Journal Of An Overland Expedition In Australia [ By: Ludwig Leichhardt ]

LEICHHARDT, FRIEDRICH WILHELM LUDWIG (1813-1848?), naturalist and explorer, was born on 23 October 1813 at Trebatsch, Prussia, the fourth son and sixth of the eight children of Christian Hieronymus Matthias Leichhardt, farmer and royal inspector of peat, and his wife Charlotte Sophie, née Strahlow. Leichhardt was educated at Trebatsch, a boarding school at Zaue, a gymnasium at Cottbus, and at the Universities of Berlin (1831, 1834-36) and Göttingen (1833). At Göttingen friendship with a fellow student, John Nicholson, who had studied medical science, aroused Leichhardt's interest in science, and he turned from his earlier study of philosophy and languages to the natural sciences. Leichhardt pursued knowledge for its own sake and not in preparation for any particular qualification or career; he ceased to follow a prescribed syllabus and no university degree was ever conferred upon him. The practice of addressing Leichhardt as 'Doctor' arose later out of recognition by his contemporaries that he was a man of learning dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.

In 1837 John Nicholson's younger brother William, with whom Leichhardt studied at Berlin, returned to his home at Clifton in Gloucestershire and Leichhardt went with him. Until 1842 these two young men lived frugally on William's small income while they studied medical and natural science at the Royal College of Surgeons, the British Museum and the Jardin des Plantes, and by field observation in England, France, Italy and Switzerland. To enable Leichhardt to fulfil his plan to study the natural sciences in a vast new field William Nicholson paid his fare to Australia, provided clothes and necessities for the journey and gave him £200.