Person

Kempe, Friedrich Adolf Hermann (Hermann) (1844 - 1928)

Born
26 March 1844
Deuben, Saxony, Germany
Died
March 1928
Tanunda, South Australia, Australia
Occupation
Botanical collector and Missionary

Summary

Hermann Kempe arrived in South Australia in 1875 and in 1877 co-founded the Hermannsburg Lutheran mission in Central Australia. He stayed for 16 years until ill-health caused him to withdraw. While at Hermannsburg he compiled a grammar and dictionary of the local Arrernte/Aranda language. He also made prolific collections of plants, including mosses and algae, which he sent to the Victorian Government Botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller. The National Herbarium of Victoria holds over 800 of his specimens.

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Details

Chronology

1875
Life event - Arrived in South Australia
1877 - 1891
Life event - Co-founder of the Hermannsburg Mission, Finke River, Northern Territory

Related Corporate Bodies

Related People

Published resources

Books

  • Kempe, Adolf Hermann; translated by P. S. Scherer, From joiner's bench to pulpit (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1973), 30 pp. Details

Book Sections

  • Lohe, M., 'A mission is established at Hermannsburg' in Hermannsburg: a mission and a vision, Leske, E., ed. (Adelaide: Lutheran Publishing House, 1977), pp. 6-41. Details

Journal Articles

  • Kempe, A. H., 'A grammar and vocabulary of the language spoken by the Aborigines of the MacDonnell Ranges, South Australia', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia, 14 (1891), 1-54, https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/26249103. Details
  • Kempe, J. [F. A. H.], 'Plants indigenous to the neighbourhood of Hermannsburg, on the River Finke, Central Australia', Transactions, proceedings and report of the Royal Society of South Australia, 3 (1880), 129-37. Details

See also

  • Carment, David et al ed., Northern Territory dictionary of biography (Darwin: Charles Darwin University Press, 2008), 655 pp. pp. 316-7. Details
  • Tampke, J. and Doxford, C., Australia, Willkommen: a history of the Germans in Australia (Kensington, N.S.W.: University of New South Wales Press, 1990), 282 pp. Details

Helen Cohn

Created: 8 December 2022

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260