The Knobel Family and Relationships

By Johan Balthazar Knobel

This book consolidates the information gathered by Johan Balthazar Knobel in the original book titled The Knobel Family and Relationships (published in 1894), and subsequent less formal documents made in 1895 and 1906, just before and just after the Boer War.
The author stated on the cover of a copy of the book presented to a relative that he felt that the original work was:
"A labour of love, much spoiled by the printer & by the copyist of type writing,
Pretoria 8 January 1896
Whilst this publication attempts to remain as faithful to the original published work as possible, it does take into account his subsequent hand-written corrections, expansions, and explanations or translations where deemed appropriate to ease reading. The inconsistent or misprinted names and/or dates have been kept in the original work and are corrected at the back of the document in the section titled Photographs and Family Ties. Some inconsistencies are also explained in footnotes. The dates in the section Family Ties obviously only go until the cutoff date of 1906, as in the original.
We, the present family, are busy compiling a more detailed family list for future generations which will be available soon. We would appreciate any information from all the family members for this project.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493135011

Johan Balthazar Knobel

The author, Dr. Johan Balthazar Knobel was born on 5 May 1853 in Colesberg, Northern Cape, South Africa, the grandson of the first Knobel to land in South Africa in 1803. He qualified as a Medical Doctor in Glasgow in 1877 and subsequently travelled through Europe seeking information on the Knobels and their origins. This fascination continued throughout his life, resulting in him publishing the original book of this title in 1894 of which he gave copies to family. One of these now resides in the South African Archives. He also wrote two further papers in 1895 and 1906 expanding on his findings and making certain corrections. Dr. Knobel practiced medicine in Philippolis and Pretoria through to his retirement. He died in 1931 and was survived by his wife, Anna Maria, and five children.

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Copyright © 2014 by Johan Balthazar Knobel.

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Rev. date: 03/25/2014

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Preface

The Knobel Family And Its Relationships As Far As Known To Me In 1894

Freiherr Von Buchenröder

Extracts From A Journal Kept By Herman Ludwig Mathias Commencing In The Year 1721

Translated Extracts From Alexander Wilhelm Ludwig Friederich Von Buchenröder’s Journey In The Interior Of South Africa

Translated ‘Personal’ Extracts From Alexander Wilhelm Ludwig Friederich Von Buchenröder’s Diary Of A Journey From Cape Town To Plettenbergs Bay, And In The So-Called Desert - Or Nearest Tzitzikamma

Johan Balthazar Christian Knobel

Philip Knobel, M.d.

Georg Knobel

Miss Von Meyerfeld

Wilhelm August Von Meyerfeld

Extracts From An Autobiography Of Wilhelm August Von Meyerfeld Privy Councillor, Grandcross Of Order Of Hessian Golden Lion, Etc., ‘Till 15 November 1832, Etc.

Wilhelm August Von Meyerfeld And Amalie Elizabeth Knobel

Friedrich August Von Meyerfeld And Katherina Johanna Henriette Knobel

Colonel Baron Alexander Wilhelm Ludwig Friederich

Von Buchenröder

Baroness Maria Therese Eleonore Wilhelmina Von Buchenröder Von Buschenrad

Bedford Family

Pretoria 15Th December 1895 Further Memos Of Our Family, And Of Facts Ascertained Since My Book Was Closed

Von Buchenröders

Knobels

Pretoria 18 May 1906 Further Memos Of Our Family, And Of Facts Ascertained Since My Book Was Closed

Wilhelm August Von Meyerfeld And Amalie Elizabeth Knobel

Bedfords

Johan Ludwig Knobel And Children

Johan Ludwig Knobel

Johan Balthazar Knobel

Schulz Family

Johan Friedrich Moritz Schulz

Photographs And Family Ties

Knobel Branch In Germany

Knobel Branch In South Africa

The Meyer/Von Meyerfeld Branch In Germany

The Bedford Family

The Schulz Family

Acknowledgements

Endnotes

image001.jpg

The author, Dr. Johan Balthazar Knobel, was born on 5 May 1853 in Colesberg, Northern Cape, South Africa, the grandson of the first Knobel to land in South Africa in 1803.

He qualified as a Medical Doctor in Glasgow in 1877 and subsequently travelled through Europe seeking information on the Knobels and their origins. This fascination continued throughout his life, resulting in him publishing the original book of this title in 1894 of which he gave copies to family. One of these now resides in the South African Archives.

He also wrote two further papers in 1895 and 1906 expanding on his findings and making certain corrections.

