Next to the Cemetery Office in the centre of Section 13 is the grave of one of the most colourful characters in Hong Kong's history, Karl Gutzlaff, the first Lutheran missionary to Hong Kong. The sinologist Arthur Waley describes him as, 'a cross between parson, pirate, charlatan and genius, philanthropist and crook'.
It is said that he started out as an apprentice to a stay-maker in Pyritz, Prussia, but managed to persuade a Dutch mission to send him to Sumatra, where he learned Fukienese (also known as Hokkienese). From there he took a ship to Bangkok, where he mastered Mandarin and added Cantonese and Hakka to his list of languages. Gutzlaff then settled in Macao, where he taught boys and his wife opened a school for blind Chinese girls.(see page ?) Sir Henry Parkes describes him as, 'a short square figure with clothes that for shape might have been cut in his native Pomerania ages ago, a broad-rimmed straw hat, his great face beneath a sinister eye'.
William Jardine lured him aboard his opium clipper Sylph as interpreter on the understanding that he could distribute Christian tracts in exchange for his services as an interpreter. Gutzlaff argued that the benefits of reaching a wide audience outweighed the opprobrium attached to the opium trade. In 1837 he became interpreter to Sir Henry Pottinger, the British Superintendent of Trade, taking part in the negotiations that led to the Treaty of Nanking. When Hong Kong came under British sovereignty he moved here, continuing to work as Interpreter to the Governor and using his pay to fund his after-hours missionary endeavours. He translated the Bible into Chinese, wrote innumerable tracts. and recruited tirelessly in Germany, founding the Basel Mission. which sent many talented missionaries to work in Hong Kong and China. These include Theodore Hamburg and Martin Schaub, whose graves are in Section 4. Years of overwork brought on Gutzlaff's premature death at the age of forty-eight. At his funeral the Colonial Chaplain said, 'The attempt which he made and carried out till his death was the most gigantic ever to evangelize en masse a great nation.'