QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

“A public man” in civic life from Beenleigh to Bundaberg

The recognition helped him expand the market along the eastern seaboard through a network of distributors. In 1904 he purchased the distillery but continued as manager of the plantation and mill, and retained ownership even after he left Beenleigh until selling it in 1917 to Thomas Brown and Sons. In his role on the council and as chairman of a number of local associations Albert Kleinschmidt was very much in the public eye. In 1910 he was president of the Logan Farming and Industrial and Progress Association, comprised of the owners of all the region’s nine sugar mills (by that time all of German background) and leading cane farmers. Dissatisfied with government intervention on the issues of wages and conditions for employees in a constantly threatened sugar industry, they instead investigated relocating their mills and farms to the German South Sea Islands colonies in New Guinea. Appointed as their representative, Albert sailed north on the Prinz Sigismund, and on arrival was given every assistance and courtesy by the colony’s governor, Dr Hahl. The only positive outcome was that in 1913 Albert, in partnership with brother Otto and brother-in law Carl Rehfeldt, paid 4,000 Marks for 1,000 acres (404ha) of virgin land 27miles (43km) from Rabaul and established there a coconut plantation and copra plant. Known as Tavilo (‘the place where pigs roam’), it boasted no less than 12,500 trees by 1919. It remained in the Kleinschmidt family until its sale to Burns Philp in the 1960s. Today it is the site of a major cocoa research facility. Both Albert and Otto were passionate about the potential of New Guinea, and made many visits to the plantation. At the end of 1908, the Beenleigh Plantation closed and the mill also ceased operation. Albert still owned the distillery but was ready for a new challenge and, a year later, was approached by the Rosedale Progress Association. The outcome was the Baffle Creek Sugar and Trading Company. Baffle Creek (about 35 miles / 56km northwest of Bundaberg) was a settlement of German Apostolic families brought to Queensland in 1907 by Bishop Niemeyer of Hatton Vale, who agreed to grow sugar cane for a new mill. Albert bought the Beenleigh equipment and in 1910 transported it north by steamer. There he built not only the new mill and office but also a whole township, with a general store and butcher shop, barracks for men’s accommodation, a workers’ dining room, cottages for workers with families, and a saw mill. In 1913 his representations to the state Department of Education resulted in the opening of a school in the township, which was called not Baffle Creek, but Wartburg , the name of his house. It retains the name to this day.

The Baffle Creek business was a family concern. Company Secretary was Albert’s son-in-law Joe Silcock, the mill engineer his son Hermann, builder of the entire infrastructure was nephew Albert Lohrisch of Beenleigh, who moved his family north for two years, and even won the government contract to build the new school. Albert had imposing personal presence, was an effective public speaker, and a gentleman noted for his courtesy as well as his drive and energy. In the Baffle Creek community he was the acknowledged leader, acting as interpreter for newly-arrived Germans, arranging naturalisation ceremonies and conducting Justice of the Peace duties. Baffle Creek sugar mill (left) and Wartburg (centre) in about 1915. Image courtesy Kleinschmidt family collection

However his personal life was beset by tragedy. Apart from the death of his first son, three of his 12 children died in infancy or childhood. Before his family could move into Wartburg , his wife contracted a serious kidney illness, dying in 1911. That same year, the mill had its first small crush and, despite a disastrous flood in 1913, the mill was operating on a sound financial basis until in 1916 the government set up the Cane Pricing Board which regulated, among other matters, the price paid by millers to farmers for cane. It spelled the end for most of Queensland’s small mills and, after a 9,000 ton crush in 1917, the Baffle Creek Sugar and Trading Company went into liquidation in early 1918, a sad end to a brave venture in an isolated area of the state. Albert was 61 and had little taste for renewed public effort. In 1912 he had taken up 300 acres (121ha) of very fertile land at Blackwater Creek, a little north of Baffle Creek. With son Ferdie he established a farm there before moving back to Baffle Creek where he lived quietly with his second wife running a small dairy. Well into his 80s, he retired in 1940 to Brisbane, passing away in 1943. A life begun in a small Uckermark village had taken him to a new land and brought him high esteem and success in his public life before fading away into a relatively obscure but happy old age.

137