Müller, Florens Theodor Reinhard

Florens Theodor Reinhard Müller (1825-1881), botanist and poet, was born on 26 December 1825 at Dresden, Saxony, son of Georg Heinrich Müller, administrative officer in the Saxon Office of Justice. Theodor was well educated and had some background in botany. He arrived in South Australia in 1849, probably aboard the Australia in September, and worked as a butcher in Adelaide before moving to Victoria in 1852 as a gold digger.

After mining at Bendigo, Müller moved to Back Creek in 1854 and later to goldfields in the Pyrenees. By 1857 he was quartz mining at Maryborough, where he remained until 1861. Müller helped to form German clubs at Maryborough and Back Creek, serving as secretary of both, and was also founding secretary of the short-lived Castlemaine German Club when he moved there in 1861 to work in the nursery and seed shop of Charles Lenne and Edward Nicolai. In September 1862 Müller moved to Melbourne, where he obtained a temporary position as assistant at the Botanic Gardens on 8 October and became active in the Melbourne Turnverein (gymnastics club). In July 1863 he was elected secretary of the newly formed central committee of the German Associations in Victoria.

Müller was best known in Victoria as a poet and writer in German. His 1857 poem, ‘Der Digger’, established his reputation among locals of German origin and was so popular that it was reprinted in 1859 and 1864. At least twenty of his other poems were published in German newspapers in Melbourne, many of them commemorating German meetings, anniversaries and other events held in Victoria. He was awarded a prize for his prologue, Gut Heil!, recited at the first general German gymnastic and song festival, held at Cremorne Gardens in November 1862. He also wrote two short novels, German Jack and Der Gefundene, which were serialized in Victoria Deutsche Presse and published together as Australische Buschgeschichten in 1860 by F. Gelbrecht. Several of his short articles and essays appeared in various Melbourne German-language newspapers.

On 30 April 1869 Müller resigned from the gardens. Returning to Dresden, he worked at the Natural History Museum and at the Royal Polytechnikum as custos of the botanical collection when it was transferred there from the museum. After his return to Saxony, he married Clara Bornowska; the couple had a foster-child Helena Bornowska. In Germany, Müller published some short articles on Australia, a novel, Australische Kolonisten oder Heute so—Morgan so! (1878), and a book on hunting, Jagden in Australien (1878). He died on 4 March 1881 at Dresden and was buried in Trinitätskirche cemetery; his wife and daughter survived him. Müller’s poems and writings were sentimental and patriotic, but had a definite Australian flavour and appealed to the mass of Germans living in Victoria in the 1860s.

Select Bibliography
J. Fletcher in M. Clyne et al (eds), Antipodische Aufklärungen: Festschrift für Leslie Bodi (Frankfurt, Germany, 1987), p 87

This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, (MUP), 2000

McConnel, Ursula Hope

Ursula Hope McConnel (1888-1957), anthropologist, was born on 27 October 1888 at Cressbrook, near Toogoolawah, Queensland, fifth daughter and eighth of ten children of James Henry McConnel, grazier and farmer, and his wife Mary Elizabeth, née Kent, both Queensland born. David Cannon McConnel was her grandfather. Raised at Cressbrook (the family property and Shorthorn stud), Ursula was educated at the Brisbane High School for Girls and later at New England Girls’ School, Armidale, New South Wales, where she took prizes in singing and languages. From 1905 to 1907 she attended courses in history, politics, literature and music at the women’s department, King’s College, London. Although once engaged, she never married, and pursued a career with vigour and dedication.

In her early years McConnel’s academic interests varied. At the University of Queensland (B.A. Hons, 1918; M.A., 1931) she graduated with first-class honours in philosophy and also studied psychology in her brother-in-law Elton Mayo’s department. In 1923 she began a doctorate in anthropology at University College, London, where she came under the influence of (Sir) Grafton Elliot Smith and William Perry. Loneliness and stress brought on an illness and she returned to Australia in 1926 without finishing her thesis.

Supervised by Professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown at the University of Sydney, McConnel began ethnographic research in 1927 among the Wik-Mungkana people on Cape York Peninsula. She visited far North Queensland on ‘four or five’ field-trips, the last in 1934. Australian Aboriginal culture was to be the focus of the bulk of her scholarship; she published numerous articles in Oceania and a book, Myths of the Munkan (Melbourne, 1957). The early 1930s proved the most productive years of her anthropological career, but it was also a period filled with disappointment. Although she received a Rockefeller fellowship (1931-33) to study under Edward Sapir at Yale University, Connecticut, United States of America, McConnel was bitterly frustrated that she failed to be awarded a Ph.D. from University College, London, on the basis of her publications. Moreover, she resented being passed over for academic appointments in Australia.

