No 8 Nuriootpa

The man who laid out Nuriootpa was Mr. William Coulthard — not the Councillor William Coulthard of today, but his grandfather. He owned the section which is now the town, and he gave the land which is the main highway to Adelaide. It was he who named Nuriootpa. There was a difference of opinion between George Fife Angas and old Mr. Coulthard regarding the naming of the settlement. Angas wanted it called Angas Park. Coulthard wanted Nuriootpa. They compromised. The land on one side of the main road was named as Angas desired. That on the western side was given the aboriginal name. I am glad old man Coulthard stuck to his guns. We want more native names.

The Old Gum Tree at Nuriootpa

"What does Nuriootpa mean?" I asked the present Mr. Coulthard.

"No one knows," he answered. "We have tried to find out, but we left it too long. Those who knew have long passed over."

There is a tragic story behind the founder of Nuriootpa. The original Coulthard was an explorer. The country to the north in his day was wild, unknown bush. The site of Nuriootpa itself was just thick scrub. When the first William Coulthard came to the district there was one hut built, of slabs. The only road was a bullock track to Blanchetown. I don't mind telling you it is not much better today. Part of this old track may still be seen on the property of Mr. Coulthard's grandson.

The original Coulthard was one of a party whose work it was to discover new sections. One summer they set out north. It was not long before they came up against the great problem of the bush-water. The explorers suffered agonies before they decided to divide. Coulthard pushed ahead in search of the priceless fluid. He never returned. Some time later a search party came across his dead body. He had cut the throat of his horse and drunk the blood in an effort to live, but he perished within a mile of water.

The Coulthards are important people in Nuriootpa. They have always been connected with the public life of the town. The grandfather of whom I have been writing was one of the foundation members of the original Angaston Council. The present William Coulthard has been a member of the same body for the past twenty years.

In the early days Nuriootpa supplied a good deal of the timber required by the old Kapunda mines. The sawyers used to have their camp where the Nuriootpa Hotel now stands. The mode of transport between the two towns was by bullock waggon, and the 13 miles which separated them was a stretch full of adventure. Blacks were thick in this vicinity 70 or 80 years ago. They used to mass in hundreds at certain seasons to hold a big corroboree.

Here is a picture of a pioneer family of Nuriootpa in the late forties and early fifties. It is the story of Mrs. Joshua Hatch who, as Miss Mary Melley, came to the district 80 years ago. There were no buildings, except an occasional one-roomed hut, buried out of sight amongst the thick scrub. Great gums, hoary with age, towered above the bush, in places the grass was so high that the natives were invisible as they stood amongst it, watching the bullock teams laboriously tramping along the boggy track.

Mrs. Hatch's home was a small tent at St. Kits. Here she lived alone for long periods, while her husband was absent, carting supplies to the mines for Mr. Tommy Baird. Under these trying conditions she brought up nine babies— seven sons and two daughters. The eldest of these boys is now living at Bowden. The men of those days put up with a lot. But it was the women who were the heroines.

Until 12 months or so ago a huge gum tree stood in the middle of the road at Nuriootpa. It was perhaps the most noted landmark in the district. It was a tree which stood on the original Coulthard estate, and the founder of Nuriootpa held it in great veneration. When the estate was laid out as a township the old man expressed a wish that the tree should be allowed to stand for all time. That wish was carefully respected until the old tree became so diseased with rot that it was a menace to the public safety. Nuriootpa had become a busy centre, and it was finally decreed that the tree must go. Its site was the centre of the road, near the present post office. Several hundred fencing posts were made out of its timber.

For many years after its foundation Nuriootpa led a drowsy existence. The country was devoted chiefly to wheat growing. Then the wineries came and "Nuri," to use the local vernacular, took on a new lease of life. The vine became all-important, and today the prosperity of the place rests on the grape. There is no wheat now. But there are four big winemaking plants.

To see the roads in the harvesting season is to witness a picture of industry probably without parallel in the State. Strings of waggons sometimes a mile long may be seen converging on the wineries from all points. When I was there the fields were masses of leafless canes. Now these have all been pruned away, and there is mile upon mile of neatly trimmed vine trunks, reaching over the plains and climbing up the hills. Vine culture is the very existence of Nuriootpa. South Australian wine is something of which we are, and should be, proud.

