Carl August Trudinger

Carl August Trudinger was a successful businessman, a wool merchant in Bradford, Yorkshire. He owned a beautiful mansion on a sprawling property in Chevin Grange, Guiseley. So, what made him move all the way around the world to Adelaide, South Australia, with his wife and twelve children? Was he in love with the Utopian dream that Adelaide offered in the mid-1800s? Or was he on a mission?

Part 1

Family

Although he’d been naturalised as a British citizen, Carl August was born in Nördlingen, Bavaria, on February 8, 1839. Built on a meteorite crater, the houses have diamonds in their stonework. The town is one of the few remaining to have a complete wall around it. And to give you a picture of the town, remember Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory? The red rooves of the Altstadt Nördlingen are what you see in the last scene of the film as the main characters rise above in the balloon.

Born to a large, well-to-do family, my great-grandfather was the fourth child (third son) of Gottlob August Trüdinger and Helen Salome T (née Erdlen). He had three younger siblings, the youngest born when he was eleven. The Trüdinger family had become key figures in the Nördlingen community, Carl August’s grandfather, Georg, having been mayor of the town. One branch of the family owned the regal, high-end Kaiser Hof Hotel Sonne, where royalty used to stay when visiting the town, and also, more importantly, the famous author, Goethe.

However, Carl August’s father, Gottlob, was a linen weaver, as was Carl August’s grandfather, Georg, who was not only a master linen weaver, as mentioned before, but also the mayor of the town. Linen weaving wasn’t any ordinary job, but one that earned good money, enough to buy a hotel at some point in the late 1700s.

So, for all intents and purposes, the Trüdinger family in Nördlingen had a high social standing. Did I mention there’s a road named after the family?

Growing up

That being said, not much information exists about Carl August’s childhood and growing-up years. As a boy, he would’ve been educated in the local school. I was able to access some photos of a school in Bavaria from the mid-1800s and was surprised to see it looked exactly like the school set up at the Hermannsburg Mission in the Northern Territory, Australia. Carl August would have sat at a heavy wooden desk in a room painted green, with a blackboard at the front of the class. From what I’ve read of this era, in Germany, teachers were strict, and students disciplined harshly if they misbehaved.

However, I believe Carl August was a model student who had a passion for learning. But I could be wrong. He was the middle child after all. One thing about the Trudinger family, I can say from my research, is that they were, and still are, highly intelligent and creative. Many of Carl August’s relatives and descendants have become prominent and successful in their fields of expertise: a renowned architect in St. Gallen, Switzerland, plus university professors, doctors, businessmen, artists, and accomplished musicians.

Speaking of music, as this has played such a significant role in our family, I imagine music was central to Carl August growing up. Nördlingen is famous for its music and currently, its choir, which came to perform at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Adelaide in 2017.

As far as his religious affiliations go, I remember asking my dad’s cousin about whether Carl August was Catholic or Lutheran. She was certain that he was Lutheran, or as in German one would say, Evangelisch.

He probably attended the Daniel Cathedral as a member of the congregation. It’s just over the road from the Kaiser Hof Hotel Sonne, owned by the extended Trudinger family for around 200-years.

Another pivotal moment for Carl August would have been the establishment of the railway network in 1849. In my mind’s eye, I can see the excitement, the fascination for the ten-year-old Carl August as the first steam train rolled into town.

Work

Carl August followed in the family tradition of textile making and selling. Most, but not all, of his siblings followed their father in the textile trade. The oldest brother, Friedrich, became a farmer.

As a young man in his early 20s, around 1865, he moved to England, settling in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he worked under the supervision of his uncle, Philipp Trudinger, from Basel, Switzerland, as a wool merchant. I reckon, to be successful in this merchant trade, Carl August would have been socially aware, interested in people, and a good salesperson.

However, my great-grandfather is reported to have had strong opinions; he was passionate about politics and justice. According to another family member who has researched Carl August, as with many of his fellow countrymen, he didn’t like the direction Bavaria was going and the influence of Otto von Bismarck, who planned to unite all the different kingdoms of Germany into one country. Bavaria was one of the last kingdoms to join Germany. When we visited Germany in 2014, my German cousin’s husband joked that, when World War I ended, Bavarian troops were still marching, and the same was true at the end of World War II.

Hence, the reason Carl August moved to Bradford, England. There, he became a wool merchant and became a British Citizen.

The Bradford Wool Exchange was built between 1864 and 1867. Bradford, with all its industries: mining, milling, ironworks, and textiles, had become one of the most polluted cities in England. It was also growing at a cracking pace. A canal had been dug from Leeds to Liverpool to enhance the transport of goods, and in 1850, the Bradford Railway Exchange was established. Bradford had become the hub of industry.

