No 2 Gawler and Tanunda

If you know Gawler at all you must many times have passed the statue of James Martin, M.L.C., which occupies a corner in Murray street, close to the big works he established. It bears the inscription, "James Martin, 1821-1899; a public tribute to his work." The monument was erected after his death by public subscription.

James Martin was a poor Cornish lad who had to work hard for his living— so hard that he had little time for "schooling." But Nature had endowed him with two important qualities — grit, and a mechanical bent of mind. In view of his subsequent association with the Gawler ironworks, the coincidence that he was born in the town of Foundry is worth mention.

As a youth Martin was delicate, a victim of asthma. He came to South Australia on that account. He arrived in Gawler in an old dray, which contained his wife and all his family possessions— a few sticks of furniture and some tools. He rented a tiny shop opposite the present post-office, and there began a small business. He could not afford to buy benches or lathes, so he cut down a huge tree with which he made them. You see, he was also resourceful. Martin saw that the farmers needed bullock drays, and he started to make them. Then he extended the business to include wooden ploughs. I am not going to take you through all stages of his various enterprises. All I want to say is that the tiny, unpretentious shop grew into a huge engineering undertaking, covering 18 acres of ground, and produced great railway locomotives which went to all parts of Australia. Over 800 men and a mass of modern machinery were kept in employment when Martin's was at its zenith.

But that stage was not reached until many bitter struggles had been experienced. Martin himself has left it on record that there were several times in the early days when the men could be paid only portion of their wages, and that on one occasion he had not 4d. left to pay the postage on a letter awaiting him at the post-office. He often toiled at his smithy from 6 in the morning until 11 at night. I will think of that next time I pass his statue.

Of his public work in Parliament, his terms as mayor of his adopted town, and his many benefactions, which earned him the sobriquet of "the father of Gawler," this article need say nothing. Nor do I propose to take you through the various phases which might be described as the decline of Martin's. All it is necessary to say here is that the greatness is gone, never to return.

"Why?" I hear you ask. Because, in the first place, of that vicious policy of centralisation, which decrees that no one has a right to live outside of Adelaide, and crowds the capital with considerably more than half the population of the State.

Because, in the second place, in pursuance of that policy, and the even more disastrous one of State interference with private enterprise, the expensive Islington workshops were established, costly plant was installed at the expense of the taxpayer, and orders were given to Islington in preference to Martin's, were the already adequate plant was thrown out of commission.

But, according to local opinion, there was a third cause, allied to the two preceding ones.

Politics!

Certain governments, I was informed, had refused to give orders to Martin's, because Gawler was becoming too big an industrial centre, and was creating a political element inimical to the party in power. I give you that for what it is worth. The man who told me of it was no fool. He was a man of standing, holding a responsible position. For the sake of party prestige a great and flourishing industry, built up by hard work and sacrifice, and employing nearly a thousand men, was forced out of existence.

Australia's National Anthem

I do not suppose that there is any where in the State an association which in times gone by has conferred so much benefit on the community at large as the Gawler Institute. You do not know Gawler unless you know its institute. If you have the time to spare drop in there one day, and introduce yourself to the present secretary, Mr. J. Beasley. If he thinks you are really interested he will go to no end of trouble to tell you everything he knows about the historic old town. But if he thinks you are a humbug he will probably tell you s0. It depends on yourself.

Assuming, however, that you are a genuine enquirer, he will take you round the building, and point out to you with justifiable pride the portraits, in oils and in photography, of the men who make its history. The walls are thick with them. There are a few old sketches of historic value.

When you speak of the founding of the Gawler Institute you are dealing with ancient history. Its beginning goes back to 1857. South Australia had just attained its majority. Now it is almost a hoary centenarian.

It was the Gawler Institute which gave us the "Song of Australia"' by reason of the twenty guinea prize which Mrs. C. J. Carleton and Herr Carl Linger divided between them for words and music. The prize was offered in connection with the second anniversary of the foundation of the institute in October, 1859. There were 96 competitors. The now celebrated song was first sung in public on December 12 of the same year.