Sit outside the hotel, and listen to a group of Nuriootpians talking. You might be sitting in a German village — as indeed you are. The town is essentially German. A big, merry-faced, blue-eyed, and sandy-haired individual turned to me.

"Guten Tag, mein Freund. Schones Wetter," he said. "Ja," I hazarded, emulating the reckless gambler by pitching all my German into the pool, in one mad, desperate throw.

"Wie finden Sie unsere Stadt?" he proceeded enthusiastically, delighted to have found a new auditor, "Schon, nicht wahr?"

That did it. I was stumped. For an instant I hovered on the brink of answering "Nein." but instinct warned me to be careful. So I owned up that I knew no German. I did not tell him that the only phrase I knew was "Mein liebes Madchen," and that I had learned that for use in case of emergency — one which never arose.

Yes, Nuriootpa is full of Schraedels and Schultzs, and Schwartzs and Weidenbachs— and I wish we had more of them. Angaston, Tanunda, Nuriootpa, Truro— the whole of the rich Barossa district, in fact— is populated by the descendants of the Lutheran colonists sent here by George Fife Angas in the days when South Australia was scarcely a year old.

The German Settlers

You cannot go anywhere in the Barossa district without taking off your hat to the energy, enterprise, and thoroughness of the German settlers, and wishing, as I said, we were blessed with more. You see the results of their work everywhere — but chiefly in the well-tilled farms, and obviously prosperous homesteads. It was a fortunate thing for South Australia that the ancestors of these amazingly industrious people were the subjects of religious prosecution in their own country; more fortunate still that Angas, the sturdy champion of religious freedom, was able to induce them to migrate to this corner of the earth. They have done well for themselves, and, in the doing of it, they have helped the State.

It was in 1837, only a few months after the establishment of the province, that the first of these settlers arrived. Men of deep religious feeling and strong convictions, reminiscent of the Pilgrim Fathers, they found themselves bitterly opposed at home in Prussia to the efforts being made to force a union between the Reformed and the Lutheran churches. Their opposition was resented in influential quarters, with the result that they were subjected to all sorts of persecution.

Angas knew all the circumstances. He also knew what wonderful colonists they would make. He offered them sanctuary and full religious freedom in the new land. He helped some hundreds of them, under Pastor Kavel, to overcome the difficulties in the way of emigration. At his own expense he chartered vessels to bring them out.

The first settlement was at Klemzig. The little town was called after the town on the Oder to which the objectors withdrew when a determined Government tried to to accept a ritual conscience would not permit them to adopt. And now Klemzig is called Gaza! Don't you see the injustice of it? Do you not see the historic significance Klemzig possesses for these people? Klemzig, in Silesia, gave them sanctuary from a despotic Government. Klemzig, in South Australia, gave them freedom to worship their God as their conscience told them they should do. That is what the old name means to them. I am not in favor of German names, any more than I am in favor of French, or Turkish, or even English. If I had my way every State and every town would have an appropriate native name. I would make very few exceptions — but Klemzig would be one.

Somehow Nuriootpa strikes you as "different." Yet it is difficult to define just what quality distinguishes it from other towns. Its buildings are solid and the town looks prosperous. But that also applies to other places. Its streets are wide and well laid out. Its villas are modern. It might easily be a suburb of Adelaide. But all the time you are conscious of that elusive quality you cannot put into words. It is what might be termed "atmosphere." It is something you cannot analyse.

Outside the hotel is a curious old trough, hollowed out of the trunk of a tree. Beside it stands an old-fashioned pump. I found it interesting to watch the German settlers drive up in their curiously shaped waggons, pump a supply of water for their horses, and see to it that the animals had a drink before they got one for themselves.

Next to the hotel in the main street is a vacant allotment. In most towns it would stay vacant. But it has been sown with some sort of fodder grass, and carries in luxuriant crop. Every evening a man with a scythe cuts a hand-truck load, which is used to feed the cows. That is typical of these German towns. Nothing is wasted.

Nuriootpa is the centre of nine or ten towns which are almost equidistant. Each, approximately, is four miles away. They are Angaston (of which district Nuriootpa is a ward), Penrose, Light's Pass, Stockwell, Ebeneza, Dim church, the Moppa, Greenock, Maringa, Tanunda, and Vine Vale. Nuriootpa is very proud of its Soldiers' Memorial Hall. With the exception of Port Pirie. it is the largest outside the capital. It cost £7,000.