Financially secure from her investments in wool bonds, McConnel retired to Cressbrook in the mid-1930s. Early in the following decade she moved to Eagle Heights, south of Brisbane, where she continued to examine and document her field-notes and ethnographic collections. She died of a cerebral haemorrhage on 6 November 1957 at Hillcrest Private Hospital, Kelvin Grove, and was cremated with Anglican rites. Her ashes were buried at Cressbrook. The importance of McConnel’s scholarly contribution was recognized after her death. With those of Donald Thomson, her publications form the foundations of present-day anthropological research on western Cape York Peninsula. She had devoted much of her life to this endeavour, driven by a sense of duty and justice towards the Aborigines with whom she had worked.

This article was first published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, (MUP), 2000

Peret Arkwookerum

by John Von Sturmer

Peret Arkwookerum (1924-1978), Aboriginal dancer, was born in 1924 on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, in his mother’s country, centred on Hersey Creek; his father’s land lay north of Edward River. Peret’s principal totem was possum and his dialect Kugu-Mu’inh, one of several in the Kugu-Nganychara group. While still a boy, he was a renowned hunter: his peers recalled that, as children, ‘we would always follow him; we couldn’t go hungry’. As a young man, Arkwookerum achieved the highest ceremonial status and became one of a select coterie known as the Aurukun mission’s ‘field bosses’. Its members organized ceremonies, instructed the young and provided leadership in all spheres. Though Arkwookerum’s knowledge of traditions was encyclopaedic, he was by no means bound by them, and confidently introduced new features into dancing and ceremonial life.

To many, he was the most brilliant dancer in Cape York Peninsula and one of the finest in Australia. His dancing radiated power and commitment, and his performances at Aurukun vitalized his people. Arkwookerum created a series of songs and dances relating to the brolga that were to be accepted in ritual. Somewhat shy and retiring, he remained in his own locality until 1971 when he was taken to visit Cairns. Next year he went to Fiji to dance at the first South Pacific Festival of Arts. He gave public performances in Darwin, at the Aboriginal Arts Board seminar in Canberra in 1973 and on tour with the Queensland Festival of Arts in 1974. His honest explanation was, ‘I am dancing for my land’.

His ‘country’ was his abiding concern. Despite his close kin being split between the Edward River and Aurukun, Arkwookerum had battled for a land claim in the Edward River Aboriginal Reserve for many years. His difficulties were legion, ranging from the issue of legal status, inadequate finance and broken agreements to problems of transport, lack of support from authorities and even instructions to leave the reserve. Peret was intelligent, thoughtful and sceptical by disposition: ‘Silly people’ was his only comment on European perceptions that he was a terrorizing ‘master sorcerer’. In 1977 he travelled to Canberra to talk to officials about his land claims. By the late 1970s, with aid from the Federal government, he was moving steadily towards his objective—an outstation at a coastal site in his mother’s country, with permanent drinking water and the possibility of access by aircraft.

An associate member (1977) of the Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra, Arkwookerum appeared in two films, Dances at Aurukun (1964), made under the auspices of the institute, and Lockhart Festival (1974). He undertook the task of systematically identifying birds from his region and, while in Brisbane in early 1972, explained Kugu-Mu’inh kin terminology. Survived by his wife Tallah, two daughters and three sons, he died on 8 August 1978 at South Kendall River outstation. In the post-burial ceremonies, to the sound of one of Peret’s brolga songs, the spirit was sent off to an underwater sandbank at the mouth of Christmas Creek. Next day the camp was smoked and his possessions distributed or destroyed.

This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 13, (MUP), 1993

Janssen, Willem

by J. W. Forsyth

Willem Janssen (flourished 1603-1628), mariner, of Amsterdam, was, according to Valentijn, a foundling. He received at least enough education to enable him to write a good hand and to become expert in navigation. He is first distinguishable from his many namesakes when, in December 1603, he sailed from Holland for the East as skipper of the small yacht Duyfken in the fleet of van der Hagen. In 1605-06 he took part as her skipper in the first discovery of any part of the Australian coastline when he examined the east coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria from 11°S to 14°S. On his return from that expedition he was desultorily employed as a skipper for several years and served for a time in the squadron commanded by Jan Roossengin. In January 1611 he was appointed an upper-merchant and sailed for home in that grade.