Dr. Knobel practiced medicine in Philippolis and Pretoria through to his retirement. He died in 1931 and was survived by his wife, Anna Maria, and five children.

FOREWORD

This book consolidates the information gathered by Johan Balthazar Knobel in the original book titled The Knobel Family and Relationships (published in 1894), and subsequent less formal documents made in 1895 and 1906, just before and just after the Boer War.

The author stated on the cover of a copy of the book presented to a relative that he felt that the original work was:

A labour of love, much spoiled by the printer & by the copyist of type writing, Pretoria 8 January 1896

Whilst this publication attempts to remain as faithful to the original published work as possible, it does take into account his subsequent hand-written corrections, expansions, and explanations or translations where deemed appropriate to ease reading. The inconsistent or misprinted names and/or dates have been kept in the original work and are corrected at the back of the document in the section titled Photographs and Family Ties. Some inconsistencies are also explained in footnotes. The dates in the section Family Ties obviously only go until the cutoff date of 1906, as in the original.

We, the present family, are busy compiling a more detailed family list for future generations which will be available soon. We would appreciate any information from all the family members for this project.

PREFACE

The Subject of our Family History has been of interest to me since my youth, and when I began to note down the information given in the following pages, many years ago, it was done solely for my own satisfaction and pastime, and not with any intention of publication, but when I enquired for dates, etc., among the family, several expressed the desire of getting all the information which I could give them, so after trying various means of duplication, e.g. by typewriter, etc., unsuccessfully, I decided to have it printed.

Before I began at the subject, very little was known or remembered, but after communicating to Aunts Elizabeth, and Esselen, and to my father, what I had found in Europe, they remembered various other items and facts, and also gave me the papers which they had.

After the whole Manuscript had been written, Aunt Esselen sent me a large parcel of documents and letters, and I have added or embodied their contents so as to give, as far as possible, the fullest details, but tautology and repetitions could only be avoided by re-writing the whole, and for this, my duties did not allow the time.

I have had enquiries made in Europe about several items of interest, as to the date and place of Baron von Buchenröder’s death, etc., and any further information will be added upon arrival.

J. B. KNOBEL

Pretoria, South African Republic,

August, 1894.

THE KNOBEL FAMILY

AND ITS RELATIONSHIPS

AS FAR AS KNOWN TO ME IN 1894

In attempting a description of this nature the difficulty is where to begin, for owing to the fact that England took the Cape shortly after our family arrived, and to the danger and irregularity of the posts, all communication between the members of the family ceased for years.

The complete change of Government from Dutch-Batavian to English, disarranged and upset all the plans of the family, while the diaries kept by Lady von Bouchenröder, and J.B.C. Knobel were lost here, or probably, sent to Europe after the war (latter mentions that he has sent one to his father in one of his letters), all this combining to make our knowledge of family history very scanty. In fact, a diary kept by Herman Ludwig Mathias, (1721 to 1791) the stepfather of Lady von Buchenröder containing parts of his own history and that of Baron von Buchenröder, ‘till they left for the Cape; a few letters of these von Buchenröder’s from Europe, and some to J.B.C. Knobel from his parents; with scraps of notes made in the Cape, contained really all the information we had of the family, when I went to Scotland in 1873.

I will therefore follow the course in which the knowledge and information came to me, during my stay in Europe and subsequently. My first discovery of anything definite was a letter in an English newspaper signed by a Knobel commenting on a then recent transit of Venus, to whom I wrote, and after several letters I saw some of the name, and found that there were four Knobels living in England being all brothers or cousins of each other - thus there were:-

1).   William Robert Knobel, in Cunliffe & Co.’s business house, 19, St. Swithin’s Lane;

2).   John F. Knobel, Wine Merchant, 7 Bolton Road, Mayfair;

3).   Edward Ball Knobel, The Heath, Burton-on-Trent (whose remarks re Venus I had seen), and

4).   Wm. Ed. Knobel, Solicitor, Great Queen Street, Westminster, and they had also a cousin, Henri Knobel, at Casoney, Switzerland, and some cousins in America - addresses unknown - through a brother of Henri. They pronounce the name as if spelt Nobéll, long accent on the e, and say that in William Tell’s time, Knobeldorf went to Switzerland, and dropped the end of his name, that later three brothers came to England, where one died without a family, and the above-mentioned Knobels are sons and grandsons of the remaining two.

Finding nothing tangible in England, my next attempt was to trace the persons and places mentioned in the different letters written to the family from Germany to the Cape, and with this object I shaped my Continental journey, in October to December 1877.

