German Missionaries in Australia

 

 

 

In Germany

 

Friedrich August Hagenauer was born in a small township near Gera, Thuringia. His mother died in 1840, when he was just 11. From the age of 14 he worked in his father's trading business for two years and afterwards became assistant surveyor (1845-1846) on the construction of a railway from Saxony to Bavaria. He worked as a weaver in Greiz (1847-1849) and then, still in in twenties, moved to the Moravian settlement of Ebersdorf to manage a weaving plant (1850). He began to study medicine and became a teacher in the Ebersdorf boy's school. From this period (1854 - 1857) survives a 'Poesiebuch' with entries in German, French and English from his pupils and friends.¹ He clearly had a great deal of initiative and was recommended for mission service in August 1856. When the call came for two missionaries to Australia in 1857, he was selected (over Rev. A. F. C. Täger, who wanted to be re-appointed after the Lake Boga experiment) although a preference had been expressed for someone who was an English speaker and for a carpenter, and Hagenauer was neither. He was ordained in Herrnhut (6 January 1858) and left for Australia to accompany Rev. Friedrich Wilhelm Spieseke who was to be in charge of the new mission.²

 

Ebenezer

 

Spieseke and Hagenauer arrived in London on 29 January, and departed for Melbourne on 15 February 1858, where they arrived on 14 May 1858 after a 78-day ocean voyage on Black Swan and seven days in quarantine.³ Governor Barkly was unimpressed with the inexperienced missionaries and found them 'as helpless as children' and reluctant to embark on their inland voyage.⁴

 

They left Melbourne for the Wimmera on 15 June 1858 where they met up with friends of the previous Moravian mission.⁵ and ⁶ After inspecting a number of sites they eventually settled near Antwerp to form the Ebenezer mission. Once the land was secure, they were allowed to request a bride each from Germany to help them in their work. Spieseke claimed that he had been away from Germany for too long, and declined to nominate any women. Hagenauer suggested the names of three women he considered suitable, but none of these women became his wife rather.⁷ The Moravian sister Louise née Knobloch (1834 - 1917), who had been a candidate to marry Spieseke, was sent as Hagenauer's bride and they married on 15 June 1861. ⁸

 

Soon afterwards Hagenauer conducted an exploratory journey to Gippsland for the Presbyterian Church (July to August 1861). He undertook this without informing the Moravian Elders and felt greatly pained by the subsequent reprimand from Herrnhut.⁹ The Hagenauers left Ebenezer in December 1861 with the intention to establish a Presbyterian-funded mission in Gippsland, with permission from Herrnhut.

 

Ramahyuck

 

A mission was started on the Avon River but met with opposition from neighbouring settlers and the land was resumed. It took until 1863 for Ramahyuck to be established on the shores of Lake Wellington next to Strathfieldsaye property.

 

Hagenauer was reinforced with a Moravian missionary teacher Carl Wilhelm Kramer during 1865 and most of 1866. During this time John Green at Corranderk claimed his first convert, William Barak (24 February 1865¹⁰) and in 1866 Green baptised two converts whom Hagenauer claimed as his. Hagenauer took a dim view of this competition and remained very dismissive of Corranderk. In March 1866 he claimed his 'first fruit' at Ramahyuck with the baptism of James Mathew.¹¹

 

Kramer’s posting to Ramahyuck was only temporary as he was one of four Moravian missionaries who had been specifically sent out to Australia to establish an inland mission. When the expedition was finally able to set off in mid-1866 Hagenauer was very annoyed at losing a helper at Ramahyuck, for this left him with much more work. After the failure of Kopperamanna mission in 1868 Kramer returned to Ramahyuck. He married in 1870 and in 1874 was transferred to Ebenezer, by which time his relationship with Hagenauer had deteriorated.¹² Kramer’s replacement, August Hahn and his wife, also had problems working with Hagenauer and quit the mission in 1880, leaving Hagenauer and his wife Louise as the only missionaries on the station for over twenty years until the mission closed.

 

To document his success at Ramahyuck Hagenauer kept a visitors' book, which is filled with compliments about the mission demonstrating that it was a popular visitor destination, including a visit from Anthony Trollope in 1873.¹³

 

Official capacities

 

In 1869 Hagenauer formally joined the Presbyterian Church who were paying his wages, but continued to profess his dedication and loyalty to the Moravian church.¹⁴ The Church of England appointed him as superintendent of the Lake Tyers mission in 1871, and he also became the president of the Moravian missions in Australia (1877 to 1899), which meant he was reporting to three churches as well as supervising Ramahyuck.

