LANDS LEFT BEHIND in 1865
EXTRACT from “The Passage of Time: The 1865 Voyage of the Susanne Godeffroy” pp. 6–8
by Noel & Delwyn Bergman © 2016
When the ship “Susanne Godeffroy” departed Hamburg on the 6th May 1865, the passengers came from many parts of Europe. Hannover, Holstein, Kurhessen, Nassau, Schleswig, Württemberg and Preussen. Predominately most were from Preussen. Preussen or Prussia was a German Kingdom, a collection of states, fiefdoms, Principalities and Provinces. These included Brandenburg, East Prussia, Pommern (Pomerania), Posen, Rhineland, Saxony, Silesia (Schlesien), Westphalia, and West Prussia. The northern states of Schleswig and Holstein only formally became part of Prussia after 1866. Prior to 1865, there was a loose confederation recognised worldwide as Germany, but it was only after Bismarck helped to unify this confederation into the German Empire in 1871 that the term Germany became widely accepted.? After WWII many of the eastern provinces of Germany became part of Poland. Of the ones mentioned above, these include East Prussia, West Prussia, Silesia, Pommern, and Posen.
Why did 533 people willingly leave their homes to board a ship to travel to places unknown?
Letters by emigrants back to family and friends in Germany were common, telling them how good life was in Australia. All about the living conditions, fashions, weather and wages. How things were different to those in Germany and encouraging them to immigrate also. Even to the extent of sending seeds and flowers back to Germany, which the recipients planted and raised, wondering what would develop. The families, in Germany, giving an account of their lives and hardships in return.
How did these people, often with very young children travel from their home to Hamburg?
One of the families in particular needed to travel over 588 kilometres even before they boarded the “Susanne Godeffroy”. There would have been various modes of transport used for this section of the journey, foot, wagon, railways and on barges on canals and rivers. The train network in Germany came into being around 1847 and covered much of Germany. The Rhine, Danube & Elbe, are the three major large rivers, which highlight the network of waterways in Germany. They are connected by a chain of canals in the north and by the river Main & the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal in the south. The lakes regions of Mecklenburg & Brandenburg near Berlin also contribute to this waterway network.
The majority of our passengers, didn’t just rise one day and decide to emigrate. Some of them actually planned to emigrate for many years before they actually did. But what is a certainty, is that they needed to apply to their Government months before their planned departure date. The documents needed to be supplied included, proof of Birth/Baptism, Marriage, Release from Military Service, if a male, good character reference and Smallpox inoculation documents. They also needed to provide proof that they were leaving no debt behind or dependent persons, who would have been a burden on the state. Along with this, they had to renounce their German State Citizenship. All in all, something that wouldn’t have been taken lightly. Of course some didn’t comply and left without permission.
Another side to the coin, is that some had actually applied to go to one country, then ended somewhere different. Some of the countries of choice were: Russia, North America, South America, South Africa, Canada, New Zealand and, of course, Australia. One family, the Stümer/Kerkow Family, we found actually emigrated to Russia first, and later, in 1884, they emigrated to Minnesota, USA. Another family, applied to go to North America, only to end up on the “Susanne Godeffroy”.
What was happening in the world that influenced their decision as to where they would migrate to? The American Civil War was in its closing stages in 1865. Some immigrants escaped being drafted into the German Military, only to be drafted into one of the warring armies on arrival in America. Did they hear about this? Did this influence them? Canada remained a collection of separate British colonies until Confederation in 1867 and, the instability during this period, may have been a contributing factor for not going there. With regards to South Africa, there had also been wars in the 10 years before 1865, so may have been eliminated for this reason. Russia on the other hand, held appeal because of the times when Catherine the Great had ruled. She was born in Pomerania Prussia, her father was a German Prince and her mother was born in Holstein. She herself married Peter III of Russia, and ruled there herself after his death and there was an affiliation between the two powers. While South America was originally settled by Spanish and Portuguese. It was after the wars of independence during the late 18th and early 19 centuries, that Italians and many of the other nationalities emigrated in large numbers. While many Germans did emigrate there, again it is possible that unrest contributed to the decision to make Australia their home.
What was happening in their lives to initiate such a momentous upheaval? Many of these people had very young families or were quite elderly themselves. Many of them left loved ones behind, never to see them again. For others, starting the ‘chain migration’ momentum, with other family members and friends also emigrating later, as some themselves had followed others before them. There is no one reason, but each family would have had their own reasons. We will explain some of them here.
At that time, many of the people were farmers, who worked for other people, as day labourers and indentured workers. Few owned their own lands. If they did, this land had become over time, due to hereditary laws and customs, either handed down to one person in the family, otherwise known as Primogeniture, thus making it necessary for other family members to make their own way, or broken up between several siblings and the land becoming too small to be viable. The lure of the possibility of owning their own land must have been irresistible. “For typical working people in Germany, who were forced to endure land seizures, unemployment, increased competition from British goods, and the repercussions of the failed German Revolution of 1848, prospects in the United States seemed bright. It soon became easier to leave Germany, as restrictions on emigration were eased. As steamships replaced sailing ships, the transatlantic journey became more accessible and more tolerable. As a result, more than 5 million people left Germany for the U.S. during the 19th century.” This would have been equally applicable to those who immigrated to Australia and New Zealand. The German Revolution of 1848 was a series of protests and rebellions in the German States. The rebels were demanding political freedom, democracy and freedom from censorship.
When Queensland became a separate state in 1859, the government quickly realised that they needed workers to encourage economic growth. They looked to England and Europe, Gold had been discovered in Queensland, which was then part of NSW; then more discoveries after Queensland separated from NSW in 1859. Single men were more likely to go to the goldfields, whereas families were more likely to settle on the land. So, families were encouraged to emigrate.
