Johann Christian Huttner, Goethe and the Chinese Emperor

Johann Christian Hüttner, 1766-1847

It is good when you have ancestors who were so accomplished that 150 years after their death someone writes an academic monograph about them.  On the other hand, most of my late 18^th and early 19^th century ancestors were common people.  In American they were gearing up for confrontations with the British.  In the Scottish borderlands they were just trying to survive abject poverty; in Philadelphia they were settling in as small merchants and carpenters.  But at least in Europe they were attending university and becoming translators, doctors and journalists.

As mentioned in the previous post that described the life of my great-great grandmother, Amelia Louisa Rudiger Freund, Amelia was raised partly by her grand-uncle, Johann Christian Hüttner,  in London.  I initially began looking for this grand-uncle hoping that it would either confirm or deny that Amelia Rudiger was Jewish—she decidedly is not.  I had a wonderful surprise, though,  as I eventually uncovered the very interesting story of this uncle and his own remarkable career.

I have two very good sources of information about Johann Hüttner. 

The first is his obituary published in

“Obituary of  John Christian Huettner, Esq.”, By Sylvanus Urban, Gent. In The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume 28 (London), July 1847,

 (accessed via Google eBooks, April 1, 2011),

The second source I found just last week and it comes from another edited volume of symposium submissions, this one celebrating Goethe’s 250^th anniversary.

Catherine W. Proescholdt, “Johann Christian Hüttner (1766-1847): A Link Between Weimar and London” in Boyle, Nicholas and Guthrie, John, ed. Goethe & the English-speaking world: Essays from the Cambridge Symposium for his 250^th Anniversary. Camden House, 2002.

Portions accessed via Google ebooks, March 2012.

Just in case there are some readers who aren’t familiar with Goethe, I include this brief bio cribbed entirely from Wikipedia:

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 28 August 1749  – 22 March 1832) was a German writer, pictorial artist, biologist, theoretical physicist, and polymath.[2] He is considered the supreme genius of modern German literature.[3] His works span the fields of poetry, drama, prose, philosophy, and science. His Faust has been called the greatest long poem of modern European literature.[3]

Goethe was one of the key figures of German literature and the movement of Weimar Classicism in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The author of the scientific text Theory of Colours, his influential ideas on plant and animal morphology and homology were extended and developed by 19th century naturalists including Charles Darwin.[4][5]

OK, so Dr. Freund was Karl Marx’ doctor and now I know that my great-great-great-great uncle was a contemporary of Goethe’s and also his principal link to Britain and an English audience.  Who knew?

     Before Hüttner’s work with Goethe, he was a private tutor to Sir George Staunton in England.  Hüttner came from a modest background; his father was a choirmaster in Guben, which is a town southeast of Berlin.  He attended Leipzig University where he studied classics.  By all accounts he had a formidable talent for languages and was fluent in many.

     Sir George Staunton had one son for whom he engaged Hüttner as private tutor.  Staunton was a diplomat and scientist and Hüttner traveled widely with the family.  In 1793 King George III sent George Macartney, accompanied by Staunton, on a mission to approach the Chinese Emperor about establishing a British embassy in Beijing.  Naturally the motivation behind this was to expand British trade in the Orient, but I won’t get sidetracked here with a treatise on 18^th century British Imperialism.  I haven’t read the accounts of the McCartney Mission, but a quick glance at the wikipedia entry for this mentions that one possible contributing reason for the mission’s failure was the refusal of Macartney to kowtow before the Emperor. 

     At any rate, Hüttner accompanied Staunton who accompanied Macartney, learned Mandarin and served as translator to the mission. It appears that Hüttner’s ability to address the Emperor in his own language was a big plus, but ultimately couldn’t overcome the inevitable cultural dissonance. Later there was some competition between himself and Staunton to publish the first account of the mission.  Staunton had been charged with publishing the official account but Hüttner’s account was published in Zurich (in German I assume) in 1808 and was reviewed quite favorabley by the contemporary press.

     After his journeys with Stuanton, Hüttner spent most of his life as a journalist and especially as a journalist on English issues published in Germany.

         Beginning in 1800 Hüttner became the editor of the journal Englische Miscellen that published a wide range of articles for German-speaking audiences.  According to Proescholdit “Hüttner reported everything that he considered in the least interesting or worth knowing: inventions, announcements and excerpts of newly published books, biographical sketches, summaries of the latest stage-plays, cultural news from around the world, moral anecdotes, and stories more suited for the general reader.  For the ladies and courtiers he included excerpts form novels along with reports about the latest fashion, luxury items, and newly invented gadgets.”

