Georg Ludwig Engelhard Krebs (19 July 1792 - 11 May 1844) was a German apothecary and natural history collector who spent his entire career in South Africa.
Life and career
He was born in Wittingen, then a part of Hanover, the son of Johan Krebs and Cecilia Engtlingen, and brother to Sophie Margaretha Dorothea Krebs and Georg Krebs.
Soon after qualifying as apothecary, he was recruited to work in South Africa by the firm of Pallas & Poleman of Cape Town. Arriving in May 1817, Krebs started collecting, often in the company of Karl Heinrich Bergius who died at age 28 of pulmonary tuberculosis in January 1818, poverty-stricken and abandoned by his former sponsors and employers. Krebs also got to know and collected in the company of Mund and Maire, Joachim Brehm, von Chamisso, Delalande, and Dr. William Gill, who became a close friend and medical adviser during their stay in the Eastern Cape.
Krebs asked his brother, Georg, a medical student in Berlin, to find out whether the Berlin's Natural History Museum was interested in purchasing natural history specimens. When Martin Lichtenstein agreed to this, some large consignments were shipped in 1820 and 1821.
At the end of his four-year contract with Pallas & Poleman, Krebs was succeeded by Carl Friedrich Drège, the brother of Johann Franz Drège, leaving him free to sail to Algoa Bay where he arrived in November 1821. He left immediately for the inland town of Uitenhage where he was to stay the next three years. Back in Germany, Lichtenstein had obtained permission for Krebs to collect on behalf of the Berlin's Natural History Museum, resulting in the splendid title of "Cape Naturalist to the King of Prussia".
In 1822 Krebs collected at Uitenhage, Sundays River, Galgenbosch, Van Stadens River, Zuurberg and Swartkops, sending four consignments to Lichtenstein, which consisted mainly of birds, mammals and insects, but with some bulbs and succulent plants, assisted and advised by James Bowie. In 1823 he roamed further afield visiting the Bushmans, Kariega and Kowie Rivers, sending off his eighth consignment of 3800 insects, some 100 birds and no plants.
In August 1823 he visited the newly established Fort Beaufort, collecting for a few months along the Baviaans River, now called Baviaanskloof River, and eastwards to the Great Fish River, returning to Uitenhage by January 1824. His 9th and 10th consignments were shipped from Cape Town in January 1825.
In 1824 Lichtenstein warned him that his contract for supplying specimens to the Berlin Museum was about to end and that they would only accept 3 further consignments. Krebs sailed to Cape Town in November 1824 to discuss his future with Poleman. Krebs had thought of starting a pharmacy somewhere in the Cape, and wrote to his brother inviting him to join in the enterprise. Early in 1825 he returned to Algoa Bay, making his way once more to the Baviaans River, where he stayed again on the Boschfontein farm belonging to Field Cornet Cornelius van der Nest, a farm which was also periodically visited by Clemenz Wehdemann.
In the following summer Krebs explored and collected beyond the Winterberg in the area of present-day Queenstown, and soon dispatched his eleventh consignment made up of six cases. By June 1826 he had started a pharmacy in Grahamstown, taking on Leopold Schmidt as a partner, and hoped to persuade his two nephews, Carl and Heinrich Kemper, two trained apothecaries, to also join him.
In March 1828 his health suffered a blow when, while on a visit to Cape Town, he was stricken by rheumatism, a condition he was to endure for the rest of his life. Consequently, he convalesced for six months, staying with Pieter Heinrich Poleman. At about this time his application for citizenship was approved, enabling him to buy a farm called "Doornkroon" on the Baviaans River, and which he later renamed "Lichtenstein" in honour of his patron, Martin Lichtenstein. Carl Kemper arrived in Cape Town in January 1829 and joined Krebs at Baviaans River. In November 1829 Krebs sent through his 12th consignment made up of material collected over several years; included were more than 7000 preserved plant specimens and a barrel with a complete Bushman pickled in brine, some 900 birds and over 7000 insects. These specimens had been collected from Baviaans River, Tembuland, and the Tarka and Orange Rivers.