August Hermann Francke
A pastor at Glaucha outside Halle who from 1695 founded a charity school and an orphan house supported by gifts. Money for the Tranquebar mission was sent through him.
Francke describes himself as minister at Glaucha, a suburb of Halle. He tells how a gift left in the poor-box of his parsonage became the fund for a charity school at Easter 1695 (Francke, Footsteps of Divine Providence ch. 1, sections 5–8, pp. 12–16), and how in July 1698 the foundation of an orphan house was laid before he had the means to build it (Francke, Footsteps of Divine Providence ch. 1, section 28, pp. 30–31). The English editor of the Tranquebar letters calls him “Professor Franck at Hall” and says that gifts for the mission in India were sent to him to be forwarded (Ziegenbalg, Propagation of the Gospel in the East, preliminary discourse, section 47, p. xxxvi). See Spener’s Pia Desideria and the Rise of Pietism and the Tranquebar Mission.
In the timeline
- 1675, firm dateSpener’s Pia Desideria and the Rise of Pietism
In 1675 the Frankfurt pastor Philipp Jakob Spener publishes six proposals for mending the Lutheran church, from Bible reading in small meetings to the training of pastors. From 1695 August Hermann Francke founds a school and an orphan house at Halle.