Johann Christian Ritter (25 July 1755 – 9 September 1810) was a German in the service of the

Dutch East India Company The United East India Company ( ; VOC ), commonly known as the Dutch East India Company, was a chartered company, chartered trading company and one of the first joint-stock companies in the world. Established on 20 March 1602 by the States Ge ...

who came to South Africa in 1784. He was the first to print in the

Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

, the earliest record is an almanac titled "Almanach voor't jaar 1796".

History

J. C. Ritter was born in 1755 either in

Bayreuth Bayreuth ( or ; High Franconian German, Upper Franconian: Bareid, ) is a Town#Germany, town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtel Mountains. The town's roots date back to 11 ...

, "Early Cape Printing 1796–1802", South African Library Reprint Series, No. 1, South African Library, Cape Town, (1971) or Hof an der Saale, these are cities less than 50 km distant from each other in what was then the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

and may have referred to the same place. He was the Son of the book binder Georg Stephan Ritter and his wife Johanna Dorothea (née Leidenforst). He married Barbara Fuhrmann of Danzig and they had no children and she died after him in 1813-6-9. He was in the service of the

when he arrivedS. H. Steinberg, ''Five Hundred Years of Printing'', Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, (1955) 2nd ed. 1961, p. 214 at the Cape Colony in the later half of 1784 and was appointed by them in 1794 to print government notices, forms and so forth. In the 10 years before he started to print he bound books, he may have been a book binder by trade when he arrived at the Cape though it may be that he took on this work through familiarity, having been the son of a bookbinder., "South Africa in Print", Book Exhibition Committee van Riebeeck Festival, Cape Town, (1952), facing p.157 p.160John Barrow, "An Account of Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa", T. Cadell, jun. and W. Davies, London (1801) p.330 He died at the age of 55.

Legacy

It is not certain if he brought the small hand-press with him or if the press only arrived later when he prepared for printing or was appointed to the task. He undertook to print official forms and handbills as well as almanacs. The surviving (1796) almanac was printed in 1795. As he also printed almanacs for at least the years 1795 and 1797, so he would likely have started his printing in 1794 or before but none of his earlier work has been discovered. His almanac did not bring him any great financial reward, having been used by many to copy out of by hand, notwithstanding some factual errors relating to dates of lunar eclipses. Only one copy of the first leaf is known to exist in the Sir George Grey Collection of the South African Library and this one may be a proof sheet. Soon after 1797 when the British took occupation of the Cape, permission to print was transferred to Messrs Walker and Robertson who had questionable ties with the briefly serving governor Sir George Yonge even though Ritter and Harry Harwood Smith, a printing contemporary of his, had petitioned for the printing rights. Ritter's press may also have been used in 1799 by V.A. Schoonberg for printing the first book in South Africa which was also the first printed religious text. It was a translation, into Dutch, of a letter brought to the Cape, and published, by J.T. van der Kemp of the London Missionary Society. It was used to print a military proclamation in 1799 as it was the only available press.

References

External links

*Comments on scope of th
Collection
donated in 1861 by

Sir George Grey Sir George Grey, KCB (14 April 1812 – 19 September 1898) was a British soldier, explorer, colonial administrator and writer. He served in a succession of governing positions: Governor of South Australia, twice Governor of New Zealand, Gov ...

, past governor of the Cape Colony, to the South African Library containing the earliest South African printed specimen and many other manuscripts, incunabula and books. {{DEFAULTSORT:Ritter, Johann Christian 1755 births 1810 deaths 18th-century Dutch Cape Colony people Bookbinders People from Bayreuth People from Hof (district) 18th-century printers South African printers History of printing 18th-century German publishers (people)

History

Legacy

See also

Further reading

References

External links