If the spirit of old Gawler exists in its sons and daughters of today, then they will see to it that the "Song of Australia" is made the national anthem of the Commonwealth, just as their forefathers saw to it that it was made the national song of the province. Several years ago the Federal Government offered a prize for a national anthem. The competition produced a lot of duds. Yet here was an anthem ready to their hand, majestic in its simplicity, typically Australian in sentiment. In that matter the institute should have seen to it that the song was entered for the competition.

But it is not too late yet. That song should be the national anthem. Every South Australian knows it by heart, but no steps, so far as I know, have ever been taken to introduce it seriously to the other States. It should be scored for orchestra — that is, for a popular orchestra such as one might find in a picture theatre— slides should be prepared giving the words, and the inter-State theatres should be approached with a request that it be played and sung. A little determined propaganda of that description would go far in popularising the "Song of Australia" outside our own boundaries. Tradition demands that this task should be undertaken by the Gawler Institute.

The Streets Of Gawler

Lying as it does, at the foot of the Barossa Ranges, Gawler is a favored country. It is a fertile region. Wheat, wool, wine, and dairying are its chief agricultural industries. It has never known failure, even in periods of drought. In the office of the town cleric I was shown the deed of trusteeship under which Gawler in 1864 was granted an extensive area of land by the proprietors of the Gawler Special Survey— that is, the owners of the original site of Gawler.

What struck me most about this document was its extraordinary size. Roughly it was a yard wide and six feet long, composed of parchment, and covered with fine writing. I started to read it, but grew tired of the shocking legal verbiage of the day. After I had got through a foot or so of it I gave it up. I have not the slightest idea what it was all about. Neither, probably, had its authors.

All that emerged from it was that it was made between James Martin, of Gawler Town, and Edward Clement, licensed victualler, and a number of other persons minutely described, and it conveyed 240 acres of town land to be called the town of Gawler. I think I have put into six lines what it took the framers of the deed six feet of closely written parchment to say.

The streets are chiefly named after the founders of the town. Here is the origin of the principal names:—

Murray street — Henry Dundas Murray, one of the original owners of the Gawler Special Survey. Reid street— After John Reid, the founder of Gawler. Lindsay terrace — After Lindsay Patterson. Fotheringham terrace — After James Fotheringham, a local brewer, and one of the owners of the special survey. King street— After Stephen King, another pioneer, who came out in the Orleana with the Reids. Sutton street — After John Sutton. Todd street - After the Todd family. Who they were is not explained. Howard street — After the Rev. C. B. Howard, the colonial chaplain. Dundas street — After Henry Dundas Murray.

While on the subject of streets it might be appropriate to mention the curious old "block road" constructed by Mr. H. E. Bright in 1868. This was a dirt road, but for its entire length the tracks which the wheels of a vehicle would cover were composed of blocks of wood making two narrow strips about 2 ft. wide, with the dirt track in between. These old blocks may still be seen in May's works.

Gawler, more than any other town in South Australia, is a young city of stone walls. You see them every where, and some of them look like miniature forts. All the early houses have them. The old cemetery has them. They climb up the hill like the walls of Genoa, and in some places they are tumbling down like the walls of Jericho. But they give to Gawler an old-world atmosphere, and a distinction amongst South Australian towns which is Gawler's very own. I hope she will preserve those old walls.

One could go on writing interminably about Gawler, and still have a lot to say. It was the scene of South Australia's first bushranging episode, and the perpetrators of that piece of foolishness paid for it on the scaffold. But I told that story in "The Advertiser" a few months ago [written by a Harold Sexton], and there is no need to repeat it here. I would, however, like to mention briefly the piece of railing in front of the institute. If you look at it closely you will see that it bears an interesting inscription in small lettering, "Cast from the first iron smelted in the colony at the Phoenix Foundry, 1871, from ore raised in the district of Barossa."