 

In 1885 Hagenauer travelled to North Queensland on behalf of the Moravian Church in Germany to scout for new opportunities to establish mission there. He took up current policy debates by proposing to train north Queensland Aboriginal labour to replace the South Pacific Islanders who were getting imported to Queensland. As a result the Queensland government established Bloomfield River in 1886, however the Moravians found the financial commitment of the Queensland government unsatisfactory and did not take on the mission (which was devolved to the Lutherans in 1887). The Moravians did enter the north Queensland mission field in association with the Presbyterian Church, with Mapoon (1891), Weipa (1898), Aurukun (1904) and Mornington Island (1914).

 

After the establishment of Mapoon and Weipa Rev. Johann Flierl, the founder of Cape Bedford mission (later Hopevale), suspected that the Moravians, who were collaborating with the Presbyterians, got a better deal from the Queensland government and approached Hagenauer. Hagenauer assured Flierl that the English mission committees received no better treatment, and that the constitution acts of the Australian colonies prevented the permanent alienation of land except by sale as freehold title, and since neither an English nor a German mission society would want to spend such money, the reservation of land was always insecure and impermanent. Hagenauer could only advise Flierl to be parsimonious, to carefully record and document all expenses for public auditing, and to trust in the Lord.¹⁵ This piece of advice was drawn from his own experience at Ramahyuck as he was on occasion berated for his expenditure and had to account for his spending to various bodies.

Read the translation

Personal and Profession attitudes

 

In a letter of reference for Hagenauer dated 1856, Hagenauer was said to get along well with his colleagues, however, in the mission field there were ill-feelings between him and some of his fellow missionaries. At times he expressed his frustration towards his superiors in letters. He was said to be physically not very strong and suffered from overwork and stress. His voluminous correspondence occasionally reveals a slipping grasp of German (his native language), with a propensity towards English expression in his German letters. Both personally and professionally he was a devout Christian, who saw the world through the lens of religion.

 

On the question whether to prioritise the aim to civilize or to christianize, Hagenauer took issue with 'pious Christians who confuse Europeanisation with Christianisation'.¹⁶ However he forbade corroborees at Ramahyuck. This led to tensions with the ethnographer Alfred Howitt who pre-arranged staged corroborees conducted partly in English to coincide with his visits in 1883 and 1884. Hagenauer prevented such corroborees in 1885, 1886 and 1887.¹⁷

 

Besides his obligations to religious bodies, Hagenauer also became a member of the colonial government’s Board for the Protection of the Aborigines (BPA), and thus mixed religious and secular work. As the superintendent of Ramahyuck Hagenauer had been reporting to the BPA and when he became the Superintendent of the Moravian Mission in Australia as a consequence of a 1877 “Royal Commission on the Aborigines”, his ties to the government became closer.¹⁸

 

Hagenauer was asked to convene a meeting of all managers of Aboriginal stations of the colony to provide the government with advice on how to draft a new law to control the so-called ‘half-caste’ population of the colony, who were seen to be a drain on colonial resources.¹⁹ Hagenauer subsequently became part of the government committee that drafted the so-called ‘Half-Caste Act’ of 1886.²⁰ This Act ejected all non-‘full-blood’ Aborigines under the age of 35 from Victorian mission and government stations.

 

The BPA were pleased with Hagenauer’s work and temporarily appointed him to the office of the General Inspector mid-1889, whilst Captain A.M.A. Page was on leave. Hagenauer had previously declined this position, however, his involvement with the BPA became even closer in the following year when he was appointed to the position of Secretary. With his long time involvement in Aboriginal affairs of the colony he was seen as the perfect candidate as he claimed to know the lives and histories of all Aboriginal Victorian individuals and families.²¹

 

As a missionary and BPA Secretary Hagenauer had a great influence over the lives of Indigenous people, and he became feared among Aboriginal Victorians. A member of parliament claimed with some hyperbole:

 

'the blacks there [Warrnambool] would rather see the devil himself than old Hagenauer coming amongst them, because every visit the inspector paid them was followed by some treatment which was distressful to the blacks. Instead of his being a protector, the blacks regarded him with a pious horror.'²²

 

Reactions to Hagenauer's harsh control at Ramahyuck included women inciting walk-offs and other people preferring to live off the confines of the mission station.²³ Bessy Flower, a well-known Indigenous woman in the Colony of Victoria who was originally from Western Australia, initially had a convivial relationship with Hagenauer but eventually preferred to live off the mission rather than be under the control of Hagenauer.²⁴

Rev. and Mrs Hagenauer

Source: Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria, Accession Nr.  H31885 Image no. a15496

 

Descendants

 

