The life of Gustav Thiel

BRIEF SUMMARY OF HIS LIFE (1825 – 1907)

Gustav Thiel was born on 9 January 1825 on the family property Höltgestal, Neukirchen near Solingen in Germany. His father Heinrich Thiel (1800 – 1890) was also born there while both his parents passed away at Höltgestal. His mother, Wilhelmina Urbahn (1796 – 1834), came from Leichlingen nearby. It is possible that both his grandfather, Petrus Johannes Theel (1757 – 1826), and his great-grandfather, Johan Jakob Theel (1718 – 1781), lived on the family property at Höltgestal while the records show that they used Theel as surname.

Very little is known about the first 23 years in the life of Gustav Thiel. We also have no photos of the parents or siblings of Gustav Thiel or of the parents of his first wife. We do however have an excellent photo of the parents of his second wife, Anna Maria Gertrude Rausch whom he married in 1863 in Jerusalem.

When Gustav Thiel was 24 he married Maria Catharina Groβsteinbeck (1826 – 1862) on 1 March 1849 in Neukirchen. Seven months after their marriage they left with a group of 10 Christians from the area around Höltgestal to emigrate to Palestine. The group included his wife Catharina’s two unmarried brothers, Friedrich and Johann. An arduous journey followed as well as 20 eventful years in Palestine during which his first wife passed away and he married our great grandmother Maria Christina Gertrude Rausch from Boppard am Rhein. At the end of this eventful but also tragic period the family returned to Germany in 1870 from where Gustav arranged trips for visitors to the Holy Land.  In 1878 Gustav departed to Kimberley in South Africa with two of his sons and was joined in 1882 by the rest of the family except for Peter Johannes Thiel, the eldest son of his second wife, who remained in Germany with his family. The family spent the first period in South Africa in Kimberley and Gustav and Maria spent their last years in Pretoria.

DOCUMENTS ON THE LIFE OF GUSTAV THIEL

Several documents are available describing various aspects and periods in the life of Gustav Thiel and his family.  Some of these documents are in the original German and some have been translated into English or Afrikaans. Where possible we would like to make them available on this platform.

An excellent overview of the life of Gustav Thiel was prepared by Brian Thiel, a grandson of Paul Ferdinand Thiel (1865 – 1907), the second child of Gustav Thiel’s second wife. Brian Thiel whose subject is history, put together a document with the title “The life and times of Gustav Thiel” which included information from the “diaries” of Gustav Thiel, explanatory photographs and his own commentary setting the whole in its historical context.