Frederick T Warmbrunn

Story

On 16/11/1838 the BENGALEE arrived at Port Misery (Old Port Adelaide), 6 of the 30 emigrants being Friedrich Traugott Warmbrunn, wife Louise (nee Sagitz), and 4 children 1 died young. They came from the town of Warmbrunn in Silesia, Germany, a health resort with mineral springs known since 13th century. After opposition to the forced merger in 1817 of the Lutheran and Reformed Churches authorities were most unfriendly when faced with applications for emigration permits. There was persecution and the Govt. distorted the marital status of emigrants – if married by a Lutheran minister and not a minister of the State Church, the marriage was considered null and void and the children’s legitimacy left open to doubt. Dissent meant one could not be married legally and children (considered “illegitimate”) could not join a craft guild or attend university.

The BENGALEE left Germany 9/7/1838, arriving 2 days before its accompanying ship the PRINCE GEORGE. There was no harbour or wharf and passengers had to be landed by boat on a sandbank. The site proved unsatisfactory for a major port as the docking area was left dry at low tide and unloading was difficult. In 1840 a new wharf was opened.

At Port Misery the group covered a shed with linen and occupied it as a large family mansion, then they rented 150 acres at Klemzig and after Christmas moved in, building 30 houses and a church. They worked from dawn to dusk, and grew just about every vegetable eaten in Adelaide. It was a miracle to the people of Adelaide and they came to marvel. The devout toiling Germans earned respect and gratitude. They proved a wide variety could be grown, even though the autumn rains did not fall until June that first year. Possibly 2 of the Warmbrunn children are buried at Klemzig, for which no records exist. Ernest was born here in December 1840.

517 Germans left their homeland due to religious persecution, only 3% of the total 18,000 who came out, so the Warmbrunns were in a very select band of immigrants.

In 1843 they all quit their mud and thatch homes at Klemzig to settle in the Barossa Valley where a larger farm would enable them to repay their passage money ($98 for Frederick’s family). In 1851 he went to Melbourne on the CHRISTINA as gold had been found, and sent back 9 oz. on the second gold escort 5 months later. Returning to SA, the family packed and travelled overland, arriving in Victoria15/3/1853, thence to Castlemaine. In 1856 Frederick was a teacher at the Lutheran school at Berwick (Harkaway) at $100 for 6 months. 13 years later Hessel was teacher. Warmbrunn was an active Churchman and a delegate at the first Synod held 1856-7. He died at 47 Pine St. South Yarra, aged 82 in 1885, and is buried in Block 5 of the Harkaway cemetery. He had been a silk dyer, farmer, builder, gold miner, churchman, teacher, shepherd. Louise died in Carlton in 1900 aged 93 and is buried in the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Of the 3 surviving children –

Mary 1834-1910 married1855 Edwin Carter in the Presbyterian Church tent, Castlemaine, had 12 children, 1 dying young. They lived at Golden Point and had a trunk full of gold in the house and clothes and groceries were bought by the cartload, then the heartbreak when the gold gradually disappeared and the fruitless searches to locate the lost lode. Mary and children came to Melbourne to live running a boarding house at Carlton about 1874. She died at Sandringham 1910 aged 76 and is buried in Brighton cemetery. Edwin died of miner’s complaint at Golden Point 1879 aged 45, and is buried at Chewton.

Gustav 1836-1912 married Wilhelmina Scholtz, having 14 children, 6 dying young. He was granted naturalisation in 1869, and was a wood and coal merchant in Prahran. He mostly lived at Berwick and died in 1912 aged 76 and is buried with his father in Harkaway cemetery. Wilhelmina died Prahran in 1928 aged 88 and is buried in the St.Kilda cemetery with a son and daughter.

Ernest 1840-1915, miner of Chewton, married 1873 Eliza Lewis 1851-77 and in 1874 they set up a boarding house in Melbourne but within 3 mo. in 1877 his wife and two baby sons died. In 1881 Ernest married Catherine Stevens and had 5 children, buying 10 acres at Beaconsfield which Ernest farmed after building a wattle and daub home which lasted over 70 years until the 1983 bushfires. Ernest died 1915 aged 75, Catherine died 1946 just 3 days short of 89, both buried Berwick

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