Circling the Wagons

Migration is the result of push and pull factors and the German settlers who eventually ended their journey in the district of Jindera in the 1860s experienced both. Schism in the Lutheran church and economic factors drove the German settlers from Prussia to the colony of South Australia and the attractiveness of the NSW Robertson […]

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A Trunk Tale

This trunk, in its simplicity, symbolises one family’s search for and achievement of a new life. It was owned by Johann George Krautz (1833-1921) a 32 year old shoemaker who, with his wife Anna (1825-1879) and four children immigrated from Preilack in Prussia in 1865 aboard the Iserbrook bound for Port Adelaide. After the death […]

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Riding the Rails to Prosperity

In January 1888 a thirty-mile stretch of train track was opened with much pomp and ceremony on the western border of New South Wales. It’s hard to imagine now but the construction of this infrastructure, when the only modes of transport were bullock train, camel, and horse and cart, was vital and revolutionary in its […]

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An ‘Afghan’ Cameleer’s Life and Times

Shamroze Khan was born in 1877 in the Punjabi town of Peshawar, in what was then British-ruled India. In 1905 he moved to Broken Hill where he first worked as a cameleer carting freight to stations in the West Darling area with Zaidullah Fazullah, a fellow Punjabi from Ghorghushti. His new life in Australia presented […]

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