Some Anniversaries

Just as I was leaving him the mayor handed me a letter he had received from Mr. T. Edwards. M.P., calling attention to certain anniversaries which occurred, or will occur, this year. This reads: —

So I waited.

But at the end of half an hour no civic official had strolled along. A stray citizen did. I stopped him. "Will there be anybody at the council office today?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not," he told me. “The chairman is in Adelaide, and the secretary, who is also printer of the local paper, is getting his issue out."

So that was that. I could not expect the chairman to postpone his visit to the city for my benefit, nor was it reasonable to suppose that the secretary could drop his work to spare me a couple of hours. I would not have done it in the circumstances myself. What did disappoint me was that neither of them thought my mission sufficiently important to provide me with a guide. That was unfortunate— for Tanunda.

You see, I wanted to do the town a service. I was so charmed with it myself that I wanted others to know it too. If only they had said to me, "Sorry, old man; you've hit us on a busy day, and we can't spare you five minutes. But here's Karl Schmidt, who'll be able to take you round, and tell you what you want to know," then I would have been able to put Tanunda more completely on the map. And, honestly, Tanunda is worth it.

I went along to see the secretary "Yes," he remarked, "as he fished out a couple of pamphlets about the town which he handed to me, "I saw you waiting."

That was the final blow. I have not told you this little piece of comedy without an object. I have told it because you might be inclined to remark— "Why, you haven't even touched the fringe of the interesting history of Tanunda."

I know I have not. And I have told you why.

You cannot expect to arrive in the town as a stranger, and in the course of a couple of hours delve under the surface of things to discover facts which the residents themselves have taken years to accumulate. Nor can you write an article of any value from a couple of pamphlets which show you Tanunda through someone else's eyes.

Let me illustrate. I pulled up in front of the Langmeil Church. I could see there was a story there if one only knew where to find it. But was the use of hunting in that old churchyard without the aid of someone who knew it? You might explore it for a day and then miss the very monument you ought to see. But a local guide would have put you on to it in two minutes, and history might have benefited by some new fact. So I passed by Langmeil churchyard. To me it was just a cemetery.

Pastor Kavel

Yet I knew that somewhere in Tanunda rested the remains of that grand old man of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Rev. August Kavel, and I suspected it would be the Langmeil burial ground. On my return to town I asked the Rev. Jons Stolz. He confirmed my belief. Pastor Kavel is buried there. In another article I will tell you the story of the coming of the German settlers in 1838, and how Pastor Kavel defied the might of the Prussian Government for the sake of his conscience, and how, like Moses before him, he led the children of his flock across the seas to the Promised Land.

Here I propose to tell you something about the man himself. There are fewer better examples of self-sacrifice and untiring labor for others than that of Pastor Kavel.

Because the Prussian Government tried to force a new ritual on the Evangelical Lutherans, and persecuted them because they would not accept it, Pastor Kavel withdrew with his adherents to Klemzig, in Silesia. He was determined to resist, and, if possible, to withdraw his people from the country.

The King of Prussia sent special envoys to him to endeavor to persuade him to accept the new ritual. He refused all offers, and asked for passports to enable his party to leave Germany. These the Government refused. The struggle was watched in England with keen interest. A number of clergymen and philanthropists wanted to help the persecuted Germans. They called a public meeting and invited Pastor Kavel to attend. He declined. It was inconsistent with their religion, he held, to accept the political interference of a foreign Power. Emigration was different, he said. There was nothing to prevent them leaving a country where their beliefs were in danger.

I quote that to show the character of the man. Pastor Kavel brought his parents with him to Australia. On the arrival of the pilgrims in Adelaide he became something more than a minister —a leader in their temporal as well as their spiritual affairs. And when the occasion demanded it, he enforced his authority with the definiteness of a pontiff.

