Genius or charlatan? The strange tale of a 19th-century polymath who left a trail of controversy across colonial Australia

About 20 minutes’ drive north of Geraldton, on Australia’s west coast, lies a hill named Mount Sommer. The little peak is one of the few relics left behind by the enigmatic nineteenth-century polymath Dr Ferdinand von Sommer, Western Australia’s first government geologist.

In the span of four years, von Sommer made a few friends, several enemies and a handful of surprisingly excellent maps of parts of Western Australia. His origins, life and career have been rather shrouded in mystery – in no small part because of the flood of disparaging invective about him published in local newspapers of the day.

So who was Ferdinand von Sommer? I traced his story through archival records in Europe, Africa and Asia. In the process of documenting von Sommer’s life and activities, I uncovered a multi-talented, self-assured and audacious individual whose talents and achievements have been largely forgotten.

Mathematics, medicine and minerals

Born in the Netherlands circa 1800, von Sommer studied mathematics at the University of Göttingen under the famous Carl Friedrich Gauss. After graduating in 1822, he claimed to have solved some complex problems in mathematics, but Gauss and others found his results confusing and unsatisfactory.

After serving in the Dutch navy and making a living as a writer and journalist, von Sommer worked as a university lecturer in Berlin. In 1838, he trained as a doctor and set out for India as a missionary before spending a year in Cape Town as a doctor.

Back in London in 1841, von Sommer reappeared as a “Prussian naturalist” named Frederic de Sommer. His efforts to sell an apparently sizeable art collection made news in several European papers.

It was at this time that von Sommer became interested in mineralogy and metallurgy. In 1842, he returned to Berlin to lecture in nautical science and the art of mine surveying. He also published several works of fiction, poetry, autobiography and philosophy in this period.

In late 1844 he set out for New Zealand, where he stayed briefly before heading on to South Australia, arriving in Adelaide in September 1845.

Copper and libel in Adelaide

Von Sommer arrived during Australia’s first mineral boom: the “Burra Copper Boom” (1845–51). The fast-growing Burra Burra copper mine in the Clare Valley, 100km north of Adelaide, attracted thousands.

An eyewitness later recalled von Sommer’s arrival:

dignified by a moustache and distinguished by a palpable want of familiarity with the English language, in virtue of which qualifications he was duly installed as assayer, smelter, and superintendent at the Burra Mine.

Von Sommer was a vocal critic of local mining practices, and made few friends. After only a few months he was dismissed as “too costly to retain”.

Von Sommer remained in South Australia, working as a doctor. However, he was widely derided in the local papers.

One described him as “a German, who had been occasionally mixed up in mining speculations, but lately had not followed any fixed calling”. The criticism reached such a pitch that von Sommer even (successfully) sued John Stephens, the editor and proprietor of the South Australian Register, for libel.

Surveying and ‘backbiting’ in Western Australia

Next stop for von Sommer was Perth, working for the Western Australian Mining Company.

Here he received a more welcoming reception, described as “a mineralogist of eminence” who would help the colony’s attempt at “sharing in the mineral wealth of Australia”.