Joseph Wolff

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Joseph Wolff (1795 - May 2, 1862), Jewish Christian missionary, was born at Weilersbach, near Bamberg, Germany.

His father became rabbi at Württemberg in 1806, and sent his son to the Protestant lyceum at Stuttgart. He was converted to Christianity through reading the books of Johann Michael von Sailer, bishop of Regensburg, and was baptized in 1812 by the Benedictine abbot of Emaus, near Prague.

Wolff was a keen Oriental scholar and pursued his studies at Tübingen and at Rome, where he was expelled from the Collegio di Propaganda in 1818 for attacking the doctrine of infallibility and criticizing his tutors. After a short stay in the monastery of the Redemptorists at Val Sainte near Fribourg, he went to London, entered the Anglican Church, and resumed his Oriental and theological studies at Cambridge.

In 1821 he began his missionary wanderings in the East by visiting Egypt, the Sinai peninsula, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Mesopotamia, Persia, Tiflis and the Crimea, returning to England in 1826, when Edward Irving introduced him to Lady Georgiana Mary Walpole, 6th daughter of Horatio Walpole, Earl of Orford, whom he married on February 26, 1827 at St. George’s, Hanover Square.

In 1828 Wolff set out to search for the ten tribes, travelling through Anatolia, Armenia, Turkestan and Afghanistan to Simla and Calcutta, suffering many hardships but preaching with enthusiasm. He visited Madras, Pondicherry, Tinnevelly, Goa and Bombay, travelling home by Egypt and Malta. In 1836 he found Samuel Gobat in Abyssinia, took him to Jeddah, and himself visited Yemen and Bombay, going on to the United States, where he was ordained deacon on 1837-09-26 at Newark, New Jersey. Trinity College Dublin awarded him an honorary Doctorate of Laws. He was ordained priest in 1838 by the the Bishop of Down and Dromore. In the same year he was given the rectory of Linthwaite in Yorkshire.

In 1843 Wolff went to Bukhara to seek two British officers, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly who had been executed by the Emir of Bukhara, Nasrullah Khan in June 1842. As Wolff later described, he narrowly escaped death himself on account of the Emir laughing uncontrollably at Wolff's appearance in full canonical garb. His Narrative of this mission went through seven editions between 1845 and 1852. In 1845 he was presented to the vicarage of Isle Brewers, Somerset. After the death of his first wife, in 1861 he married Louisa Decima, daughter of James King, rector of St. Peter-le-Poer, London.

He was planning another great missionary tour when he died at Isle Brewers on May 2, 1862.

His son Henry Drummond-Wolff was a noted politician in England.

He published several journals of his expeditions, especially Travels and Adventures of Joseph Wolff (2 vols, London, 1860).

[edit] Works

Missionary journal and memoir of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, written by himself ; revised and edited by John Bayford. London, J. Duncan, 1824. Further editions: 1827, 1829.
Researches and missionary labours among the Jews, Mohammedans, and other sects. London, J. Nisbet & Co., 1835. Reprints:
- Philadelphia, O. Rogers, 1837
Narrative of a mission to Bokhara, in the years 1843-1845, to ascertain the fate of Colonel Stoddart and Captain Conolly. London, J.W. Parker, 1845. First and second (revised) edition both came out in 1845. Reprints:
- New York, Harper & Bros., 1845
- Edinburgh and London, William Blackwood & Sons, 1848
- New York, Arno Press, 1970 ISBN 0-405-03072-X
- Elibron Classics, 2001, ISBN 1-4021-6116-6
- A mission to Bokhara. Edited and abridged with an introduction by Guy Wint. London, Routledge & K. Paul, 1969. ISBN 0-7100-6456-X
Travels and adventures of the Rev. Joseph Wolff, D.D., LL.D : Vicar of Ile Brewers, near Taunton; and late missionary to the Jews and Muhammadans in Persia, Bokhara, Cashmeer, etc. London, Saunders, Otley and Co., 1861.

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
Biography at the Jewish Encyclopedia
Hopkins, Hugh Evan, Sublime vagabond : the life of Joseph Wolff - missionary extraordinary, foreword by Sir Fitzroy Maclean Bart, Worthing : Churchman, 1984, ISBN 1-85093-002-3
Dr Wolff's new mission : being the Rev. Wolff's determination to set out again on a missionary tour in Armenia, and Yarkand in Chinese Tartary, returning to England via Kamtschatka and Moscow, as soon as his church, now building at Ile-Brewers, is completed, and his autobiography, now in course of publication is finished, London : Saunders, Otley, and Co., 1860. (8p)
Gidney, W. T., Joseph Wolff, (Biographies of eminent Hebrew Christians), London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews, 1903
Palmer, Felix Henry Price, Joseph Wolff. His romantic life and travels, etc, London : Heath Cranton, 1935
Riggans, Walter, Joseph Wolff, in Gerald, H. Anderson (ed.) Biographical Dictionary of Christian Missions. Grand Rapids / Cambridge: William B, Eerdmans Co. 1998., p. 746.