Florens Theodor Reinhard Mueller was born in Dresden, the son of Georg Heinrich Mueller, an administrative officer in the Saxon Office of Justice. Nothing is known about his early life, but he appears to have been well-educated. He arrived in South Australia in 1849, and worked as a butcher in Adelaide. In 1852 he moved to Victoria as a gold-digger, living at Bendigo, Back Creek and the Pyrenees, and from 1857 to 1861 he was a quartz miner at Maryborough. He was a founding member and secretary of German Clubs at Back Creek and Maryborough. In 1861 he moved to Castlemaine, helping to set up the German Club there, and in 1862 he moved to Melbourne. There he took up a position as assistant at the Botanic Gardens, where he worked until 1869. Throughout this period he continued to be active in the German community, as a member of the Melbourne 'Turn-Verein' and as secretary of the central committee of German associations in Victoria. In 1869 he returned to Dresden, and died there in 1881.
Mueller established his reputation as a poet among Victoria's German community with the publication of the long poem, 'Der Digger. Der Heimat gewidmet'. It apppeared in the Melbourne German newspaper Der Kosmopolit, 7 August 1857, and was so popular that it was reprinted twice in other publications. A manuscript copy of the poem is held at the National Library of Australia. He also wrote many other poems published in German language newspapers in Melbourne, particularly poems composed to mark festive occasions in the German community, as well as articles and essays. His prologue, 'Gut Heil!', recited at the first German gymnastic and song festival at Cremorne Gardens in 1862, was awarded a prize.
After his return to Germany, Mueller continued to write about Australia, publishing some short articles, a novel entitled Australische Kolonisten, oder, Heute So, Morgen So! (1878), and a book about hunting called Jagden in Australien (1878).
Mueller is described by Thomas A. Darragh as 'a significant, though now forgotten, figure in the history of the German presence in Victoria. During the late 1850s and 1860s he was a well-known writer and poet (...)' (Thomas A. Darragh, 'Theodor Mueller, Victoria's German Poet', Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand Bulletin 18.2-3 (1994) : 136) He is not to be confused with another author of the same name, living in Australia at about the same time. The second Theodor Mueller (q.v.) was a Swiss, who wrote about his experiences in Australia in Neunzehn Jahre in Australien (1877).
