QUEENSLAND'S GERMAN CONNECTIONS - PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Der Südseekönig The Godeffroy empire’s maritime interests we have met, in the introduction to the emigrant sea traffic to Queensland, but ‘the king of the South Seas’ played a further pivotal role in connecting Queensland with Germany, as Matthew Tesch investigates. At the outset, Godeffroy’s commercial trade was in Western Europe and the West Indies, with German linens a principal export item, and return goods to Hamburg including copper, coffee, wine, figs, and sugar from Cuba. No ship-owner has ever been patient with empty holds, and the Godeffroy vessels which brought migrants to the Fifth Continent either loaded cargoes of South Australian minerals or carried on to South America to load guano or phosphates for the return to Germany. The cycle was often repeated annually. Under Johann Cesar VI, trading posts were established in Havana, and at Valparaiso on the Chilean coast, and he built a fleet of trading ships that numbered 27 at its peak. Ship names differ according to record, with some (not all) suffixed with ‘Godeffroy’ – most drawn from family members, relations and districts of personal significance.Amongst the fleet were the barques Johann Cesar , Susanne Godeffroy , Peter Godeffroy, Wandrahm , Iserbrook and Victoria . After the firm bought its own shipyard in Hamburg – the Reiherstiegwerft – in 1849, three years later it also obtained drawings from a New York designer for a vessel which JC VI named La Rochelle after the hometown of his forebears. It is a footnote to history now that the clipper ships – famous for their annual races bringing the first tea crop to Britain from China – also drove hard outbound, on the emigrant trade to Australia.

With La Rochelle’ s launch in 1855, Godeffroy trade expanded into the Pacific via Indo-China, after negotiations by his agent, August Unshelm, in Valparaiso, who sailed out to the Navigator Islands, The Friendly Islands, Fiji, and finally Tahiti. The Pacific proved very profiable and in 1860, a central outpost, directing Pacific operations was established in Apia in Samoa, including a shipyard and repair facilities. In the manner of the times, commerce and politics were interwoven, and complex barter and other deals were done. Reports say Godeffroy ships supplied arms from a subsidiary firm to warring factions in Samoa in exchange for 25,000 acres (101km 2 ) of the finest farmland, producing plantations of copra, coconut oil and cotton. More plantations were established on Yap, an entire island in the Ellice Group was acquired for its harbour, and trading posts set up in the Bismarck Archipelago near New Guinea. The expanding interests helped focus the attention of the German government on the South Seas and drew its support in furthering colonial policy, with backing through merger and partner companies – and shareholders such as Otto von Bismarck. Godeffroy ships were never insured, and their captains were paid commission of 3% on the net profit of each voyage. The ships left Apia under sealed orders to disguise their intentions from competitors. One of Godeffroy’s more innovative devices was the introduction of debased South American currencies as the sole means of exchange – thereby controlling the local finances of his trade. Godeffroy also took advantage of an immigration scheme to southern Africa and in the four years after 1859, 36 ships brought hundreds of German families to the Cape region and Natal. With a keen eye for opportunity, Godeffroy ships took passengers to the Californian and Australian gold rushes, and developed a good name in the emigrant trade to Queensland for the higher on board standards set by the firm. The boom times for Godeffroy lasted 20 years, but the emigrant trade to Queensland slumped 1867 1870, the European financial crisis of 1873 took its toll, and the firm was liquidated by decade’s end. The Godeffroy dynasty was intricately connected to many strata of Hamburg’s civic, political, social and sporting life. In 1836, JC VI, with one of his brothers and five enthusiasts, formed a rowing club which is the oldest in Europe and exists to this day. He planted extensive woodlands in the Iserbrook district, near his country residence outside Hamburg, established a horse stud, and spent five years as a member of the Hamburg parliament. His sea captains gave him the means to indulge other, loftier but no less commercial, interests too.

La Rochelle in her prime.

La Rochelle was among the fastest of all, eclipsing passage times made by a more famous second hand Godeffroy acquisition, Sovereign of the Seas , and she delivered many of the Germans named in these pages to Moreton Bay: settlers and visitors.

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