Johannes von Gumpach (Chinese: 方根拔) (1814–1875) was a German-born Englishman who was hired in China to teach astronomy and mathematics.
While in the employ of the bank Huth & Co he was arrested for embezzlement and sentenced to seven years' exile.
He and his wife arrived in Nuremberg on 5 September 1844 using the assumed name "Baron" Johannes von Gumpach.
In 1860 he was living in Munich, and from 1860 to 1865 lived in Guernsey in the British Channel Islands, where he wrote copiously to the British astronomical establishment claiming that Newton's "erring imagination" and the acceptance that the Earth was oblate was the cause of maritime disasters.
[3] He was hired by the Tongwen Guan (School of Combined Learning) of the Chinese imperial government, the first modern institution of higher education in China.