Carl Feilberg
Australian journalist
Carl Adolph Feilberg (21 August 1844 – 25 October 1887), also spelt Carl Adolf Feilberg, was a Danish-born Australian journalist, newspaper editor, general political commentator, and Indigenous rights activist.
He lived and worked mainly in the colony of Queensland, and in his editorials and columns criticised many aspects of the colonial government policy towards Aboriginal Australians in the colony, in particular the use of the Native Police. After a major campaign in The Queenslander in 1880 and the publication of a pamphlet titled The Way We Civilise: Black and White: The Native Police, he suffered personal and political fallout, and had to move to Melbourne for some time. After becoming ill there and moving back to Brisbane, he died at the age of 43.
Although widely cited, his work was not lauded for most of a century after his death, but towards the 21st century, his reputation as a journalist and historian has been recognised.
He also wrote short stories, novellas, and a novel.
Early life and education
Carl Feilberg was born on 21 August 1844 in a small apartment at 1 Bredgade in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the first born and only son of Danish Royal Navy lieutenant Christen Schifter Feilberg and Louise Adelaide Feilberg, the daughter of a planter on the island of St. Croix in the then Danish West Indies. Following the early death of both parents, Feilberg was placed in foster care with Danish relatives, his aunt Louise Stegman (née Brummer) and her husband greengrocer Conrad Stegmann, at the time living in Edinburgh, Scotland.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carl Feilberg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.