The Reasons for Migration to South Australia
by Dennis Henschke
Have you ever wondered where you might be today, or whether you might exist at all, if our forebears had remained in Europe?
It is a curious thought that the Henschke family now lives in Australia principally due to a disagreement occurring over the order to be followed in church worship services in the Prussian states over 150 years ago.
It is known that the first adult members of the Henschke family to arrive in Australia came from Jutschlau (near Schwiebus) in Brandenburg (now Chociule in Poland) which is to the east of the areas known to be the cradle of the Germanic people.
German settlement in Eastern Europe from the eighth century onwards probably resulted from the nature of the German people, described as being a "combination of enterprising merchants, missionary zeal and land hungry peasants", coupled with the efforts of Austria, Prussia and Russia to sub-due or eliminate the Polish people through the division of its territory and settling the area with their own people.
The Germanic people generally were skilled in farming, commerce and trade, and many led a devoted spiritual life based on the Lutheran doctrine. It was a difference of interpretation over how that faith was to be formally expressed in worship services that resulted in the first organized group of German settlers migrating to South Australia.
Let us now look briefly at the events in Europe which precipitated a rift in the church in the middle to early 1800's.
Friedrich Wilhelm III , the King of Prussia at that time, believing that a united Protestant Church would help make his nation strong, continued in the vein of his predecessors in trying to effect a union between the Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church i.e. the church established by John Calvin.
While it is reported that King Friedrich III was a pious man possessing an interest in the church, his actions show a disregard for liberty of religious expression. In 1817 he decreed that the Lutheran and Reformed Churches were to unite under the one Church (the "Union"), to be administered as a department of the State. He also attempted to impose on this Church a new Order of Service or "Agende" which was in the main devised by himself.
Initially there was little opposition to the adoption of the new "Agende" because it was presented to the Churches as a recommendation only, with assurances given that congregations could decide individually whether or not to join the "Union".
However, as the 300th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession of 1530 was approaching, the king made the new "Agende" compulsory for all congregations and planned to invoke the "Union" to mark the occasion. This raised opposition amongst both the worshippers and the ministers which forced King Friedrich III to propose in 1834 a type of confederation of the Churches as a fall-back position from the 'Union' fostered in 1817.
The Lutherans resisted strongly any moves which attempted to have them, being the vast majority of the Protestants, absorbed by the very small minority group represented by the Reformed Church, which was headed by the king.
The Lutherans insisted on the separation of the Church and State and particularly objected to the proposed ordination service for pastors which contained a vow of faithfulness to the king described as "King and Bishop" and leader of the Church. It was the title of Bishop that the Lutherans found quite unacceptable.
An appeal in 1834 by a representative group of Lutherans to have freedom of religion in a self-governing Lutheran Church was rejected by the king who, in an endeavour to suppress the Lutherans, legislated against private religious gatherings and insisted that only ministers ordained by the State could fulfil ministerial roles, that children should partake in the State's religious education programmes, and that ministers must use the king's "Agende".
Persecution of Lutherans by State Police in the administration of the king/s laws only appeared to make the Lutherans firmer in their resolve to worship according to their conscience and if this could not be done in their homeland then, as their deprivations became more severe, they would seek their freedom elsewhere.
In 1838 Pastor Kavel and about 400 of his Lutheran followers from Klemzig, near Zullichau, and nearby villages in Brandenburg , migrated to South Australia. As it had been decreed by the State the people who emigrated "for the sake of their faith" had to be accompanied by their pastor, the tendency was for the majority of members of a congregation to move with their pastor or convince their pastor to emigrate with them.
On the death of King Friedrich Wilhelm III in 1840 persecution of the Lutherans was brought to a halt on orders from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV who also liberated all interned Lutheran pastors.
By this time however Pastor Gotthard Daniel Fritzsche, as a result of deprivations experienced under the previous king and contact with Pastor Kavel in South Australia, had planned to emigrate to South Australia with his congregations from the province of Posen, the district of Schwiebus and Zullichau, and the Gruenburg area.
It is quite understandable that the previous experience of broken commitments led Fritzsche and his followers to distrust the new conditions announced by King Friedrich IV, and as many of them had already sold their goods and property in order to emigrate, it was highly unlikely that they would alter their plans.
But why emigrate to South Australia?
Kavel had been unsuccessful in his attempts to migrate with his followers to Russia and the United States of America where many other Germans had moved.
After hearing in Hamburg of the new colony in South Australia, Kavel travelled to London to meet a director of the South Australia Company, George Fife Angas, who was recruiting workers for the new colony. When the South Australia Company was not able to meet the cost of transport for Kavel's group, Angas, a Congregationalist sympathetic to the cause of dissenters, paid for the fares himself.
Fritzsche, like Kavel, continued his work (in Prussia) amongst his congregations under great difficulties. Worship services were spied upon and worshippers detected were fined, Fritzsche himself being sought for arrest and imprisonment. Eventually it was pressure from his followers who received letters of encouragements and invitations from relatives in South Australia and communications from Pastor Kavel which helped Fritzsche decide on emigration to South Australia.
Another factor which could have helped Fritzsche decide on South Australia was that after the sale of their possessions Fritzsche's flock still needed £300 ($600) to meet the cost of their fares. This in due course was met by a friend of Angas', a Mrs Richardson who was a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers). A further deficit was met with a loan from Mrs Nehrlich who later was to become Fritzsche's mother-in-law.