Johann Gottfried HAUSSMAN

HAUSSMAN, JOHANN GOTTFRIED (b. Sonnenwalde, Prussia, 25 Oct 1811; d. Beenleigh, Qld, 31 Dec 1901). Missionary and pastor.

Born into a rural farming family, the young Haussman, after conversion from Catholicism, felt called to be a missionary. He was trained under the 'Godly mechanic' principle by Johannes Gossner in Berlin, where he married Luise Wilhelmina Lehmann. Haussman was one of the ten Lutheran lay missionaries sent to Australia at the request of the Presbyterian John Dunmore Lang (q.v.), who had been unable to obtain Presbyterian missionaries, and who was attracted by the German missionaries' principle of self-sufficiency.

The lay missionaries, with two clergy, Christopher Eipper (q.v.) and Karl Wilhelm Schmidt (q.v.), were sent to Moreton Bay where they established a mission to Aborigines. Near what is now Nundah, the mission was named Zion's Hill, but it was locally called German Mission. Although Aboriginal people did come to the mission, the missionaries found themselves in perpetual competition with the attractions and rewards available in the nearby emerging township of Brisbane. Ironically, it was the missionaries' efforts to be self sufficient which spelled their downfall, leading to over-concentration on agriculture. The mission was closed in 1845. Many of the lay missionaries and their families stayed on at Nundah, supporting themselves by farming. The Moreton Bay Courier reported that 'the German missionaries have become the German graziers ... Their spiritual harvest has been small [but] their vegetables are most luxuriant'. As time passed, however, most of the Lutheran lay missionaries went on to make significant contributions to the Lutheran and Presbyterian churches.

Haussman accepted an invitation from Lang to train for the Presbyterian ministry at Lang's newly-formed Australian College in 1851. Leaving his family at Nundah, he spent eighteen months at the College, and was ordained into the Presbyterian ministry in 1852. He was then sent back to Qld to undertake a largely itinerant ministry to both Aborigines and settlers. He was associated in this capacity with William Ridley (q.v.), and, like Ridley, was inadequately supported.

Haussman was therefore obliged to accept a call to a Lutheran ministry in Vic in 1885. He was appointed first to German Town, and then to Castlemaine, where his willingness to adopt an itinerant role was instrumental in the establishment of branch churches in many pastoral and gold-rush towns. Some Lutherans, however, were suspicious of him because of his Presbyterian associations, a problem which was exacerbated because of the Lutheran churches' own internal theological disputes.

Haussman returned to Qld in 1862 to the Lutheran congregation at Bethana, but although he ministered conscientiously throughout the Logan district, he was forced to resign in 1866 to enable the appointment of a 'regularly ordained Lutheran'. Haussman then returned to his original calling, establishing a mission to Aboriginal people near the town of Beenleigh, which he named Bethesda. Johann and Luise Haussman struggled on with minimal assistance to keep their mission going, supporting it mostly by their own efforts at commercial farming.

Haussman's personal qualities began to gain him the respect of the local German settlers, and it was not long before they asked him to double as their pastor. When, finally, the Bethesda Mission faltered in 1884, the local Lutherans purchased the Good Templars' Hall in Beenleigh to enable Haussman to continue as their pastor. Luise died in 1889, but Hausmann continued an active ministry until his death twelve years later. On his 90th birthday, the Kaiser awarded him the Order of the Red Eagle in recognition of his contribution to the German community in Australia. He collapsed in the pulpit two months later, and after three days died on New Year's Eve, 1901, survived by five of his seven children. The common grave of Johann and Luise Haussman bears the simple inscription: 'The memory of the just is blessed'.

Janette Nolan, ‘Pastor J.G. Haussman, a Qld Pioneer, 1838-1901' (BA thesis, Uni of Qld, 1964); H J J Sparkes, Queensland's First Free Settlement, 1838-1938 (Brisbane, 1938)

JOHN HARRIS