The Hagenauers had nine children. The oldest son, Theopilus, was sent back to Germany at the age of ten to continue his education and died shortly after of scarlet fever.²⁵ The other children attended Scot's college in Melbourne rather than the Kleinwelka school for Moravian children. In 1881 five of the Hagenauer children were enrolled at Ramahyuck state school taught by Mr. Bailley: Johannes (age 14), Alfred (age 12), Hermann (age 10) Ellen (age 8) and August (age 6).²⁶

 

Hagenauer died at Sale at the age of 81 after 51 years of missionary service.²⁷

 

Mary Louise Hagenauer married Henry Robert Disher, a son of the family who in 1870 had acquired the stately property adjoining Ramahyuck Mission, Strathfieldsaye (established in 1854). Their son bequeathed the property to the University of Melbourne for agricultural research and it is now managed by the Australian Landscape Trust and on the Bataluk Cultural Trail.²⁸

 

Ellen Hagenauer married the director of the Perth Zoo, Ernest Albert Le Souef (1869-1937) in 1897 and had five children. Both Ellen Le Soeuf and their eldest daughter Mildred kept detailed diaries. The Le Soeuf papers in Battye Library include a 'Moravian missionaries' file regarding Ramahyuck.²⁹

 

 

 

Translation of a letter from Hagenauer to Flierl, November 1898

 

Board for Protection of Aborigines,

City Bank Chambers,

Melbourne,

November 24 1898

 

To:

Herrn Missionar J. Flierl, Tanunda, South Australia

 

Esteemed missionary! [Sehr geehrter Herr Missionar!]

Your valued letter of the 10th instant has properly reached me and I hasten to answer to your important questions as well and as clearly as is in my powers. First of all I am pleased to convey to you an official annual report that has been submitted to parliament here a few days ago, from which you may learn about the current position of the mission among the Aborigines here. As general inspector of Aborigines and Secretary of the above office not only do I know every Aboriginal in this colony, but also conduct their entire government administration which enables me to do for the blacks and the missionaries what right and justice demands.

 

The portrayal of the insecure external circumstance and the great expense of your own and all other missions among the Australian Aborigines, which your letter contains, are well known to me and it was just this point which prevented me from taking up the site as a mission station which you later took on from Cooktown and have so far conducted under the Lord's merciful hand. Your Committee and the Inspector of Neuendettelsau ['New-Dettelsau'] are quite right regarding the high costs of the Australian mission and the insecurity of tenure of the stations. But this is a purely German perspective and can only be decided between two options.

1^st To save the expense and give up the missions completely (from which the merciful God and gracious Saviour protect us).

2^nd To conduct the mission as economically as possible in order to save countless souls and lead them to the Lord Jesus Christ, and at the same time to accept the risk regarding the insecurity of investment and land tenure.

Going by the Constitution Acts of the Australian Colonies it seems to be impossible to acquire land for [mission] stations as property, except land that has been purchased for cash money, for which of course an inviolable title is granted. Of course no German or even English mission society would ever spend money for that.

The usual position in all the colonies seems to be simply this: the government reserves the land for the blacks for an indeterminate time and is very happy for the mission societies to do the mission work on such land and in most cases to either pay for all buildings and fences or at least to shoulder a good part of it. This is the case on both stations, Mapoon and Weipa in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Of course the missions and their societies must be careful with their expenses but often some expenses are unavoidable. It is necessary to keep a precise account of all expenses and to number and retain all receipts ['vouchers'] so that they can be officially audited, as you can see from the report I attach today. If income from land and stock on these stations is received it is doubtlessly best to use these to cover expenses, and by precise accounting it has been the case on most stations that all expenses could be covered. Of course I have no idea how it was and is at your station of Bethel near Cooktown³⁰, but I can see from the report submitted to the parliament in Brisbane, that you as supervising ['aspecierender'] missionary gave a clear representation of the expenses and in this you have acted very wisely because subsequently you can draw this to the attention of the officials at any time. About the insecurity of the position of the missionaries who you say are considered aliens neither the committees at home nor the missionaries themselves need to worry, because the English committees are by no means treated any better, but we may all rest assured that right and justice is maintained in these colonies, if all of us missionaries fulfil our duties faithfully the existing difficulties will be swept aside when we least expect it. 'The Lord sits on the throne and conducts everything well'.³¹

The report mentioned in the Brisbane parliament by Parry Octen³² is at any rate very positive and shows how well the office is disposed towards your Bedford mission and your esteemed Brothers themselves. My view of the whole question is to make the best of the thing and to cheerfully continue to labour in the name of the Lord.

With best regards I remain

yours in brotherly solidarity ['verbundener Mitarbeiter']

F. A. Hagenauer

Source: 1.6. 35 Reuther, Georg, 1861-1912, Pers. Korresp. Vorl. Nr. 4.93/5, Neuendettelsau

 

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