In Holland, where Baron von Buchenröder lived, was highly respected, and well-known in his time, I could find nothing, the Hollander clerks, with cigars in mouth, being too lazy to assist me, when old dates and old archives were mentioned.

I found in the old Church Books of the Johanneskirche, Hanau - "on Wednesday, 3rd January, 1781, Alexander Wilhelm Ludwig Friederich von Buchenröder, Lieut. in the local Archduke’s Infantry, Crown Prince Regt., 2nd Battalion, son of the late Carl Philip von Buchenröder, - gewesen Königlich Französische Hauptman," married Friederieke Charlotte Louise Johanette, daughter of the late Alexander Ludwig Meyer, - "late Captain in troops of Hessen Hanau, Prince Isenburg’s Regiment." Then I found the Registers of births of three children:-

1st. Wilhelm Ludwig, born 21 February 1782;

2nd. Friederich, 23 October 1783;

3rd. Marie Therese Eleonore Wilhelmina¹, 24 November 1786.

The father is called by his military title, but at the births of Wilhelm and Therese "von Buschenrad" is added after the Buchenröder (and in her death notice in the Church Books, Cape Town, the spelling are slightly altered, and the double title is added thus:-

"Extract of death notice, 3rd March 1827, Maria Theresia Wilhelmine Eleonora Baroness von Bouchenröder von Buschenrad, old 40 years, 3 month, and 7 days, wife of Johan Balthazar Christian Knobel)¹.

H. Mathias (who wrote the journal), and his wife (the widow Mayer, or Meyern), were Godparents for the first son, and her maiden name is given as Wilhelmine Gilhard. Nothing further was found in those books, so I next hunted up people, and found a son of the "Blum", who, as her agent, wrote the letters to the Widow von Buchenröder, to Cape Town; his age was 87, he remembered the name well, and said he acted as an agent after his father died, for some money which the von Buchenröder’s had invested (viz., the inheritance of Lady von Buchenröder from her mother and stepfather Mathias), but he remembers nothing of the family.

From the letters to the Cape I knew there was a Schwarzenfels, the home of J.B.C. Knobel’s parents, and after much searching in maps, I found it - a village in the parish of Mottgers, between Hanau and Fulda, only to be reached by horridly slow trains, and great waste of time. At one time a flourishing place with a considerable indigo² factory, now that foreign indigo has replaced it the manufacture has lapsed. It is a quiet and thoroughly rural village of 850 inhabitants, the village, houses, streets, and people, all being exceedingly old-fashioned. The village is built against a tolerably steep hill, on the summit of which are the ruins of an old castle, (which dates from 1576, but history sayeth not to whom it belonged). The indigo industry having stopped and the railway having passed it by, it has degenerated into a primitive country hamlet, of ill-kept streets with boulders in them, no traffic except a lumbering farm wagon, and possessing not even an hotel. The Gasthof so called, is very simple and primitive, and is more a place for the working people and farmers to meet at night to drink beer, smoke, and chat than an inn. However from a distance the view of the old fashioned houses against the slope of a steep conical hill crowned by an old castle, looks very nice, and quite in keeping with feudal times. Mottgers - the parish village, (with church and minister for five surrounding villages), is about one mile off, and in it stands the old indigo factory, now used as dwelling houses, the only industry around here now being farming. This Blaufarben Fabrik still retains its bright blue coating of paint, and some of the other houses are also painted in this bright blue colour - on the outside.

In Schwarzenfels there are no Knobels living now, and I could get very little information from the pale, fat, longhaired, greasy looking ‘Pfarrer’ [Pastor] who appeared to think that I must be hunting after money left by my predecessors, as he several times told me there is nothing to be got here, the people are poor. There are no indices to the old Church Books and they are partly written in Latin, in German letters, so that it is almost impossible for anyone not well versed in Latin and German to read them. However by dint of careful scanning over every page he found entries as follows:-

Franz Helfrich Knobel, "Rath und Director of the local Blaufabrik", and his wife, Maria Barbara, born Claus, had these children:-

1).   Amalie Elizabeth, born 4 November 1777;

2).   Katherina Johanna Henrietta, born 2 July 1779;

3).   Johann Balthazar Christian, born 15 February 1781. He gets the first two names from one Godfather³, and the third from the other, whose names are mentioned. We looked for some time for the births of other children, but could not find any, but we found that

4).   Philip, an elder son, Doctor of Medicine, in Gelnhausen near Schwarzenfels, and between Hanau and Schlüchtern, married Miss Reizel, April 1804, but nothing more of him, and that

5).   George, who had been studying Law at Warburg, came on a visit to his parents, and that he left them at 9 p.m. on his return journey, and was found dead next day near the Fabrik, killed by a bullet, apparently suicidal, though he had not been melancholy before, and no cause could be ascribed except that he wished to leave law and become a farmer, and his father wished him to continue at law (so says the Church Book). His age was 26.