He returned to the East in November 1612 and served in Moluccan waters as an upper-merchant and for a time as governor or commandeur of Fort Henricus on Solor. At the end of 1616 he again went home as upper-merchant and in July 1617 took his discharge. In August he re-enlisted in his former grade but with the promise of early employment as a vice-governor or commandeur at sea. In January 1618 he set out in the Mauritius for Java, and on 31 July called at Cloates Land, which he reported as a new discovery, being ignorant of Mibaise’s earlier sighting of it. His landing party saw, near North-West Cape, footprints and smoke signals: the earliest evidence that Eendracht’s Land was inhabited. On reaching Jacatra he was called into consultation by the governor-general and in March 1619 was appointed to the Council of the Indies. He took part in the operations in which Coen relieved the fort and destroyed the town of Jacatra, and soon afterwards sailed to Tiku where he captured four ships of the English East India Co., which had aided the Javanese. For his part in this he was decorated with a chain of honour.

In June 1620 he was appointed vice-admiral to Robert Adams of an Anglo-Dutch ‘Fleet of Defence’ against the Iberian powers. The fleet made an unprofitable cruise and next year the positions of the senior officers were reversed, Janssen becoming admiral. When the English withdrew from these operations he continued them for a time as admiral of the Dutch ships, but eventually retired to Batavia. In October 1623, the government of Banda having fallen into disorder, he was appointed governor there and took up the office in December. He soon restored the place to order and established churches and schools, financing the schools by a lottery. He served there until February 1627, then returned to Batavia and was appointed commandeur of a fleet for a voyage to Persia. He returned in June 1628, and soon afterwards, when the Mataram laid siege to Batavia, he lent Coen valuable support in its defence, though by reason of his age he was not permitted to face the enemy at the head of troops. In November 1628 he was sent home as one of the three joint-commanders of a fleet which reached Holland in July 1629. On arrival he was sent to report to the States-General and the stadtholder on the state of the Indies, and thereafter he drops out of sight. It does not appear that he ever married.

Janssen was a good disciplinarian, diligent, unassuming and good-tempered. Although he appears to have lacked outstanding ability, his qualities made him a valuable executive officer. By reason of a trick of his speech, he had from contemporaries the nickname ‘Ik zeg, ik zeg’ (I say, I say).

This article was published in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 2, (MUP), 1967

Terra Australis Incognita

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One unintended consequence of the American Revolution was a focus on the peopling of Australia. From the time of antiquity people had thought that Terra Australis Incognita – or an unknown land of the south – existed as a counterweight to the continents north of the equator. Already occupied by Aborigines for some 50,000 years, Australia had been cut-off from the rest of the world by rising sea levels after the end of the last ice age. It was not till 1606 that Europeans first became aware of the continent after a Dutchman, Willem Janszoon, landed on the west coast while seeking new trade routes to the East. However, he failed to realise that it was a separate continent.

In 1644 another Dutchman, Abel Tasman, explored the northern part of the continent and named it New Holland – a name the continent carried for over a hundred years. Tasman had also previously discovered New Zealand in 1642, which the Dutch had named Nieuw Zeelandia, most probably after the Dutch province of Zeeland, but Tasman never set foot on the island and the Dutch never followed up on this discovery.

The Dutch did not colonise Australia for two main reasons. First, they were more interested in trade with the established Asian markets; Australia seemed dry and barren, and so was predominantly used as a navigational aid in the journey from Europe to the East Indies, or otherwise as a stopping point to take on fresh water. Second, the 17th century was a time of war between the European powers and the Dutch had limited extra resources with which to colonise a new continent.

It was not until 1770 that the Englishman, Captain James Cook, having already claimed New Zealand for the British Crown in 1769, did the same for Australia, landing on the hitherto unexplored east coast and naming the territory New South Wales. When it became clear that the American colonies, which had previously served as a dumping ground for prisoners for many decades, were winning their War of Independence, Australia was soon promoted as a place for Britain to rid itself of its unwanted criminals.

In January 1788 a penal colony was set up near Port Jackson (later to be renamed Sydney after the British Home Secretary) to house the 736 convicts that had left England eight months previously. With the prisoners came a number of entrepreneurs seeking adventure and looking to take advantage of an inexpensive labour force. Thus began the proper settlement of Australia.

The indigenous Aborigines were treated like other peoples who had been discovered by European settlers elsewhere in the world – with murderous contempt. It was not uncommon for them to be hunted like animals, and many of them were wiped out further by European diseases to which they had no immunity.

It was not until 1840 that the Maori, the indigenous tribe of New Zealand, accepted sovereignty of the British Crown under the Treaty of Waitangi and became British subjects. Both Australia and New Zealand became a good source of wool and wheat to Britain, as well as providing men to support it during the world wars of the 20th century. Both countries remain tied to Britain to this day as part of the British Commonwealth.

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