2 LIFE OF TEGETMEIER 



participate in the New Movement of the 

 twentieth century. 



William Bernhardt Tegetmeier was born on 

 November 4th, 1816, at Colnbrook, in Bucking- 

 hamshire. His father, Godfrey Conrad Tegetmeier, 

 was a medical man, and had served as surgeon 

 in the Royal Navy, under George III. As a 

 Hanoverian, Tegetmeier senior was a subject 

 of the English sovereign, who was also King of 

 Hanover ; but he became, I understand, a 

 naturalized British subject as well. He served as 

 assistant surgeon on board H.M. Ship " Niobe," 

 during the war with the United States. He 

 also served for a short time on a Russian man-of- 

 war, the " Venero," being apparently loaned to 

 " His Imperial Russian Majesty," since the Lords 

 of the Admiralty agreed (in a letter still extant) 

 to allow him " full pay and time " for such 

 period. The British ship on which he was serving 

 was captured by the enemy, and he was taken 

 prisoner to New York. The Yankees (being 

 short, presumably, of surgeons) invited him to 

 stay and settle in America. But he preferred 

 the country of his adoption, and on his return 

 to England, settled down as a general practitioner 

 in the little Buckinghamshire town where the 

 future naturalist was subsequently born. He 

 had married an English wife — Sarah Luer, widow 

 of Carl A. W. Luer, by whom she had two sons — 

 half-brothers, of course, to William Bernhardt. 



