CHARLES (KÁROLY) NYULASY

Story

Charles (Károly) was twenty one years of age, when he was among the first of a noble band of patriots who took up arms against the Austrian Empire in the bloody war for Hungarian independence of 1848-49. As a nobleman himself, he sacrificed his property and possessions in the glorious struggle for freedom of the Fatherland.

With the collapse of the Revolution, Lieutenant Nyulasy fled to Transylvania. He then spent a period in Paris and then moved on to London. He left England for Australia in 1853. From Melbourne he went on to Bendigo diggings, but being unsuccessful there returned to Melbourne, organised and paid the expenses of a party to go to Creswick’s Creek, where he succeeded in developing the famous Hard Hill gold mine.

After several other mining ventures in Maryborough, he went in 1856 to Sebastopol Hill where he became interested in the 12 Apostles claim. At this time there had been many accidents during blasting operations, and Nyulasy, applying his military knowledge to the subject, invented an original ‘ safe and quick’ method of blasting in water in the rock at Sebastopol Hill. The invention created great excitement in the mining community with five thousand miners assembled to witness the first experiment which took place in the ‘Newcastle-men’s’ claim. The trial was a resounding success for Nyulasy. Later he was elected a member of the first local court in Ararat, and drew up mining regulations for the district.

Around 1856 Charles Nyulasy was married in Ballarat to Sarah Browne, a twenty- three-year-old immigrant from Ireland. They moved around quite a bit: in Invercargill, New Zealand, Nyulasy became the owner of an hotel, while in Cooktown, Queensland he was a wine and spirit merchant. By now their children were growing up, and, in order to give them a better education they moved to Melbourne. The family settled in Fitzroy, and during the eighties Nyulasy owned a draper\’s shop there. The Nyulasy’s placed great emphasis on the education of their children. Charles William became a surveyor and warden of the Pilbara Goldfield, dying on the goldfield in 1889. Francis Armand, known as Dr Frank Nyulasy, graduated from Melbourne University, and became a well known medical man and a correspondent of the Hungarian Medical Association. He became a prolific writer on subjects connected with obstetrics, especially puerperal fever, and was a fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. His younger brother Dr. Arthur Nyulasy was a Surgeon Captain with the West Australian Army Medical Corps of the Commonwealth Contingent during the Boer War, and received the Queen\’s Medal with Clasps. The two daughters of Charles Nyulasy also graduated from Melbourne University.

Though living at times far away from each other, the Nyulasys were a close knit family, rallying round their father and pleasing him more than once by arranging for the saga of his patriotic struggle and goldfield exploits. Members of the family made scientific or medical endowments in memory of their parents and deceased brothers, and perpetuated the name of Nyulasy in the hospital, university and medical world of

Melbourne.

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