Life and ministry
From B.H. Badley, Indian Missionary Directory and Memorial Volume (Lucknow [India]: American Methodist Mission Press;
London: Trubner, 1876), p. 78 [Google Books]:
“BLUMHARDT, CHARLES HENRY. Born August 13, 1807, at Stuttgart, Wurtemberg, Germany. Ordained in London by Bishop Bloomefield, as Deacon December 21, 1834; Priest, December 20, 1835. Appointed by the [Church Missionary] Society to Abyssinia and sailed from England on January, 1836. In 1838, the Abyssinian Mission was broken up and the missionaries expelled. He was then transferred to North India; reached Calcutta August 8, 1839; (married at Malta February 27, 1839). Was appointed to the Krishnagar district [West Bengal], where he has since labored. Work chiefly vernacular, with some English preaching.
While in Africa compiled a vocabulary of the Amharic language afterwards published. While at home (from January, 1850 to December 1852) published for the British and Foreign Bible Society a new edition of the Amharic Testament. Subsequently at the request of the Government of India compiled a vocabulary in English, Urdu and Amharic for the use of the troops proceeding to Abyssinia in the year 1867: printed at Serampore. Address, Krishnagar, Bengal.”
Charles Henry Blumhardt retired in April 1877 (Badley, Indian Missionary Directory, rev. ed., 1881], p. 91) and passed away in Tonbridge (England) in June 1883.
Before joining the Church Missionary Society, Karl Heinrich Blumhardt had studied at the Basel Mission Seminary. One of his teachers there was his older brother, Johann Christoph Blumhardt. His uncle, Christian Gottlieb Blumhardt (1779‒1838), was the founder and first director of the Basel Mission Seminary.
Note on Blumhardt’s “Amharic Vocabulary”
The Amharic vocabulary collected by Karl Heinrich Blumhardt was not published as a separate book, but was included in Isenberg’s Amharic Dictionary (1841). Isenberg wrote on p. vii‒viii:
“When he [Isenberg] came back to England, in order to ask the consent of the Committee of the Church Missionary Society to his carrying through the press this and several other Amharic works, D. Coates, Esq., the Secretary, put into his hands an Amharic Vocabulary, composed by the [p. viii] author’s late fellow-labourer in the Tigrê Mission, the Rev. C. H. Blumhardt; who had been removed, after the unfortunate breaking-up of that Mission, to the Society’s Station in Krishnaghur, in North India. Mr. Blumhardt had begun that Vocabulary A.D. 1837, soon after his arrival in Adoa [Adwa]; and, with great assiduity, continued in its composition; and finished it at Malta, from whence he sent it to London, in 1839, to the disposal of the Committee. To the perusal of that Vocabulary the author [Isenberg] owes several words which he himself had not collected: they are generally marked with Bl. […]”
Picture
(original photograph deposited in the Basel Mission Archives)
Further reading
Sources
Blumhardt, Carolus Henricus [Karl Heinrich], ed. Novum Testamentum Domini Nostri et Salvatoris Jesu Christi in linguam Amharicam vertit Abu-Rumi Habessinus. Nova editio cum levibus variationibus [The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ translated into Amharic by Abu-Rumi the Abyssinian. New edition with slight variations]. London: William M. Watts, 1852. [Printed at the expense of the BFBS; view at Austrian National Library, Google Books].
Blumhard, C[harles] H[enry]. Outlines of Amharic, Containing an English, Oordoo [Urdu] and Amharic Vocabulary, Phrases in English and Amharic, and a Rudimentary Grammar, for the Use of the Force Proceeding to Abyssinia. Printed for the Government in India. Serampore: Serampore Press, 1867. [Google Books]
Literature
Arén, Gustav. Evangelical Pioneers in Ethiopia: Origins of the Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. Stockholm: EFS förlaget; Addis Ababa: Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, 1978. [See p. 64, 66‒67,i 70; view online]
Ernst, Paul. Johann Christoph Blumhardt: Leben und Werk. 4 parts in 2 vols. Stuttgart: Paul Ernst, 1982. [Some information on Karl Heinrich Blumhardt’s childhood in Stuttgart and his years in Basel.]
Eshetu Abate. “Blumhardt, Carolus Henricus”, in Encyclopaedia Aethiopica, vol. 1, ed. S. Uhlig, p. 598‒99. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2003.
Stock, Eugene. The History of the Church Missionary Society: Its Environment, Its Men and Its Work. 2 vols. London: Church Missionary Society, 1899. [On Rev. Blumhardt’s ministry in India, see vol. 2, p. 165, 271-72 (Archive.org)]