Clamor Wilhelm SCHURMANN

SCHURMANN, CLAMOR WILHELM (b. Schledehausen, Germany, 7 June 1815; d. Bethany, SA, 3 March 1893). Lutheran missionary and pastor.

Clamor Schurmann was the sixth son of Johann Adam Schurmann and Maria Elisabeth (née Ebker), both of whom died while he was a child. He was, however, deeply affected by their strong Christian faith. He determined at an early age to become what he called 'a preacher of the Gospel among the heathen'. In 1831, an elder brother, Johann Adam entered the Janickian Seminary in Berlin. Emulating his brother, the young Clamor Schurmann was accepted into the seminary the following year at the age of only 17. After four years' study, he and one of his teachers, Christian Gottlob Teichelmann, were offered missionary appointments with the SPG. They declined the offer because they would have been required to submit to Church of England ordination. Obliged, then, to leave the Berlin Seminary, they were accepted almost immediately by the Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society of Dresden, and given further training in the Dresden Seminary.

In London in 1837, George Fife Angas (q.v.), financial backer of the colony of SA, was approached by Pastor A L C Kavel (q.v.) regarding the emigration of persecuted Prussian Lutherans. When Kavel indicated that the Dresden Society would be willing to send missionaries to the Aborigines, Angas offered financial support to both proposals. The Society appointed Schurmann and Teichelmann. They sailed from London on the Pestonjee Bomanjee in company with the new governor, Colonel George Gawler, arriving in Adelaide on 13 Oct 1838. On 4 Nov they conducted Adelaide's first Lutheran service with a congregation of one.

Schurmann and Teichelmann were allocated a site on the banks of the Torrens River, near where the local Aboriginal people camped, and given the use of a building originally intended as an Aboriginal school. They immediately set about learning Kaurna, the local language, rapidly gaining fluency, and eventually publishing a grammar and vocabulary. Their interest in Kaurna, and their willingness to spend all their time in the company of the Aboriginal people, gained them not only the friendship of the Aboriginal people, but also the respect of at least the fairer-minded members of the European community. They opened a school, with literacy in Kaurna, conducted Christian worship, preached in Kaurna as their fluency improved, and travelled far afield to join Aboriginal people in their activities. Some of them became Christians. The missionaries also began to observe the injustice in the treatment of Aboriginal people, and tried to represent them as best they could. This made them enemies, as well as friends.

In 1840, in response to the Dresden Society's financial problems, the governor appointed Schurmann to a salaried position as a Protector of Aborigines, and posted him to Port Lincoln. Schurmann accurately predicted from the beginning that he would find his loyalties impossibly divided. He immediately set about learning the Nawu language, and became a close associate of the Aboriginal men. He soon found himself at odds with the police and many of the local settlers. Obliged to accompany police on their investigations of incidents involving Aboriginal people, he observed the arbitrary shooting of innocent Aborigines, and was powerless to prevent it. He refused to accompany the police, concentrating instead on setting up a school and a farm as places where Aboriginal people were safe.

Recalled to Adelaide for a year to act as court interpreter, he was appalled on his return to discover that the situation was even worse. Not only did he feel powerless, the Dresden Society totally withdrew support, and the colonial government found itself unable to meet his salary. Schurmann scraped together a little money and bought ten acres of land at Encounter Bay. There, in 1847, he married Wilhelmina Charlotte Maschmedt. Frau Pastor 'Minna' Schurmann became known as a loving, gentle, hard-working person. They worked their little farm in poverty for a year. Archdeacon Matthew Hale (q.v.) offered Schurmann Anglican ordination, but despite his lack of support from his own church, he still resented the implications of the offer.

In 1848, the governor offered Schurmann a position of court interpreter again in Port Lincoln. Despite their forebodings, the impoverished Schurmanns had little choice but to accept. The racial tension there had worsened, the Schurmanns arriving just after the large scale poisoning of Aboriginal people near what became known as Mt Arsenic. Expected to accompany the police as an interpreter, Schurmann found once more that his situation was impossible, even the Aboriginal people becoming suspicious of his association with the law.

To Schurmann's relief, he was unexpectedly offered a salary by the new governor to open an Aboriginal school in 1849. The school lasted for three years with an enrolment of 24 pupils. This was, however, the beginning of the end for Schummann's missionary career. His missionary society had failed him, the local Lutherans had failed him, and in 1853 the government withdrew support for him and absorbed his school into Hale's Poonindie Institution. Hale tried to convince Schurmann to join him, but for the third and last time, Schurmann refused ordination into the Church of England ministry.

The Schurmanns accepted a call to a new Lutheran church at Portland, Vic, but ministered for a short time in the Barossa Valley while awaiting final preparations. In Portland, Schurmann developed a large and loyal congregation, and ministered faithfully to them for nearly 40 years. 'Minna' Schurmann died in 1891. Clamor Schurmann died at the Lutheran Synod at Bethany, SA in 1893.

Lutheran historian, A Brauer wrote: 'As to Pastor Schurmann's physical appearance, he was of small stature and a ruddy complexion. He was of a particular genial disposition. He was held in the highest esteem by the whole Lutheran community, because of his geniality, meekness, kind-heartedness, straightforwardness, and conscientious devotion to duty'.

A Brauer, Under the Southern Cross (Adelaide, 1956); Edwin A Schurmann, I'd Rather Dig Potatoes: Clamor Schurmann and the Aborigines of South Australia, 1838-1853 (Adelaide, 1987); J Harris, One Blood (Sutherland, 1990)

JOHN HARRIS