The above named Maria B. Knobel, born Claus⁴, died here 31 January 1807, and the husband, Franz H. Knobel, married again October 1807 Rebecca Maria Louisa Udet, and he died on 27th June, 1810, aged 69, apparently from apoplexy, as the Church Book says:-

From a fit preceded by dropsy.

The following is apparently an elder Brother - Friederich August Knobel, controller in the Blaufarben Fabrik, who died here 26 December 1808, aged seventy-one years, and six months.

Then also found:-

1).   Wilhelm August von Meyerfeld "first Hessische Hofgerichts consistorial rath zu Hanau" married Amelia Elisabeth Knobel, 1 August 1797; and

2).   Friederich von Meyerfeld, brother of the above Captain of the Hessian troops in the artillery, married 5 February 1804, Miss Johanna Catharina Knobel (see above for reverse order of names of the latter). The two are sons of Wilhelm Ludwig von Meyerfeld of Hanau, and the father of the ladies is in both places described as "Kurfürstlich Hessischer Rath and Direktor des Blaufarben-Werkes Franz Helfrich Knobel".

I could not find anything more in the books relating to our family so I went next to hunt up Eppelsheim, near Worms, the paternal estate which, according to Mathias’ diary, von Buchenröder took over, by virtue of a written contract in 1788.

Eppelsheim is a village about two thirds of the way between Worms and Alzey. I heard from the Pfarrer there that the Pfarrhaus or parsonage for the minister of the parish church (the only one there) belonged to a von Buchenröder who sold it to the Dom Capitel of Worms (the journal states the same and mentions twenty thousand gulden as the price), the date being December l788. The Church Books show absolutely nothing of the name, among the births, deaths, or marriages, as far as I could find, but here too the books are without an index. The Minister (Pfarrer) says that the family was known here too as "Baron von Buchenröder" and he told me that some one of the name was still living at Darmstadt. The Schoolmaster told me that some years ago a young Cavalry Officer named von Buchenröder, in passing came to see a house where his ancestors lived (later I found that it was the present Freiherr, and that Bramhof was their house, also at Eppelsheim).

This was all I could learn, and nothing daunted I went to Darmstadt to hunt for the person whom the schoolmaster had mentioned as living there and sure enough I found in the local Directory a Freiherr Ludwig von Buchenröder, Senior Lieutenant, Großherzoglicher Dragoner (Garde Dragonen), Regiment 23rd, at No. 2 Stadt Allee, Darmstadt. Eager to find myself on the right track I called there at once and found a large house and a very large garden, in a retired part of the town, I saw the lady of the house and found her to be the widow of Freiherr Carl von Buchenröder, and was told that her only living son, the Lieutenant had lately been removed from here to Badenhausen with part of the Regiment; that he was a widower, aged 30, and had an only son of 3½ years old, who was living with his maternal grandfather in Butzbach and that these were the only von Buchenröders still living; she was a fine and nice old lady but knew nothing, or little of the family history. But ultimately she directed me to a relation Dr. Fehr, Kammerdirektor of Darmstadt, living at No. 1 Blumenthal St. who had got all the family papers and who took a great interest in the family affairs. Soon the old gentleman was found, an extremely pleasant, clean shaven, high collared man of sixty odd, who became greatly interested when he knew who and what I was, and what I wanted; I found he had made notes of the family papers, had ransacked all kinds of old books to find the accounts of different families with whom he and the von Buchenröder’s were connected and he gave me a great deal of information, and promised to send me an extract from his notes to Heidelberg. He invited me to dinner with his wife and two daughters, and later in the day went with me to von Buchenröder’s house, as he expected him home on a visit. I was shown all over von Buchenröder’s house and grounds, saw some family photos and they very kindly presented me with some 1). Widow von Buchenröder, 2). Dr. Fehr, 3). an only uncle of the present Baron named Ludwig, who died in 1872, and 4). the grandfather of the present Baron. If others could be got they would be sent with the extracts to me. This Uncle Ludwig, did much trouble to find out what had become of the Cape branch of the family, he enquired in the Cape through the Rothschild bankers, but heard nothing.

Dr. Fehr knew the von Meyerfelds well at school and later too, and they knew the von Buchenröders, who went to the Cape very well too. The elder von Meyerfeld became a minister in the Government of Cassel (who was judge, see letter from Schwarzenfels