QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

The Rosewood Scrub

In the 1860s the new Queensland government began to throw open for settlement many of the pastoral leases taken up in the 1840s and 1850s, writes Robin Kleinschmidt. To the west and southwest of Ipswich there were large pastoral leases in most of the open forest country, and gradually these were resumed for closer settlement. But not all of the available new land was to be easy to develop. The Rosewood Scrub, which extended from Rosewood across the Little Liverpool Range as far as Fernvale, was a region of dense dry vine scrub. It took its name, which was thought to have been first used by Ludwig Leichhardt (others claim it was explorer Allan Cunningham, who found a way across the Main Range via the Gap which now bears his name), from the rosewood trees which grew profusely there. The scrub was so thick it was avoided by the planners of Queensland’s first railway line to Grandchester, which skirted its southern edges. Ironically the township of Rosewood lies just beyond its boundaries. It had been of no use to the holders of pastoral leases, who needed open grazing country, but it provided a refuge and basic living for the demoralised Aboriginal tribe displaced by the pastoralists. Allan Cunningham described it as “impervious brushes” and “impenetrable.” The rapid inflow of German immigrants had come to a temporary halt in 1866 when the government withdrew Heussler’s appointment as the immigration agent in Europe. There had been several reports of unsatisfactory conditions on immigrant ships, and there was concern about Heussler’s business interests impinging upon his government role. Therefore no immigrant ships sailed direct from Hamburg until Robert Sloman began sailings in 1870. Consequently, the first German settlers in the Rosewood Scrub were not new arrivals, but those who had arrived some years before and served out their two years to pay off their fares. Some had been living in Ipswich or German Station. From 1868 the government progressively opened the Rosewood Scrub for selection. It would take men and women of extraordinary determination and persistence to tame such country, make it productive and to carve a living from it. It was mainly Germans who took up the challenge. With the resumption of immigration in 1870 numbers grew rapidly. Most travelled upriver from Brisbane to Ipswich, thence by train to Rosewood or the German settlement of Walloon. From there they made their way to their new lands on foot, carrying their equipment and provisions.

The first area to be opened up was Kirchheim (now Haigslea) on the eastern fringes of the Scrub. Quickly the surveys were completed, and settlements spread to Marburg, Minden, Tallegalla, Lowood, Prenzlau and Fernvale.

The many German place names tell the story of their origins. Most of the newcomers came from the Uckermark, Pomerania and West Prussia. They were very poor. Half of them were unskilled labourers, another fifth were farm labourers, and there were a few tradesmen and landless farmers. But they proved themselves to have the same capacity for hard work, determination and stamina which characterised the immigrants who had preceded them. A condition of their selection of a homestead was that they had to make specified improvements to the holding within five years. The annual rent and payment of a survey fee then gave them ownership of the land. It was more difficult than it may appear. A two-horse single-furrow plough and farmhouse near Rosewood about 1898, with a young child in the foreground looking curiously at the photographer. Image (digital ID 2496) courtesy Queensland State Archives Copyright State of Queensland Isolated farnhouses in the Lowood area, about 1898. Image (digital ID 2512) courtesy Queensland State Archives Copyright State of Queensland

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