Gold in Victoria

Bendigo

'Cradling', watercolour by S T Gill, 1869

A large number of German miners were attracted to the Bendigo goldfields. As the easily-accessible surface alluvial gold petered out, many Germans settled permanently in Bendigo rather than leaving the colony and they played a big role in the development of the quartz mines, due to their geological skills. Germans such as the Ballerstedts pioneered the mining of the quartz reefs by sinking deep shafts. These Germans employed other Germans in their mines. Some of the Germans had trained in Germany at the Schools of Mines in Clausthal, Freiberg or Chemnitz, and became mine managers at Bendigo. Some already had experience not only in the mines of Germany's Harz Mountains, but also in the copper mines at Burra and Kapunda in South Australia.[1]

Bendigo/Sandhurst - the name: The town originally began with the name Bendigo, but it adopted the official name of Sandhurst in 1854. The name was changed back to Bendigo in 1891 following a vote where most people wanted a return to the name Bendigo.

German claim-names

Using a list of mining claim-holders printed in the book Bendigo - the German Chapter, one can calculate that between 1863 and 1872 about 870 people of German-language background registered mining claims in the Bendigo district.[2] Names of reefs and of mining partnerships (apart from those simply consisting of German surnames) show memories of the home country, for example there were: Frühling's Reef, the Hamburg Flat Reef, the Berlin Reef, the Theutonia Co., the Hoffnung Co., the Prussian Reef Co., the Holstein Co., the Hessen Cassel Co., the Bavarian Troop Co., the Lübeck Co., the Hanoverian Co., the Bismarck Co., the Black Forest Co., the Baden Baden Co. and the Albert Mining Co. (named after the German husband of Queen Victoria).

"Black Forest Mine", c.1871, The Whipstick, depth 323m

Germans, camped around Ironbark Gully, were the most numerous Europeans. Bendigo was the rallying-point for Germans just as Ballarat was the focus for Americans.

Weston Bate (historian), 1999[3]

The large number of Germans, and the tendency of ethnic groups to stick together initially on the goldfields and support each other, resulted in some German enclaves on the Bendigo goldfields: a) at Diamond Hill, b) in an area covering New Chum Gully, Victoria Hill and Ironbark (in this area the first Lutheran church was built in 1865 and two German schools were operated), and c) in the area known as the Whipstick (just north of Bendigo).[4] At the Whipstick were the mines King of Prussia, Black Forest. The brick chimney of the Black Forest mine was painted in black, red and gold, following the colours of the republican German flag. In May 1863 Sebastian Schmidt discovered what became known as the Sebastian goldfield (on the edge of the Whipstick), which caused a large rush of diggers from Bendigo. The area is called Sebastian today. On the Sebastian goldfield was the very successful Frederick the Great mine (named after a famous king of Prussia from 1740-1786), which produced 4,286 kg of gold.[5] (At left: advertisement of a German businessman and gold broker in Bendigo, in Australische Deutsche Zeitung, 4/11/1870)

During the heyday of mining in Bendigo, the Commercial Bank of Sandhurst (early name of Bendigo) over-printed its paper-money in German, no doubt for the convenience of the large German-speaking population in the district.[6]

A share certificate issued in 1905 for shares in the 'Frederick the Great' mine at Sebastian. The certificate is in the collection of the Bendigo Historical Society, and this picture appears here by kind permission of the Society.

Other Occupations:

As Bendigo grew into a major permanent city, some Germans went into other occupations. The Bendigo historian Frank Cusack wrote of Bendigo's German community that it was a particularly active one[7] and that "German surnames are sprinkled liberally through Sandhurst’s early newspapers and directories - jewellers, watchmakers, hotel-keepers, pastrycooks, bakers and butchers, teachers of music and singing and languages, chemists and photographers."[8]

Hotel-keepers

There were many German hotel-keepers in the city, and a few of those hotel names were clear reminders of the old country: the "Berlin", the "Baden Baden", the "Hamburg", the "Prince Bismarck".[9] Friedrich Kraemer ran the Sydenham Gardens Hotel at White Hills (at the eastern end of present-day Bendigo); his establishment had a brass band and three German girls, with whom customers could, for a fee, dance a mazurka. Kraemer was a pioneer of the dancing saloon on the gold fields. These saloons featured a band, a dance floor and dancing girls known as "hurdy-gurdy girls" or as "hurdies". The hurdies and the saloon owners were usually German. Henry Brown, who published a book in London in 1862 about his five years of adventure "in Melbourne, on the Roads, and the Gold Fields", wrote of the hurdies: "It was considered the highest possible honour to get a dance with one of these fair damsels."[10]

In his book Sandhurst: As it was and As it is (1882), John Neill Macartney wrote of the Sydenham Gardens: "There many a pretty fraulein was to be met with, and sauerkraut could be had for the ordering. Many a pleasant visit I paid there, and many a bouquet of flowers I bought, and it was such a pleasure to meet the honest, kindly, German faces there."[11]

The Church

Dr Heinrich Backhaus, originally from Paderborn in Germany, arrived on the Bendigo goldfields and established the Catholic Church in Bendigo, but was admired by many people beyond the Catholic community. A biographer described him as “the best-known name in early Bendigo”. People valued Backhaus’ advice and he had a reputation as a healer of the sick, and he was interested in and actively involved in many aspects of the development of Bendigo and its public services (e.g. the hospital, railway, fire brigade). Thousands of people attended his funeral procession in Bendigo in 1882. You can read more about Backhaus’ life before Bendigo and in Bendigo.

"German innovation..."

When the beautiful drinking fountain designed by Wilhelm Vahland in 1881 was restored and refurbished in 2015 for the 100th anniversary of Vahland’s death (see the page about Vahland), the elements around the base of the drinking fountain included inscriptions that celebrate the major contribution that German immigrants made to the development of Bendigo in a variety of fields, for example mining, business, civic and spiritual leadership, architecture.

Photo © D Nutting: inscription on a fountain

"German innovation flowed through all of goldfields' life" - inscription at the base of the drinking fountain.

"German vision helped build Bendigo's strong foundations" - inscription at the base of the drinking fountain.