Johann Christian Ritter

Johann Christian Ritter (25 July 1755 – 9 September 1810)[1] was a German in the service of the Dutch East India Company who came to South Africa in 1784.

J. C. Ritter was born in 1755 either in Bayreuth[2] or Hof an der Saale,[3][4] these are cities less than 50 km distant from each other in what was then the Holy Roman Empire and may have referred to the same place.

[5] He was in the service of the Dutch East India Company when he arrived[6] at the Cape Colony in the later half of 1784 and was appointed by them in 1794 to print government notices, forms and so forth.

[4] His almanac did not bring him any great financial reward, having been used by many to copy out of by hand,[10] notwithstanding some factual errors relating to dates of lunar eclipses.

[8][9] Only one copy of the first leaf is known to exist in the Sir George Grey Collection of the South African Library[2] and this one may be a proof sheet.