To adapt to his new social and cultural environment and fit in, Carl August changed the spelling of his name to Trudinger, the umlauts over the “u” being dropped, as they don’t exist in English.

Love and Marriage

While in Yorkshire, he met Clara Theresa Schammer, who lived in the area with the local Moravian Brethren community—the Little Horton Moravian Brethren Fellowship. Clara Theresa was a teacher there, probably at the school Little Horton Moravian community provided. This makes more sense than the Schammer Family history account, where they met in Kleinwalka, Saxony.

According to my father’s cousin, Margaret Trudinger, the two met at a dance. Another truth is stranger than fiction moment, there. From my understanding of Evangelical Lutherans from Bavaria, Germany, back in the mid-nineteenth century, dancing was verboten (forbidden). Or was it? Same for the Moravian Brethren, I would’ve thought.

Then again, maybe I’m incorrect. My Grandpa Gross, Pastor Sam Gross (a United Evangelical Lutheran, great-grandfather migrated from Prussia in 1853) danced. His younger sister, Helen, whom I met, said he was a great dancer. But then, upon becoming a pastor, Sam gave up dancing and forbade his wife and children from dancing. He claimed dancing was from the devil, representing vertically, a horizontal act reserved for the bedroom.

Could Karl August’s and Clara Theresa’s theology on dancing have been different back in 1866 when they met? Most likely.

According to a commentary on Yorkshire, where Captain Cook grew up, dancing was an integral part of life. Carl August would’ve grown up with the traditional Bavarian dancing, called Schuhplattler, where the men dress in leder hosen and the girls in their dirndls. Dancing happened in the town square during festivals. Acrobatics were a highlight of the dance, as well as plenty of foot stamping and knee slapping by the men.

In Saxony, where Clara Theresa was born, waltzing had become fashionable, although folk dancing still existed. I imagine her grandmother, having grown up in Lausanne, the French part of Switzerland, and being from nobility, would’ve been partial to the waltz.

How did the meeting of Carl August and Clara Theresa in Yorkshire at a dance occur? Was she attracted to Carl’s acrobatics on the dance floor? Or were they both unfamiliar with the English dance moves and retreated to the outdoors for fresh air, where they bumped into each other? Or was it “Some Enchanted Evening” where their eyes met across a crowded room?

However it happened, Carl August and Clara Theresa were married in Herrnhut, Saxony, on September 30, 1867. Then they returned to Yorkshire to live. Twelve children followed in quick succession, in the early years of their marriage, one per year.

They started married life in a row house on Claremont Terrace, Bradford. With a younger brother, Rudolf August Trudinger, and a maid or two, plus the children, they outgrew their increasingly cramped dwellings. Within ten years, Carl August and his brother had become British citizens, and they’d moved to Chevin Grange, Guiseley, West Riding, Yorkshire. One of the reasons they moved to the countryside was the pollution in Bradford city. So bad was the pollution that many children died from diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Not sure where Rudolf had gone, but a cousin from Basel had taken his place on the farm. I might add here that the farm still exists and is currently for sale for nearly 2 million pounds. So, I gather the wool trade had treated Carl August very well.

Very well, indeed.

In 1878, his wife, Clara Theresa, advertised for a maid to come and cook for them. So, they were doing well enough to afford servants to help with the running of the household.

One interesting fact revealed through a legal report in the London Daily News, February 2, 1878, Carl August is listed as the administrator of the deceased estate of John Conrad von Mandach, who, incidentally, died intestate. As John Conrad von Mandach’s family were big retail businessmen from Schaffhausen, Switzerland, being a wool merchant, Carl would’ve had connections with them. To be an administrator of this important man’s estate, Carl August would have been well regarded in his community as a trustworthy person who could sort out this unfortunate situation for John Conrad’s widow and young family. John Conrad’s son was only 8 years old.

While in Bradford, the Trudinger family had been worshipping at Little Horton Moravian Church, a fifteen-minute walk from their first home.

But when they moved to the farm, it would’ve been too far to walk to church. They may have caught the train or used their horse and buggy to get there.

But this is not where the story ends. Within the next few years, Carl August and his growing family will travel sixteen thousand kilometres to Adelaide, South Australia.

Next week, find out what made them travel to the “ends of the earth” to live in Australia and what happens next for Carl August and his family.

© Lee-Anne Marie Kling 2026

Feature Photo: Close-up of Carl August Trudinger, courtesy of L.M. Kling

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Want more, but different?

Check out my Central Australian adventures.

Click on the links:

The T-Team with Mr. B: Central Australian Safari 1977

Trekking with the T-Team: Central Australian Safari 1981