Category Archives: German Station

Mary Ann’s Cottage.

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A few years ago, I came across a blog post titled, Musings, where Neil Ennis wrote about his cycling trips around the world. One post from 2010, ‘Along The Old North Road‘, caught my attention while I was searching for information about my Franz family.[1] I found details about a Bed and Breakfast cottage called Mary Ann’s Cottage, which turned out to be the home of my great grandfather’s half-brother, Maurice Schneider, and his wife Mary Ann neé Westaway. I … Continue reading

Missionary Encounters at Moreton Bay.

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This is an amended extract of my story previously published in the Genealogical Society of Victoria’s magazine, ‘Ancestor’ in June 2022 and recently in the June 2025 edition of the Genealogical Society of Queensland’s ‘Generation’ magazine. Part one of the larger story also appeared in my blog in June 2025. The Brisbane penal settlement on Turrbal land, which began in 1825 as a place for the most hardened and second time offenders, was closing down in 1838. Fewer than 300 … Continue reading

The Fever Ship Minerva

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Mum was moving into a retirement unit, and we sat on her bed as she tipped out a box of old photos and cuttings. I picked up some yellowed pages, stapled together in the corner. I flipped through the pages until I came to a longer entry for “FRANZ, Frederick Leopold Theodore”. I read how he was part of a missionary group who arrived in Australia in 1838 where they founded a mission in Moreton Bay at what is now … Continue reading

Louise Christina Schattling.

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‘A little German girl about ten years old … [left his service] because of the brutal treatment she received at the hands of her mistress, who was in the habit of beating her with a whip …  [ she then] showed a large sore on her leg which she swore had been occasioned by the blow of a whip.’ This news item, from the 3 December 1864 edition of the North Australian, was of a court case held in Brisbane … Continue reading