Angaston

When you step into Angaston you step right into the heart of South Australian history. You do not do it deliberately. It is simply that it is there, and you can not miss it. The spirit of George Fife Angas meets you everywhere. You realise, even if you did not do it before, what a wonderful old pioneer he was, and just how much South Australia owes to him.

"Yes," you will probably answer, "but he did it for his own advancement." I have been told that before. You will never make me believe it. I will grant you that, in a restricted sense, it is true. In the main it is false. If you persist in your argument I will have to tell you that you have never seriously considered the record of his work. I have room here to give only the scantiest impression of the man. Look well at the photograph. It is a face full of character — that of a man fully seized of the seriousness, the responsibilities, and the purpose or life. George Fife Angas was already a wealthy man when he took up with so much enthusiasm the project of colonising South Australia. He was a religious man, with high ideals, and what is now, unfortunately, regarded as an old fashioned sense of honor. He was never a popular man. Serious people rarely are. But he took up the cause of South Australia with so much energy that at one stage he was seriously embarrassed financially by the commitments of his agents. He just gritted his teeth — and won out. A man who does that kind of thing is not putting his own advancement first.

Place the dates of the birth and death of Angas in juxtaposition, and you will notice a curious effect. He was born in 1789. He died in 1879. For the greater part of ninety years he gave of his best to his country. South Australia can thank Angas that she was never a penal settlement. He set his face resolutely against that. It was he, als0, who insisted on sending out emigrants with capital and intelligence, or young couples of good character, instead of Britain's army of the unwanted. When the Act which founded the province was passed, in 1834, Angas was a member of the first Board of Commissioners.

Now I am going to mention a circumstance that will show that the founding of South Australia would have been indefinitely delayed but for the unselfish generosity of this man. The Colonisation Act stipulated that before the Commissioners began to exercise their powers, land in the proposed province to the value of £35,000 must be sold.

City Blocks At £1 An Acre

For several months the land on which the city of Adelaide now stands was hawked about England at £1 an acre. There were few buyers. Angas saw that the success of the scheme was in danger. He arranged with the Commissioners to reduce the price to 12/ an acre, and at that figure he and two others advanced the money to buy the requisite number of sections. When the South Australian Company was formed, the purchasers handed over these blocks at cost price. This actually gave South Australia its start. The records of this big figure in the founding of the State Show that throughout its earliest history he devoted a large part of his fortune to its development.

It is curious, in the circumstances, to note that in spite of his enthusiasm, energy, and sacrifice on behalf of the new province, Angas himself did not set foot on its shores until it was fifteen years old. Incidentally it is worth recording that he came out in the Ascendant, the ship which brought South Australia's piebald constitution — that same precious document which was lost for seven days before it was found in the captain's dirty-linen bag. When Constitutional Government was granted to the province, Angas entered the Legislative Council as a member of the first Parliament.

Founding of Union Bank

Do you know the origin of the Union Bank of Australia? Do you know it owes its existence to the foundation of the colony of South Australia? I'll warrant that is a piece of news to 90 out of every 100 South Australians. Here again one comes up against the energy and resource of that Grand Old Man, G. F. A. If this story of Angaston seems a paraphase of the life of George Fife Angas, then you must blame him and not me. I did not make him a doer of deeds, nor a subject for eulogy. He did it himself. I am but an admirer — a very warm one, though I do not place him above criticism. I do not think South Australia has yet realised just how much it owes this stern old patriot. We are still too young properly to value the work of those who laid the foundations on which we are building.

But to return to the Union Bank. It came into existence at a time when the question of extending banking facilities in Australia was engaging the attention of the directors of the South Australian Company in England. The Tamar Bank of Tasmania had just been placed on the London market for sale. Angas took up the question of its purchase. He considered it would enable the South Australian Company to extend its business to the other colonies. To the chagrin of Angas, the directors rejected the proposal. The "G.O.M." thereupon interested several independent capitalists in the proposal. The formation of the Union Bank of Australia was the result.

New Zealand Saved For British Empire

We think we know all about our own history, and the history of those who made our history. We don't. There is a lot we do not know, but which we ought to. I know that every day of my existence I am being brought up with a jerk in the presence of some important fact that I should have known, but didn't. Life is like that. It is full of surprises.

Hands up those who know that it was George Fife Angas who saved New Zealand for the British Empire! Here are the circumstances.

