Eduard Emil Koch
Eduard Emil Koch (30 January 1809 – 27 April 1871) was a German pastor and hymnologist. Life. Koch was born at Solitude Palace, the son of the staff doctor Friedrich Koch and his wife Margarethe Koch, née Sigrist. He completed the Eberhard-Ludwigs-Gymnasium and then the seminary in Urach in Stuttgart, before he went to Tübingen from 1826 to 1830 where he studied theology. During that period, he became a member of the in 1826. He was regarded as one of the most active and quickest members of his fraternity and was therefore imprisoned several times at  . In 1830, he became vicar in Ehningen, in 1837 pastor in Großaspach, where he married Marie Auguste Speidel. The couple had two children. He became pastor in Heilbronn in 1847, promoted further from third pastor to head pastor and dean. His career took a turn when he tried to prevent the performance of Haydn's oratorio "The Creation" in a church of the Heilbronn deanery. Although the parish council followed his view that such an event was not suitable for a church, the consistory overturned the decision. In protest, Koch applied to be moved to the parish of the village  Erdmannhausen. He died of smallpox on a trip to Stuttgart at the age of 62, where he wanted to obtain his complete removal from office. His tomb in the has been preserved. In 1847, Koch published the "Geschichte des Kirchenlieds und Kirchengesangs", a history of singing hymns in church, of which several new editions were later published.