Wilhelm Schurmann

Wilhelm Schurmann (1815 – 1893) missionary
Schürmann was small in stature with a ruddy complexion and a genial disposition. He was a gifted linguist and a compassionate and dedicated missionary, and his documentation of the indigenous languages in the Adelaide and Port Lincoln areas was an enduring legacy.

In September 1840 Schürmann had taken up a government position as deputy-protector of Aborigines at Port Lincoln. As interpreter he often accompanied police investigations and travelled to Adelaide for court proceedings, but had difficulty harmonizing this work with his missionary activities. By the end of that year he had collected 500 words of the Parnkalla (Banggarla) language. He repeatedly requested government support for an agricultural settlement and school for the Aboriginal population away from the influence of European settlers. In 1843 he was recalled to Adelaide as court interpreter and next year published a dictionary of 2000 entries, A Vocabulary of the Parnkalla Language, Spoken by the Natives Inhabiting the Western Shores of Spencer’s Gulf. Back at Port Lincoln in 1844, Schürmann wrote:

It is bad enough that a great part of the colonists are inimical to the natives; it is worse that the law, as it stands at present, does not extend its protection to them, but it is too bad when the press lends its influence to their destruction.
He published The Aboriginal Tribes of Port Lincoln in 1846.

Next year Schürmann moved to work with the Dresden missionary H. A. E. Meyer at Encounter Bay. He purchased land to farm and on 11 February 1847 in the schoolhouse there married with Lutheran rites Wilhelmine Charlotte Maschmedt, like him from Osnabrück. They had nine children. After the Encounter Bay mission attempt was abandoned, Schürmann returned to Port Lincoln in December 1848 as Aboriginal interpreter and in 1850 opened a school, with instruction in the Parnkalla language, at nearby Wallala. In 1852 funding was withdrawn and pupils were transferred to the Native Training Institution at Poonindie, established by Archdeacon Mathew Hale with a similar vision for educating and christianizing the Aboriginal community, but with no learning or teaching in indigenous languages.

Rejecting again the offer of Church of England ordination, in 1853 Schürmann followed a call to Portland, Victoria, to minister to a German congregation. He also travelled extensively throughout the Wimmera, serving German settlers. From 1883 he was editor of the Kirchenbote and in 1885 became president of the Victorian district of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Australia.

Schürmann was small in stature with a ruddy complexion and a genial disposition. He was a gifted linguist and a compassionate and dedicated missionary, and his documentation of the indigenous languages in the Adelaide and Port Lincoln areas was an enduring legacy. Predeceased by his wife in 1891, Schürmann died on 3 March 1893 while attending synod at Bethany, South Australia; he was buried in West Terrace cemetery, Adelaide, and later reinterred in South Hamilton cemetery. Four sons survived him.
https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/schurmann-clamor-wilhelm-13284

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