In 1838 Angas, who was still living in England, received information that the French Government was planning an expedition to the islands which now form the sister Dominion. Their intention was to annex and colonise them. Angas objected to having a foreign Power as a close neighbor to Australia, and communicated with Lord Glenelg, at that time Secretary for the Colonies. The Government acted on that occasion with a little more promptitude than Governments usually do.

It was just as well they did. Lord Glenelg asked Angas to give him the facts. Angas did so. As a result, Captain Hobson was ordered to proceed to New Zealand in H.M.S. Druid, and to conclude with the native chiefs a treaty for the cession of the islands to Great Britain. Scarcely was the ink dry on the parchment which gave ownership of the rich Dominion to Britain, than the French frigate "L'Aube" hove in sight to hoist the French flag. It was a bitter "dawn" for the Frenchmen. They arrived to find the Royal standard of England floating defiantly over Akaroa. Great Britain had forestalled them by just five days.

Angas And Dr. Dean

I told you that Angas was not always above criticism. From what I have been able to deduce from the records he was a gentleman who liked his own way. In that respect he didn't differ greatly from most of us — but he was inclined to kick over the traces when he didn't get it. Few of us can afford to do that. In the council chamber at Angaston the district clerk (Mr. E. T. Odgers) showed me the first minute book of the Angaston District Council. As a rule I hold these stodgy, dry-as-dust records in abhorrence. They have as much news value as last week's paper. But the Angaston minute book was different. It tells an interesting story to those who can read between the lines, and make four by putting two and two together. This, then, is the story as I read it, but mind, it is pure deduction.

When, in 1853, the Government appointed a district council to manage the affairs of Angaston, it was composed of George Fife Angas, William Coulthard (that same Coulthard who perished in the bush), Dr. Horace Dean, Richard Rodda, and William Salter. Dr. Dean was appointed chairman. This piqued Angas, and he refused to take his seat. Whether Angas had a personal feeling against Dean, or whether he was merely sore because he was not elected to the chair, I can not say. But the records do show that as long as Dean was chairman Angas never went near the council. As the “G.O.M”. was not present at the inaugural meeting, the council decided to send him a special letter, inviting him to the next, but he ignored it. This went on for five months. At the end of that period Dean resigned, and his resignation was “accepted with great regret in view of the circumstances.”

Two months later the first election was held, and Angas was amongst those returned. Dean did not seek election. Soon after Angas was elected chairman, and things went on swimmingly. I thought that a very interesting sidelight on the G.O.M.

Fertile District

There is not, I suppose, finer land in South Australia than the country around Angaston. I doubt if there is anything better in the South-East. Just over the ranges in Moculta and Stockwell they grow wheat; at Nuriootpa they grow fruit and grapes; Angaston produces apples, pears, plums, and other fruits, and, of course, Collingrove and Lindsay are wonderful pastoral properties. Tanunda has vines, and in the hills behind that town are the wattle bark areas. Dairy and egg raising are extensive industries, and in the sand scrub south-west of Angaston are more vines and fruit trees. Then there are the quarries which furnished the marble for Parliament House, and further out prospectors are still fossicking for gold, small quantities of which have been found— sufficient to stimulate that fervent hope of "some day," which is the driving force of every prospector ever born.

Mr. Odgers took me over to the institute. I forget what I went there for, because on the walls in one room I espied an old sketch which immediately claimed my attention. It was a representation of the first Angaston Hotel by an unknown artist. It was not the single-storied building which riveted my attention so much as the costumes of the day — the men in quaint straw headgear with ribbons floating in the breeze, or strangely shaped tall hats, and the women in shawls and bustles. I can see the eyes of my friend, Mr. G. H. Pitt, the public archivist, glisten as he reads these lines. He would like that sketch, I know.

After Tanunda, I would vote Angaston the most picturesque town in the State. I am not sure that in several respects it is not superior to Tanunda. Its natural scenery is better, its wonderful old gums are priceless, and its general setting amongst the hills makes an unforgettable picture as you come on it suddenly on a fine day. Yes. on second thoughts, I'll award the palm to Angaston.

Images:

• • George Fife Angas

  • Tablet Over the Angas Grave at Angaston.

  • Typical Landscape Scene, Near Angaston.

  • Mr. E. T. Odgers

NEXT WEEK: Port Augusta

TOWNS PEOPLE, AND THINGS WE OUGHT TO KNOW. (1932, August 4). Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), p. 42. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90899900