German settlement in Australia

German settlement in Australia began in large numbers in 1838, with the arrival of immigrants from Prussia to Adelaide, in the then colony of South Australia. German immigrants became prominent in settling South Australia and the Queensland. From 1850 until World War I, German settlers and their descendants comprised the largest non-British or Irish group of Europeans in Australia.

"Klemzig – German Village on the Torrens"
Main article: German Australian

Kinnear winegrowers – April 1838

On 23 April 1838, the barque Kinnear arrived at Sydney carrying six German wine growing families. Johann Justus, Friedrich Seckold, Johann Stein, Caspar Flick, Georg Gerhard and Johann Wenz, were the first German vinedressers in Australia. Hundreds of Germans followed their arrival in Australia. They worked in the vineyards belonging to John Macarthur's son William Macarthur in what is now Camden Park. These six families were recruited from the Rheingau region of Hesse by Major Edward Macarthur.[1]

Teichelmann and Schürmann – October 1838

Two Lutheran missionaries whose work later proved significant in the preservation of Aboriginal Australian languages such as Bangarla[2] and Kaurna,[3][4] Clamor Wilhelm Schürmann and Christian Gottlieb Teichelmann, arrived in Adelaide on the Pestonjee Bomanjee on 12 October 1838.[5] Schürmann founded a mission at Encounter Bay and was also involved with missions in the Port Lincoln area, and the pair founded a school for Kaurna people at Piltawodli in the Adelaide parklands.[6] Teichelmann married the Scottish Margaret Nicholson in 1843, and they went on to have 14 children and settled on a farm at Morphett Vale. Schürmann married the German Lutheran Wilhelmine Charlotte Maschmedt, also from Osnabrück, in 1847, and moved to Victoria in 1853. They had nine children.[5]

The Prince George and Bengalee group – November 1838

The second group arrived with Pastor Kavel on the ships Prince George, and Bengalee from the Prussian Province of Brandenburg. The group was composed of Lutheran immigrants who had left their homeland escaping what they considered to be religious persecution at the hands of Prussian King Frederick William III, mainly because of their rejection of Prussian state enforcement of a new prayer book for church services. They settled at Klemzig, six kilometres (three point seven miles) from Adelaide, named after their home town in the Prussian province of Brandenburg.

The Zebra Group – December 1838
Main article: German Australian

The next group arrived in 28 December 1838, on the Zebra with Captain Dirk Meinerts Hahn. Captain Hahn, assisted this group in acquiring land in the Adelaide Hills, where they settled Hahndorf.

The Catharina Group – January 1839

The last of the initial wave of immigrants arrived in January 1839, on the Catharina. This group settled predominantly at Glen Osmond.

The Skjold Group – October 1841

In 1840 a letter was sent to the Old Lutherans in Prussia to encourage others to also emigrate. Included in this letter was a request for a second pastor to be sent also. The group set sail for Australia, on 11 July 1841 on the Skjold. On a trip beset with sickness, 55 people, mainly young children and the elderly, died. On 28 October 1841, 213 emigrants from Prussia arrived at Port Misery in South Australia. With them was Pastor Gotthard Fritzsche, who had been encouraged to emigrate because of the Prussian government's requirement for a Pastor to accompany the emigrants. The migrants settled at Lobethal, and Bethenien.

In 1842, Langmeil was settled.

Hermann von Beckerath Group – 1847

Early German immigrants were instrumental in the creation of the South Australian wine industry. One of the earliest wine makers, whose descendants still produce wine, was Carl August Sobels. Born in Dresden in 1802, he arrived in South Australia on the Hermann von Beckerath in 1847. At first he farmed at Macclesfield before moving to Tanunda where he produced table wines. After his death in 1863 the business was conducted by his son Ferdinand.

By the mid-1840s, the German community in South Australia had become large enough to warrant its own German-language newspaper. The first German language newspaper in Australia, Die Deutsche Post, was founded in Adelaide c. 6 January 1848.[7]

San Francisco Group – October 1850

The barque San Francisco (a three masted barque of 450 tons (nm) built in Bjornberg, Sweden in 1846 and owned by J C Godeffroy & Sons) landed a number of emigrants in South Australia on 14 October 1850 on 15 (or perhaps 23) June 1850 after leaving Hamburg.[8][9] The ship almost never arrived, as it sailed straight into a major storm at Port Misery (Port Adelaide), which also wrecked the barque Grecian (three-masted, built at Sunderland, England in 1841) earlier that day. It was reported in a local newspaper of the time that the newly arrived emigrants on the ship were from the linen-producing Prussian province of Silesia. Like previous German emigrants to South Australia, the passengers then dispersed throughout the colony.

See also

Further reading
  • Harmstorf, Ian and Cigler, Michael (1985) The Germans in Australia Melbourne : AE Press. Australian ethnic heritage series. ISBN 0-86787-203-9
  • Tampke, Jurgen and Doxford, Colin (1990) Australia, Willkommen : a history of the Germans in AustraliaKensington, N.S.W : New South Wales University Press. ISBN 0-86840-307-5

References
  1. Walsh, Gerald (1979). "The Wine Industry of Australia 1788 1979". Archived from the original on 4 March 2016.. Retrieved 25 May 2014.
  2. Desiatnik, Shane (12 July 2018). "Ghil'ad's Indigenous language game changer". Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  3. Lockwood, Christine (2017). "4. Early encounters on the Adelaide Plains and Encounter Bay". In Brock, Peggy; Gara, Tom (eds.). Colonialism and its Aftermath: A history of Aboriginal South Australia. Wakefield Press. pp. 65–81. ISBN 9781743054994.
  4. "Language projects". Kaurna WarraPintyanthi. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  5. Kneebone, Heide (2005). "Teichelmann, Christian Gottlieb (1807–1888)". Australian Dictionary of Biography. Supplementary. Melbourne University Press. ISSN 1833-7538. Retrieved 29 December 2020 – via National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
  6. "South Australia Missions with German speakers". German Missionaries in Australia. Griffith University. Retrieved 29 December 2020.
  7. "The Miscellany". Adelaide Observer. XLVIII (2571). 10 January 1891. p. 41. Retrieved 16 October 2017 – via National Library of Australia. 16 March was 11th Thursday in 1848.
  8. "SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE". South Australian Register. Adelaide. 16 October 1850. p. 2. Retrieved 8 August 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
  9. 'San Francisco' Hamburg, Germany to South Australia 1850 at The Ships List
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