review Australian Studies in Tertiary Education