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KOLLOSCHE, George

George Kollosche was born on 14 October 1830 at Werben in Lower Lusatia, which was then part of Brandenburg, Prussia. At the age of 24 he emigrated to Australia on the ship Malvina Vidal with his aunt’s family – Matthes & Christiana Modra, his mothers sister – and arrived on 5 October 1854 at Melbourne, Victoria.

On the Malvina Vidal arrival passenger list, one ‘l’ was missing from George’s surname, most probably because of misspelling by the Immigration Officer.

The Modra family travelled to Port Adelaide on the Costal freighter Havilah. George, however, is assumed to have travelled overland from Melbourne, possibly via the Victorian goldfields and arrived some years later at Blumberg in South Australia, one of the early Wendish settlement areas.

The first official South Australian record of George Kollosche in Blumberg was his marriage, as “Workman, age 28” to Auguste Luise Henriette Henel age 20, both residents of Blumberg at the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

George built a cottage in Blumberg, one of a group of three on the south side of the main road near the entrance to the town. He and Auguste had ten children. There was a gap between Johanna, their first child born in 1859, and the fifth, George Ernest born in 1867, where three children born in that period are not recorded in the Blumberg Church records.

On 10th January 1891, “George Kolosche, of Blumberg, Province of South Australia, native of Cottbus, Germany, and a resident of South Australia for 36 years”, applied for naturalisation. He signed the Oath of Allegiance and was granted South Australian citizenship on 30 January 1891.

George and Auguste lived in Blumberg until George’s death on 9th April 1891. He is buried in an unmarked but located grave in the Blumberg General Cemetery, next to his daughter Mary Tucker and grand-daughter Violet Tucker.

Auguste remained in Blumberg until about 1901, when the cottage was sold for £ 50. She moved to Adelaide where she lived with members of her family until her death on 16th July 1917. She was survived by five sons and three daughters. Auguste is buried in a marked grave in the Hindmarsh Cemetery, Adelaide.

Note: Blumberg was renamed Birdwood in 1917, due to anti-German sentiments during World War 1.

by Andrew Kollosche – February 2011.