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George Dornbusch

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

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

  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

  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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