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Christian Ignatius Latrobe

Properties3
descriptionEnglish Moravian clergyman, artist, and composer (1758 to 1836) who visited Genadendal in 1815 and 1816 for his church. He drew up the rules residents agreed to, painted the village, and wrote an illustrated journal of the visit, published in 1818.
tagstheme/heritage, lang/en
aliasesC.I. Latrobe, Christian Ignatius La Trobe, Bishop Latrobe

5 min read

Christian Ignatius Latrobe was an English clergyman of the Moravian Church, and a painter and composer [IC]. In 1815 his church sent him to the Cape to visit its mission stations, and he spent much of the next year at Genadendal [IC]. While he was there, he and the missionaries drew up rules for the village, which its residents accepted as a “Brotherly Agreement” [MS]. His Journal of a Visit to South Africa in 1815 and 1816, published in London in 1818 with his own coloured illustrations, is one of the fullest accounts of Genadendal in those years [IC].

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from Moravian records, Latrobe’s own journal, and the histories written from them, above all Genadendal: A Long Walk by Isaac Balie.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

At a glance

Born12 February 1758, at the Moravian settlement of Fulneck, Yorkshire [IC]
Died6 May 1836, at Fairfield, Lancashire [IC]
Known forHis visit to the Cape missions in 1815 and 1816, his journal of it, and his sacred music [IC]
Link to the valleyHe drew up Genadendal’s rules of 1816, painted the village, and planned the mission at Enon from there

His life

Latrobe was born at Fulneck, a Moravian settlement in Yorkshire, and was ordained in the Moravian Church in 1784 [IC]. He worked for the church’s missions for most of his life [IC]. He was also a composer and a friend of Joseph Haydn, and he edited a six-volume Selection of Sacred Music that brought works by Haydn, Mozart, and others to English audiences [IC].

At Genadendal

Latrobe reached the Cape in 1815 and visited the missions at Genadendal and Groenekloof (Mamre) [IC]. From Genadendal he travelled east through George and Uitenhage to the Great Fish River, and planned a new mission station, Enon, on the Witrivier near Kirkwood [IC]. Balie’s history says he made the journey to Algoa Bay in an ox-wagon built at Genadendal, which is now in the mission museum [MS].

During his visit, rules for the residents were drawn up and agreed by all [MS]. They were meant as an agreement between brothers, and did not have the force of law [MS]. Among them: that anyone who wished to live at Genadendal would follow the teaching of Jesus and his apostles; that residents would keep their persons, houses, and surroundings clean; that everyone would stay at home in the evening; and that no one would bring strong drink into the village [MS].

He wrote about what he saw. He noted that the missionaries spoke a Dutch so mixed with German that both a German and a Dutchman could understand it, and called it “Genadendal Dutch” [MS]. He described the church of 1800, the funerals of the Khoekhoe residents, and the gardens, whose appearance, he wrote, “betrays the disposition” of each gardener [MS]. He met the Khoekhoe captain Koopman, who told him that the grazing land given to the church and two neighbouring farmers left his people too little for large herds [MS]. When a Hessequa deputation objected that the missionaries had named a captain from the Koopman clan, Latrobe told them that as one congregation they should rejoice in Christ, “the only Captain of our Salvation”, whatever tribe or nation they belonged to [MS].

He painted Genadendal and its buildings, and his pictures are among the earliest views of the village [MS]. When he left, he wrote that he had never felt a keener pang on leaving any place [MS]. On 20 June 1828 a portrait of Latrobe, sent from London, was unveiled at Genadendal, and it now hangs in the museum [MS].

  • Hans Peter Hallbeck was appointed superintendent at the Cape after Latrobe’s visit, and arrived in 1817 [MS].
  • Christlieb Booda was one of the Khoekhoe captains at Genadendal at the time of his visit.

His legacy in the valley

  • The rules of 1816 shaped life in the village for generations [MS].
  • His journal and paintings are among the main sources for Genadendal in the 1810s [IC].
  • The ox-wagon and his portrait are in the Genadendal Mission Museum [MS].

What is still open

  • How the residents saw the rules of 1816, and whether any record of their own survives.
  • Whether the wagon in the museum is the one he travelled in. Balie’s history gives two accounts of who built it.

References

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