to see where Ernest and Augusta fit into the family tree click here
It seems that many in the wider Meurer family had not seen a photo of the original Meurer German immigrants to Australia, Ernest and Augusta. Two photos have surfaced courtesy of William Meurer’s granddaughter, Barbara.
The departure from Germany
Ernest Meurer was born 1830 in Gensungen, a small town in central Germany, his wife Augusta was born 1832 in the town of Gottingen. They married in 1853 in Gottingen and four years later had their first daughter Sophia. One year later, Kirchner supplied tickets for the train from their home town of Gottingen, Hessen, Germany for the port of Bremerhaven. On the 12th August 1858 they sailed aboard the ‘Armin’ bound for Sydney. At that period in Germany there were major upheavals in society and Australia needed more workers. They were recruited in Germany by a Mr Wilhelm Kirchner of Kirchner & Co. as assisted immigrants to work in his new soap and candle factory on the Clarence River, Northern NSW, at a location known as Grafton. The journey aboard the Armin took 89 days and traveled via Cape Town South Africa with 252 other immigrants.
A case of Smallpox was discovered on arrival in Sydney on 9th November, and the passengers and crew were quarantined at north head quarantine station for some weeks. Reports from other Kirchner immigrant ships in the same year talk of food supplies running out on the journey, food rationing, and the immigrants arriving in Sydney in an emaciated condition. All in all it must have been a very unpleasant 3 months especially with a one year old child, and another born on the voyage.
Unfortunately specific original records of their departure from Bremen do not survive, being lost in the bombing of Bremen harbour during World War II.
Eventually they boarded a Coastal Steamer ‘The Petrel’ on 24th November, for the two week journey from Sydney up the north coast and 20 kilometers up the Clarence river to the small settlement of Grafton.
Unfortunately the soap and candle factory was in organisational and financial trouble from 1858 and ultimately closing by mid 1860. It appears that Ernest Meurer probably did not start his new job that he had travelled 13,750 miles (22,130 kilometres) and 3 months on the seas to reach.
Kirchner Factory, Grafton
Life in an isolated country town
Ernest took up work in the growing town of Grafton as an assistant boot & shoe maker. Within a year after arriving in Grafton, around 1859, we find him working for Mr JE Chapman of Cowan Street (who had been in business since 1853).
On 18th August 1860 he re-marries Augusta Heisser at South Grafton, this is apparently to formalize a marriage in Australian law as he had previously married Augusta in 1853 at Gottingen before leaving Germany ¹.
To allow the Meurer’s to purchase land they become naturalised Australians this is certified on 13 March 1861.
After working for Mr Chapman for 4 years in Chapmans Bacon Street shop, Ernest is appointed Foreman in February 1863, running JE Chapman’s new South Grafton branch (close to WE Graham, Storekeeper & Post Office). In 1867 he is recorded in a newspaper as living (or working) on Duke Street, Grafton. In September 1872 he takes over the South Grafton branch and commences his own business the shop being located in the same premises near the Post Office Store on Cowan Street. In July 1873 he moves the premises to a more central location at Skinner Street.
With a relatively large group of Germans living in the frontier town of Grafton the first generation kept their distinct social identity by forming a German Club in 1859. Ernest was a member of the Clubs choir, and he is recorded in the local paper as singing ‘second bass’ at a club event in 1870. Also in 1870 Ernest appears in a newspaper advertisement supporting a fund (German Patriotic Fund) to aid German widows of the Franco-German war.
Between 1857 and 1872 Ernest and Augusta have six daughters and three sons.
Sophia Catherine 1857, born in Germany; Frederica (Freda) 1858, born at Sea; John Jacob (Jack) 1860; Henry John (Harry) 1862; Ernestina Augusta 1864; Elizabeth Eva (Lizzie) 1865; Agnes 1867; Frances (Fanny) 1869; Ernest Louis 1872; the last 7 were born at Grafton.
