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George Dornbusch

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George Dornbusch
A vintage oval portrait of a man with short hair, a moustache, and a goatee, wearing a high-collared shirt and a dark coat, smiling slightly at the camera.
Portrait from Fifty Years of Food Reform (1898)
Born
Georg Dornbusch

(1819-08-12)12 August 1819
Trieste, Austrian Empire
Died5 February 1873(1873-02-05) (aged 53)
South Hackney, London, England
Resting placeAbney Park Cemetery, London
Occupation(s)Merchant, publisher, activist
Spouses
Johanna Wilhelmine Amalie Siemers
​
​
(m. 1846; div. 1865)​
  • Emma Wallis
Children5
RelativesKevin Beurle (great-great-grandson)
Signature

George Dornbusch (12 August 1819 – 5 February 1873) was an Austrian-British merchant, publisher and activist. He was an early advocate for vegetarianism and veganism, and various other causes including abolitionism, anti-vaccination, temperance, women's suffrage and the peace movement.

Dornbusch was born near Trieste, the part of the Austrian Empire, in 1819 and moved to Hamburg at the age of seven. Adopting a strict vegan lifestyle in 1843, he relocated to London in 1845, where he married Johanna Wilhelmine Amalie the following year and had two children before their divorce in 1865; he married and had three further children with Emma Wallis. A prosperous merchant, Dornbusch operated a business on Threadneedle Street and published The Floating Cargoes Daily List from 1854 to 1873. Surviving a near-fatal stabbing in 1865, he became a leading member of the early vegetarian movement, co-founding the Vegetarian Society, and participating in many several societies for various causes. Dornbusch died from bronchitis in 1873 and was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.

Biography

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Georg Dornbusch[note 1] was born near Trieste, then part of the Austrian Empire, on 12 August 1819. When he was seven years old, his family moved to Hamburg, where he grew up; his father worked for the Swedish-Norwegian post office.[1]

Dornbusch became a vegan in 1843, "partaking neither of fish, flesh, fowl, butter, milk, cheese, or eggs, and abstaining also from the use of tea, coffee, intoxicating drinks, salt, and tobacco",[2] Francis William Newman also described him as abstaining from, "every form of vegetable grease or oil, from the chief vegetable spices, such as pepper and ginger, and emphatically from salt."[3]

Dornbusch moved to England from Hamburg in 1845, where he settled in London.[4] In December 1846, he married Johanna Wilhelmine Amalie Siemers, the daughter of a Hamburg merchant. This marriage, which ended in divorce, in 1865, produced two children.[1] Dornbusch later married Emma Wallis, his former housekeeper,[note 2] and they had three children.[citation needed]

As a prosperous merchant, Dornbusch operated a business on Threadneedle Street in the City of London. His business published The Floating Cargoes Daily List, a private daily trade list detailing the arrival of cargoes from across the globe;[7] the list was published from 1854 to 1873.[8] On 23 December 1865, a business rival attempted to murder him.[9] He suffered 23 stab wounds and although he recovered and returned to work, he was permanently disabled.[1]

Dornbusch became a leading member of the vegetarian movement in London.[4] He named his house "Vegetarian Cottage",[4] and was one of the first members of the Vegetarian Society;[10] Dornbusch served as its secretary[11] and as vice-president.[8] In 1866, along with his daughter Ada, from his first marriage, and his second wife, he signed an 1866 petition for women's suffrage.[4]

Dornbusch was active in the spiritualism movement and was a Theosophist.[12]

Dornbusch served as treasurer of the Stop-the-War League[7] and was a member of the general committee of the Emancipation Society, along with John Stuart Mill.[4] Dornbusch was also involved with the Anti-Compulsory Vaccination League[13] and the National Society for Women’s Suffrage, serving on the central committee from 1871 to 1872.[4] Additionally, he became a Freemason and served as an alderman and a member of the Hackney vestry.[8]

Dornbusch died of bronchitis at his home in South Hackney on 5 February 1873, at the age of 53.[14] He was buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.[4] Dornbusch's great-great-grandson was the space scientist Kevin Beurle, a sixth-generation vegetarian.[15]

Notes

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  1. ^ Dornbusch later changed his first name to George.
  2. ^ The 1861 United Kingdom census lists Emma Wallis as employed as Dornbusch's housekeeper;[5] the 1871 census lists her as his wife.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Kiehnbaum, Erhard (2011). "Anmerkungen zur Unterstützung der Londoner politischen Flüchtlinge im Jahre 1849 durch norddeutsche Demokraten" [Notes on the Support of London Political Refugees in 1849 by North German Democrats] (PDF). Beiträge zur Marx-Engels-Forschung (in German). Neue Folge: 165–189.
  2. ^ Forward, Charles Walter (1898). Fifty Years of Food Reform: A History of the Vegetarian Movement in England. London, Manchester: The Ideal Publishing Union, The Vegetarian Society. p. 71.
  3. ^ Newman, Francis William (1883). Essays on Diet. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. p. 56.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Crawford, Elizabeth (2015-04-28). "Suffrage Stories: The 1866 Petition: J.S. Mill And The South Hackney Connection". Woman and her Sphere. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  5. ^ Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861.
  6. ^ Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871.
  7. ^ a b Newkey-Burden, George (2011). The Making of a Victorian Newspaper during a Period of Social Change (PDF) (Thesis). City, University of London Institutional Repository. pp. 82–84. Retrieved 2024-06-17.
  8. ^ a b c Gregory, James Richard Thomas Elliott (2002). "Biographical Index of British Vegetarians and Food reformers of the Victorian Era". The Vegetarian Movement in Britain c.1840–1901: A Study of Its Development, Personnel and Wider Connections (PDF). Vol. 2. University of Southampton. p. 35. Retrieved 2022-10-02.
  9. ^ "ELIA FERMI. Breaking Peace; wounding. 29th January 1866". The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. 1866-01-29. Retrieved 2024-06-17.
  10. ^ Dozell, Anne (1996-05-02). "A Brief History of Vegetarianism". Toronto Vegetarian Association. Archived from the original on 2021-01-15. Retrieved 2021-03-11.
  11. ^ Richardson, Elsa (2021-11-22). "Lentils Beyond the Veil: Spiritualism, Vegetarianism and Dietetics". Aries. 22 (1): 136–154. doi:10.1163/15700593-02201007. ISSN 1567-9896.
  12. ^ Bates, A. W. H. (2017-07-25), "A New Age for a New Century: Anti-Vivisection, Vegetarianism, and the Order of the Golden Age", Anti-Vivisection and the Profession of Medicine in Britain: A Social History [Internet], Palgrave Macmillan, doi:10.1057/978-1-137-55697-4_4, retrieved 2024-06-20
  13. ^ Barrow, Logie. (2016). Independent Spirits Spiritualism and English Plebeians, 1850–1910. Routledge. pp. 186–187. ISBN 978-1-138-66565-1
  14. ^ "Death of George Dornbusch". The Medium and Daybreak. 4 (149): 67. 1873-02-07 – via Internet Archive.
  15. ^ "Generating Vegetarians". The Vegetarian (VSUK). June 1992 – via International Vegetarian Union.

Further reading

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