Names
Australian Placenames of German Background
Leipsic, Tasmania
Detail from Assistant Surveyor James Sprent's 1859 map of Tasmania, showing Leipsic, inland from Bicheno near the east coast of Tasmania.
The name Leipsic for a locality in Tasmania fell out of use many years ago. What was the German background to this name? The von Stieglitz brothers were pastoralists who farmed mainly in Tasmania and Victoria. Their father was Baron Heinrich Ludwig von Stieglitz who emigrated from the Electorate of Saxony in the German-speaking lands at the beginning of the 1800s and moved to Ireland. In Ireland the baron bought land which he named Lewis Hill. Lewis Hill in the Northern Midlands of Tasmania was an unofficial locality name. One of the von Stieglitz brothers who moved from Ireland to Australia, Francis Walter von Stieglitz, had a property near Avoca, in Tasmania, which he called “Lewis Hill".[1] The Placenames Tasmania website notes that the locality known in the past as Lewis Hill was 'previously Leipsig, old town reserve, as shown on Sprent's map, located on St Pauls River at Lewis Hill.' 'Leipsic' was shown on a list of town reserves in 1845. It was located approximately 5km east of Royal George in the Northern Midlands.
It seems possible that the historical locality name Leipsic came about because of the von Stieglitz brothers, who had a close family connection with the German city of Leipzig ('Leipsic' is a former English spelling for the German city of Leipzig). Many of the ancestors of the von Stieglitz brothers in the 1700s had important positions as lawyers and councillors for the Court of Saxony at the major city of Leipzig in Saxony.[2]
Leipzig Bluff is a 400m high mountain in Tasmania to the south of where Leipsic was. This is the official name of the mountain and has the same spelling as the German city.
A platform at Leipzig Hauptbahnhof (central station), Germany
Source: Image by Erich Westendarp from Pixabay
♦ Notes:
1. Fox (1919), p.799
2. Fox (1919), p.798
♦ References:
Fox, Matt J. (1919). The history of Queensland, its people and industries : an historical and commercial review, descriptive and biographical facts figures and illustrations, an epitome of progress. Retrieved July 22, 2022, from <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-268958857> pp.798-799
Placenames Tasmania. Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment. Leipzig. (Nomenclature Number: 1473M) <www.placenames.tas.gov.au>