Emigrants were offered incentives. This was in the form of Land Orders, and the ability to select land under various schemes.
The Queensland Government employed German Nationals to travel to Germany, with explicit instructions to make arrangements with shipping companies to bring families to Queensland in order to help the fledgling economy. One of these was Johann Christian Heussler. He himself emigrated from Germany in 1854. That same year, he set up a trading company called ‘Heussler & Co’. As part of this business, along with his partner Frederic Altwicker, they actively travelled around the Darling Downs, expounding the virtues of German labour to the squatters and land owners. Altwicker died in 1955 and Heussler formed a new business with a new partner, Arthur Harvey, called ‘Heussler, Harvey & Co’. Early in 1857, their first consignment of German labourers arrived in Moreton Bay on board the ship “Alster”. This was followed by further ships bringing more German labourers over the next few years. In 1859, he came to the attention of the new Queensland Government and the following year, 1860, he was appointed as “Emigration Agent” for the Colony of Queensland on the Continent of Europe. “In this capacity, he returned to his homeland on a two-year mission, promoting immigration to Queensland. He selected the Hamburg shipping firm, Johann Caesar Godeffroy und Sohn who had a proven record by their activity in the South Seas, including Australia.” Events in Australia required his return to Moreton Bay in 1863, and this ended his role as a travelling agent in Germany, but he remained as Emigration Agent until 1866. He is attributed with bringing over 6,000 German emigrants to Queensland. The train network was well advanced throughout Germany, and ‘recruiting trains’ were organised to travel to far flung regions, leaflets were handed out, and people given information about how to travel to Queensland and the benefits that awaited them.
Another factor, was the constant threat, perceived or real, for the males to be conscripted into the armed forces. Compulsory Military Service for men was usually between the ages of 19 and 25 until he reached the age of 50. Of course, at different times, age and the length of service changed. In 1814, when Conscription was instituted in Prussia, service was for 7 years, of which 3 would be in the field army (4 in the cavalry), starting at the age of 21. The rest of his time would be served in the reserves. To highlight this military atmosphere at the time, between the 1st February 1864 to the 30th October 1864, Prussian forces crossed the border into Schleswig. This was referred to as the Second Danish War. By the Peace of Vienna (October 1864), Christian IX ceded Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia and Austria. Prussia and Austria then quarrelled with each other over the newly won territories and, as a result of Prussia’s victory over Austria in the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866, both Schleswig and Holstein became part of Prussia. This arrangement left the Danish-speaking majority of North Schleswig discontent under Prussian rule. For this reason, several passengers emigrated to evade military service from this area.
Contrary to popular belief, we have found in our research that Religious Persecution was not a major contributing factor for the passengers on the 1865 voyage of the “Susanne Godeffroy”. Of course there could be exceptions, but we found no documentary evidence to support those claims. In the early 19th century, there was some immigration to Australia for religious reasons. The South Australian German immigrants, who came in 1838, were commonly known as the “Old Lutherans”, and were the main group who emigrated for these reasons. To explain who the Old Lutherans were is an involved and lengthy subject, but it basically comes down to Friedrich Wilhelm III, who created a united religion in 1799. After more than 20 years of effort, a common liturgical agenda was finally published in 1821, which called for all Protestant congregations, the Calvinists and Lutherans, to worship under the one new church. He had found that as a Calvinist, he could not take Holy Communion with his wife, who was a Lutheran. This was one of the main reasons he wanted a united State Church. A number of Lutheran Pastors and their parishioners refused to comply, and worshiped under the old creed. Baptisms and marriages were not considered legal when performed by these pastors. Since insistence upon the old Lutheran form of worship was classed as civil disobedience after the merger, many of those people chose to emigrate in order to have freedom of choice.
Another contributing factor was the unemployment caused in villages and small towns owing to the effects of the Industrial Revolution upon the craftsmen, e.g. tinsmiths, blacksmiths. The Industrial Revolution, which occurred in England around 1780, took a few decades to spread to Europe. Factories were able to turn out small items, such as pots and pans and farming implements, cheaper than the small village craftsman could produce them. Along with this, due to the mechanisation of farming threshing machines, steam traction engines caused unemployment. This was followed in the mid 1860s with what is termed the ‘Second Industrial Revolution’, also known as the ‘Technological Revolution’. It is considered to have begun around the time of the introduction of Bessemer Steel. The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron.
Some of the passengers on the ship, were old enough to have lived through the disastrous effects of the Potato Blight, which not only ravaged the British Isles during the years 1845–1849, but also parts of Europe, Germany included. To give you an example, “… the effect of the crisis on Ireland is incomparable to all other places, causing one million deaths, up to two million refugees, and spurring a century-long population decline. Excluding Ireland, the death toll from the crisis is estimated to be in the region of 100,000 people. Of this, Belgium and Prussia account for most of the deaths, with 40,000-50,000 estimated to have died in Belgium, with Flanders particularly affected, and about 42,000 estimated to have perished in Prussia. The remainder of deaths occurred mainly in France, where 10,000 people are estimated to have died as a result of famine-like conditions.” This set many a German mind to thinking about emigration.
After arriving in Hamburg, it was often required for them to stay in accommodation near to the wharves, until their ship was ready to sail. When ready to board, they were taken by boat and literally hoisted aboard the sailing vessels which were anchored further out in the Harbour.
In conclusion, as we mentioned before, there is no one reason for these people leaving their homes, except for the betterment of their lives and their families. Their prospects had they stayed in Germany, may have been very different.
However, the countless descendants of those 533 brave emigrants on the 1865 voyage of the “Susanne Godeffroy”, have possibly enjoyed a better way of life wherever they may live. We are sure, while it is only natural to try to discover ones roots, they are grateful for decisions made long ago.