With at least 80 German families in the Grafton district following the Lutheran Church faith, including Ernest & Augusta, they eventually set to building their own church. In 1874 a committee was established to raise the money to start construction. Ernest is recorded in the local paper as a member of this church committee. The church opened in September 1876, interestingly with a church bell cast from cannons seized from France in the German win over France in the recent war. The bell was promised to the church from Count Bismark.
In 1876 there was quite a bit of competition in the boot making business in Grafton with at least five other boot-makers operating, he decided to apply for a license to sell Colonial Wine in the December 1876 sitting of the licensing court. His application was rejected due to the number of liquor outlets already established at Grafton. He at least received a positive endorsement of his character in the local newspaper from the Magistrates.
Grafton Examiner, 16 Dec 1876
Through the 70’s & 80’s the family appears to become involved in the towns civic business including; the building of a Lutheran Church, in July 1877 he is appointed a Trustee to the local school board at South Grafton, campaigning for a bridge across the Clarence to connect South Grafton with Grafton, donating to the Indian famine fund, and promoting various politicians election campaigns in the newspaper.
On the move
In 1878 they are still in South Grafton but soon move to Casino where again Ernest opens a Boot-making shop, the move to Casino is possibly explained because their eldest daughter Sophia had moved to Casino with her husband Albert Whiteman on or before 1881 to run a Pub.
Sometime before 1884 they move to Ballina. In Ballina he opens a new Boot and Shoe making business.
Before 1884 Ernest is a part of a group of men who form a new Masonic Lodge, “William Manning NSW No34” at Ballina. February 1885 he is living in Ballina when his daughter Ernestina Augusta married Robert Telford of Burrowa at Enmore in Sydney.
On 7th September 1883 he travels by Steamer to Sydney with his wife Augusta.
Their daughter Ernestina marries in Sydney in 1885 and the same year another daughter Elizabeth (Lizzie) marries at Lismore.
In August 1886 Ernest is declared insolvent his Boot & Shoe business at Ballina owing liabilities of £249 12s with assets of £128 13s. In the same year his son Henry (Harry) married in Burrowa, and their daughter Agnes marries at Ballina in 1888.
The last move
Sometime after 1888, Ernest and Augusta move to Sydney and live at 9 Pawley Place, Surry Hills (not far from what will become the expanded Central Railway Station). This must have been quite a change from the isolated Grafton community, two weeks sailing from Sydney and so far from their homeland and other comforts. Surry Hills was at the turn of the century a mixture of middle class and some areas of Edwardian slum with small businesses like tanneries, rag trade clothing, building trades, market gardening scattered throughout the area, coach-building works employing blacksmiths, bodymakers, coach painters and upholsterers, as well as saddlers and harness makers, and bootmakers. Very much a working class suburb. Their son John Jacob (known as Jack) was a also a Bootmaker and he ran his business close to where the elder Meurer’s lived at Surry Hills.
Surry Hills, Sydney – 1900
Their daughter Frances (Fanny) marries in 1898 and son Ernest marries in 1900, both in Sydney.
On 27th June 1900 Ernest passes away at Surry Hills at the age of 71 of Senile Debility Syncope after two years of deteriorating health. Augusta lives on for another 8 years in the same house and passes away on 15th March 1908 of chronic bronchitis, cardiac disease.
Footnotes
27 Jun 1929: Elizabeth Eva Hudson, Ernest’s daughter lodges a claim for administration of the Estate of Ernest Meurer, 20 years after her mothers death.
In 1934 the Ballina Shire Council advertises in the local newspaper that they intend to sell three parcels of land that had been owned by Ernest Meurer, in Ballina to recover a debt for non payment of property rates.
References
¹ Ernest Meurer’s Death Certificate – states the place of marriage as Germany at age 24 (ie 1853)
History of the German Community in the Clarence River District of New South Wales, G. Burkhardt & N. Mackey, 1999