Here is a case in point. George Fife Angas had made big financial sacrifices to assist the settlers. They were to repay him when they got on their feet. Some of them were inclined to overlook this obligation when the time arrived. When remonstrances proved unavailing, the Rev. August took the extreme step of refusing holy communion to the offenders. There was the father of a row. The early records say the pastor found himself practically without a flock. But he showed the same pluck, determination, and courage that he had shown to the Prussian King.

In the end he won. The settlers not only paid up, but they personally expressed their gratitude to Angas for what he had done for them. Today there is a tablet in memory of Angas in Langmeil church, at Tanunda. Pastor Kavel died rather tragically on February 12, 1860. He had gone on a visit to relations at Tanunda, and was struck down by apoplexy. He was in his 61st year.

Story Of Tanunda

Tanunda is really an offshoot of the little village of Langmeil, which runs along the Para behind the bigger town, just as Langmeil was born of Bethany, a settlement a couple of miles distant. Now Tanunda has far outgrown both its parent and its grandparent. Once the stream of early German immigration had begun, it continued unabated for several years. Even the financial crisis of Governor Gawler's day failed to stem it. As the German population grew so was it necessary to find more land.

So first Bethany, then Langmeil, and finally Tanunda came into being. Langmeil is really "long mile." The name was imported from Germany as being appropriate to the long string of houses which fringed the North Para. It could be applied with equal appropriateness to Murray street.

The Tanunda I am going to show you now is not the tree-lined garden city of handsome homes and dignified buildings you encounter today as you spin along a smooth road in a luxurious motor car on your way to Angaston or Nuriootpa. There were no trees, no handsome buildings in '42 — just a few mud hovels with thatched roofs, dotted at intervals over an undulating plain. Fronting the main road, something little better than a track, badly furrowed by the wheels of bullock drays, stood the old Geyer home— the first house built in the town — with its quaint thatched roof and old-fashioned verandah, and beside it, suspended from a scaffold substantial enough to last for all time, the village bell. This old bell, I am told, is still in existence. But the Geyer homestead has gone the way of all earthly things.

There is not much of early Tanunda left today, but if you take to the by ways you can see some of it here and there and down near the Para, in the centre of Langmeil, you may discover the old market square, laid out as a "plaz." It was once the home of village barter. Today they call it the "goat market." What I am wondering is how much of the old German spirit is left—the endurance, indomitableness, and will to conquer which was characteristic of the old people of both the English and Teutonic races. There was nothing soft about the pioneers of Tanunda. They could only afford small plots of land, and it meant hard work to make them yield a living. If Tanunda today can count itself amongst the aristocrats of towns, it is to the pioneers who paved the way that it owes its exalted station. That is why I began this article with a toast to their memory.

Heart Of The Wine Industry

What made Tanunda rich? The vine. The community was a struggling one until in 1847 Johann Gramp planted vines at Rowland's Flat. Mr. Samuel Smith followed at Yalumba in 1849. and Mr. J. E. Seppelt the following year. The settlers were not slow to seize the opportunities. Soon the countryside was sprinkled with vineyards, today the Barossa district may be described as the heart of the South Australian wine industry.

I do not want you to imagine, however, that Tanunda was the birthplace of the vineyard. That honor belongs to Reynella. It was Mr. John Reynell who planted the first field in 1840. Nor do I desire that you should suppose prosperity came immediately. It was a matter of years, many experiments, and many failures. Details would be superfluous here. This is a sketch, not a history. The main fact is that, over an interval of years, Tanunda became the viticultural metropolis of the State, and on the industry is founded the prosperity of today. Go round the number of large wineries in Barossa now and you will see what the vine means.

Outside the council chamber there is a tiny but picturesque reserve. In the corner of the reserve there is a monument. It commemorates Mr. E. H. Coombe, who for many years represented Barossa in the House of Assembly. It carries a striking inscription— "Erected by friends who honor the memory of Ephrahim Henry Coombe, M.P. He was born at Gawler 26th of August, 1858, and served the people faithfully until he died, 5th April, 1917. He saw his duty, and did it nobly."

Tanunda can be grateful.