200px, Helfrich Bernhard Wenck Helfrich Bernhard Wenck (19 June 1739 – 27 April 1803) was a German

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

born in

Idstein Idstein () is a town of about 25,000 inhabitants in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Because of its well preserved historical Altstadt (Old Town) it is part of the ''Deutsche Fachwerkstraße'' ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

. He attended the

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

Pädagogium, where his father, Johann Martin Wenck, served as

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

. He later studied in

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univers ...

and

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

, and in August 1761, was hired at the Darmstadt Pädagogium as a collaborator. Here, he served as sub-conrector (from 1766), pro-rector (from 1768) and as rector (from 1769). From 1775, he worked as an

historiographer Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...

, and he later attained the position of ''consistorialrath'' in 1778. In 1783 he became member of the Academiae Theodoro-Palatinae in Mannheim (today

University of Mannheim The University of Mannheim (German: ''Universität Mannheim''), abbreviated UMA, is a public research university in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1967, the university has its origins in the ''Palatine Academy of Sciences'', ...

). Acta Academiae Theodoro-Palatinae, Band 6, 1790, Page 12 His best known literary effort was a work on Hessian history called ''Hessische Landesgeschichte'', published in three volumes between 1783 and 1803. Another noted work of his was ''Lateinische Grammatik für Schulen'' (Latin

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

for schools), later revised in 1823, by

Georg Friedrich Grotefend Georg Friedrich Grotefend (9 June 1775 – 15 December 1853) was a German epigraphist and philologist. He is known mostly for his contributions toward the decipherment of cuneiform. Georg Friedrich Grotefend had a son, named Carl Ludwig Grot ...

(1775-1853). He was the brother of historian

Friedrich August Wilhelm Wenck Friedrich August Wilhelm Wenck (4 September 1741, in Idstein – 15 June 1810, in Leipzig) was a German historian. His older brother, Helfrich Bernhard Wenck (1739–1803), was also an historian. Beginning in 1760 he studied history at the Unive ...

(1741–1810).

Literature

* Karl Robert Wenck: Wenck, Helfrich Bernhard. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 41, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1896, p. 703–709.

References

1739 births 1803 deaths People from Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis University of Göttingen alumni University of Giessen alumni Heads of schools in Germany German male non-fiction writers 18th-century German writers 19th-century German writers 19th-century German male writers 18th-century German historians 19th-century German historians 18th-century German male writers {{Germany-historian-stub