     European political and military conflicts, particularly the rise of Napoleon put an end to Enlische Miscellen by 1808 and by 1809 Hüttner began his stint as a translator at the British Foreign Office.

Hüttner and Goethe knew each other for quite a period of time before Hüttner began acting as Goethe’s purveyor of British literary, scientific and artistic goods.  Goethe and Hüttner had both studied at Leipzig University and both men shared many interests.  Proescholdt states that “Goethe mentioned Hüttner’s name for the first time in an entry in his diary dated 9 March 1797.”  Goethe also was a regular reader of Hüttner’s articles. Personal correspondence between the two men began in 1817 and lasted until 1822.

      If you are at all interested in the particulars of how Hüttner helped shape Goethe’s reputation in London and the other details of their professional relationship, I urge you to read Catherine Proescholdt’s full monograph.  
      She concludes that “Through his association with Hüttner, Goethe had intense, frequent, and regular contact with London. . . Hüttner procured for him a rich harvest of books, magazines, reviews, and artifacts that helped to shape Goethe’s thinking.  As a consequence, Goethe became an admirer of English pragmatism, and this influenced his own methods of research.  It is arguable that his vision of a world literature, and his idea of world citizenship, were developed and illuminated by the flow of cultural exchange so continuously nurtured by Johann Christian Hüttner.  The result was the establishment of an informative link between Weimar and London during a period of considerable upheaval in Europe.”

Following is the full text of his obituary as printed in the Gentleman’s Magazine:

May 24. In Fludyer-st. Westminster, aged 82, John Christian Huettner, esq. of the Foreign Office.

Mr. Huettner was born of respectable parents, at Guben, in Lusatia. After the usual course of studies, and taking his degree at the University of Leipzig, he was selected by Professor Beck, on the invitation of the late Sir George Staunton, to proceed to England, in the spring of 1791, to superintend the education of his only son, then a youth under ten years of age. His pupil continued under his charge until the spring of 1797, when he entered the University. During this interval, Mr. Huettner accompanied his pupil to China, in the memorable embassy of Lord Macartney. As most of the diplomatic documents were written at that time in Latin, Mr. Huettner's classical abilities were frequently called into exercise, and his services specially noted in the late Sir George Staunton's official account of the embassy.

Among the friendships which Mr. Huettner formed in England, one of the earliest was with the first Dr. Barney, who was much interested by some curious information he had collected on the subject of Chinese music. It is supposed to have been mainly through Dr. Burney's influence that he received from Mr. Canning, in 1807, the appointment which he continued to hold, and very efficiently to discharge, for no less than forty years,—that of Translator to the Foreign Office.

While still at Leipzig, Mr. Huettner published, in Oct. 1788, a learned Latin Commentary, " De Mythis Platonis;" and in 1795 his Journal of the Chinese Embassy was printed and published at Zurich, but without his consent, and contrary to his wishes; and he always expressed his regret that his indiscreet friends had thus in some degree anticipated Sir George Staunton's official account of the mission. In 1808 he translated from the Spanish into German, the highly interesting and important appeal of Don Pedro Cevallos to the nations of Europe against Napoleon's invasion of Spain, and which is supposed to have had a powerful effect in awakening the sympathies of Germany in favour of the Spanish cause at that period. He is also understood to have furnished, from time to time, some valuable articles for the " Conversations-Lexicon," and other leading German periodicals; and his literary reputation recommended him to the notice of the late accomplished Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar, for whom he acted for many years as literary agent in this country.

Mr. Huettner was twice married, but left no issue. His affections, however, were latterly centered on an amiable and dutiful grand-niece, who came over to England from Germany in 1840, and whom he had the comfort of seeing happily married, about a twelve months ago, to Dr. Freund, an eminent German physician, recently settled in this country.

Mr. Huettner was a member of the German Lutheran Church, and always through life was exemplary in the discharge of his religious and moral duties. He was a very able scholar, possessing an active and well-stored mind, and a placid and courteous temper, which endeared him to all with whom he had any intercourse during his long, useful, and respected life. His death occurred at the advanced age of 82 years, under peculiarly painful circumstances, as he was run over by a cab in the Street about a fortnight before his decease, by which accident his thigh was broken; and although he appeared for some time to be doing well, the shock proved too great for his system, and he sank under an attack of apoplexy of the heart. His earthly remains were deposited by the side of his second wife, in the cemetery of Kensal