Siegmund August Wolfgang von Herder

August von Herder (18 August 1776 - 29 January 1838) was a German geologist and mineralogist. From 1813 he served in a succession of increasingly senior posts in the Saxon government mines service, ending up in 1826 as government mining director ("Berghauptmann"). He was an energetic and highly effective moderniser of the Saxon mining industry.

Biography Sigismund August Wolfgang Herder was born in Bückeburg, an economically diversified hill-town to the west of Hanover. Bückeburg owed much of its prosperity and intellectual dynamism to its status as the long-established administrative and commercial hub of Schaumburg-Lippe. The adjacent Bückeberg hills were an important source of building stone. However, later during 1776, August's family relocated to Weimar after his father accepted a church appointment there, mediated through the intervention of his friend Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, as "Generalsuperintendent". Herder had long since decided to make a science-based career in mining, which in Saxony would probably lead to work in government service in the so-called "Berg- und Hüttenwesen" (mines department). That in turn required certain legal and administrative training and qualifications, which necessitated a move to the University of Wittenberg. Two years later, in 1802, he emerged with a doctorate. In 1802 his father was ennobled by Prince-elector Maximilian IV Joseph of Bavaria. The family name, hitherto "Herder", became "von Herder": It is with the name "von Herder" that subsequent sources normally identify family members. War and the associated international power shifts brought an increased emphasis on regulation and adherence. In 1810 von Herder was appointed to the Mines Council. In 1817 he was given a seat and a vote on the Saxon Privy Budget Council ("Geheim Finanzkollegium") and in 1821 on the Privy Mines Council ("Geheim Bergkollegium"). In 1819 he was appointed deputy to the government Mines Director ("Vizeberghauptmann") and in 1826 Mines Director ("Oberberghauptmann"), which was the highest position in the Saxon Mines Department. It was also at Herder's instigation that the "Bergmusikverein" ("Mines Music Association") was founded in Freiberg in 1829.

During his 1835 stay in Serbia, August von Herder fell ill with an acute rheumatic disorder. A cure at the thermal resort of Karlsbad brought little respite from his suffering. At the end of 1837 he travelled to Dresden to be treated for an intestinal disorder. and died on 29 January 1838, a few days before he had been scheduled to undergo an operation.

Family August von Herder married Susanne Sophie Berger at Schneeberg on 17 June 1805. The bride, born Susanne Sophie Hähnel, was the widow of a protestant church minister. The geologist-politician Eugen Wolfgang von Herder (1810–1853) was the couple's only child, as far as is known.