Page 14 - Pharmacy History 29 July 2006

Austalian pioneer settlers from Germany
Germans were on the first fleet which sailed into Port Jackson on 26 January 1788 and two hundred years later they were among the crews of the tall ships that celebrated that momentous event.
Revered, hated, welcomed and feared, Germans have made their presence felt throughout modern Australian history. During the first 150 years of white settlement, Germans were the only national group, apart from the British, who made more than a token contribution to the development of this continent.
Originally welcomed as hardy pioneers, German settlers were responsible for discovering and opening up vast tracts of land. German scientists and entrepreneurs put their shoulders to the wheel of Australian commerce and prospered as the nation grew.
But as the German empire expanded into the Pacific, and Britain and Australia were drawn into two world wars, perceptions of Germany and its people changed and immigrants were caught in the crossfire between the old and new worlds.
In Australia there is a widespread belief that our history is the history of Anglo-Saxons, Scots and Irish, along with the Aborigines. This is not correct, especially if one considers the con- tribution made to all aspects of our way of life by people such as Baron Sir Ferdinand von Müller, the great botanist and explorer, General Sir John Monash, Engineer and World War One hero, Bert Hinkler, the pioneer aviator, Ludwig Leichhardt, the explorer and so on. These famous names have one thing in common; they were all of German descent.
At the beginning of the 20th Century, people of German birth or German origin amounted to over one-eighth of the population of Queensland.
Here is the story of one of them...
Staubwasser
– apotheker
by Dr Owen Harris
Frederick Maria Staubwasser, German engineer, Australian dispenser and hospital administrator.
In researching the story of Frederick Staubwasser, I was aided by his retrospective autobiography written for his family in 1933, which covered the period 1872-1901 when he lived and worked in Charters Towers. Primary Australian sources were used to confirm and understand the autobiography.
His story after 1901, when he moved
to Brisbane and began his professional work and family life at the newly built Diamantina Hospital for Chronic Diseases, required the most research to explain his great progress as a hospital dispenser and administrator and the two enigmas - his delayed registration by 26 years as a pharmacist, and his avoidance of internment etc, during the anti- Germanism during and around World War I.
Why Australia?
Frederick Staubwasser was apparently happy in Germany. After leaving school he became an engineering apprentice in the Bavarian Government Railways. This was interrupted by national service in the
Naval Artillery from1889 to1891. He then commenced work with the Austrian Steam Navigation Company and passed his examinations to become an assistant engineer on steamers plying the Danube.
When studying in Saxony, Germany in 1889, Staubwasser “met students from all over the world, and they gave me some wonderful descriptions of their country,” so in 1892 he and his brother Emil decided to emigrate to Australia.
The Staubwassers travelled as unassisted (free settler) passengers
in the passenger/cargo vessel SS Oldenburg from Bremen, arriving in Sydney in December 1892, and then sailing onto Townsville after Christmas that year.
14 ■ Pharmacy History Australia
volume 3 ■ no 29 ■ JuLY 2006