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German & English History
Flaxmans Valley was named after Charles Flaxman who arrived in South Australia with Pastor August Kavel (the highly respected pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church at Klemzig in the district of Zullichau, Brandenberg, Prussia) on the ship “Prince George”, which was one of three ships financially funded by George Fife Angas, in November 1838.
Initially, Pastor Kavel had gone to Hamburg in 1835 for assistance in helping his congregation to migrate from the religious persecution they were suffering, most likely to the United States, but his inquiries led him to England in 1836 where he met George Fife Angas (and the South Australian Company). The first migration attempt in 1836 failed when the Prussian authorities refused to issue travel permits but with Angas’ support, three ships left Hamburg in July, August and September 1838, carrying 522 people.
Flaxman was the German-speaking chief clerk of George Fife Angas, (b 1789- d 1879), one of the prominent founders of South Australia, who acquired 4000 ha of this area in 1839. Two of the significant Angas properties are located in this area – Lindsay Park Stud and Collingrove Homestead. Flaxman worked closely with geologist, mineralogist and linguist Johannes Menge (b 1788 – d 1852) and Pastor Kavel, to promote the future home of German immigrants in the area that he called the New Silesia, now the Barossa. Menge described Flaxman’s Valley as “…covered with large timber … not too closely distributed as to impede the cultivation of the ground. In general, the country is invaluable and will repay any amount of capital applied to the cultivation thereof.”
I am still establishing when Flaxmans Valley was first settled but the villages of Bethany and Langmeil were established in1842 after many migrants moved north from the village of Klemzig (now a suburb of Adelaide). The German settlers were mainly from a rural background and aimed to be self-sufficient. They ran mixed farms which included cereal crops, gardens, orchards and vineyards. Livestock and poultry were also raised. Initially, wheat was the main cash crop but wine production eventually became more important. On taking up their land-holdings, the first European settlers in the Barossa resorted to a variety of temporary dwellings, including tents, reed and turf huts and sometimes the burnt out centres of large gum-trees. Eventually, more substantial structures were built using compacted earth, or lath and plaster walling, as well as the ubiquitous gum slab technique. German settlers often used their distinctive half timber framed constructions (Fachwerk) but later, more permanent brick or stone structures such as the simple two roomed Palladian (Georgian) cottages, were erected by British settlers.
German farmhouses, although apparently similar in appearance, used their through-halls as kitchens (Flurkuchenhaus). Like their Prussian antecedents, these included a sophisticated arrangement of cooking hearths, and ovens linked to centrally located chimneys. Another farmhouse plan had a centrally placed brick-vaulted kitchen, known as a “black-kitchen” (Schwarze-Kuche). Storage cellars, often approached from external staircases protected by verandahs, were used for the preparation and storage of dairy and pork products and wine.
The foundations of many of the Barossa Valleys vineyards and wineries were laid in the period 1840 – 1870 and followed two main patterns: small farmstead vineyards and commercial winemakers. The German settlers (and some non-German) grew grapes and made their own wine, often producing enough only for family and friends. Early commercial wineries (or cellars) were often owned and run by British settlers but remained relatively small until the period 1910 – 1930. Two of these examples are the Henschke and Yalumba wineries. The regions earliest wines were dry table (or beverage) wines. By the 1850’s fortified wines – sherry, muscat and port – were also being produced. Winemakers found it difficult to sell their wine until an export market developed to the United Kingdom in the 1880s. The importance of overseas exports to the growth of the wine industry was enormous and
by 1900 some wineries were exporting their entire production. The export demand in the 1890s saw the establishment of some large vineyards and wineries in the Barossa and vineyard area increased from 446 ha in 1881 to 3336 ha in 1900. By the 1890s, the region was producing over 40% of South Australia’s wine. In 2000 there were 9313 ha of vines and the Barossa wineries processed 52,323 tonnes of grapes in that vintage representing 10.7% of South Australias total wine vintage.
Indigenous History
When the first European settlers arrived, the Barossa area had been occupied by the Peramangk and Ngadjuri tribes for many thousands of years.
The Kaurna tribe (from which language we named our winery "Karra Yerta") were from the Adelaide Plains but had links to the Barossa with their
mythology of how the Mt Lofty Ranges were formed. All of the tribes were efficient traders with their neighbours – some of the items traded
included pearl-shell ornaments from the northern coast of Australia, iron pyrites from the Mt Lofty Ranges (which was struck with pieces of flint to start fires), and red-ochre from the Flinders Ranges for body decoration and rock painting.
River tribes used to visit the Eden Valley area to cut sheets of Redgum bark for canoes and to hunt possums in the wooded hills. In exchange for access to the trees, the river people provided the Peramangk with spears made from supple roots of Mallee trees.
During the cold, wet winter months when hunting and traveling were difficult, each local group was confined largely to its own territory, camping in sheltered spots and subsisting principally on small mammals and vegetable foods. Possums were an important source of food and the tribes were highly skilled at climbing trees to catch these animals. Bandicoots and other burrowing animals were smoked or dug out of their burrows. The people wore winter cloaks of possum or kangaroo skins sewn together with vegetable fibres or kangaroo sinews. Winter shelters were generally a framework of sheets of bark, grasses and reeds with fires kept going at the entrance to provide warmth. Shelters were also built against fallen trees or large Redgums hollowed out by fire.
In spring and summer the various tribes gathered together to perform ceremonies, settle disputes, arrange marriages and to trade and barter. Some of the favourite meeting places were on the South Para River near Mt Crawford, at Pewsey Vale, on the North Para River north of Angaston and Dutton Park near Kapunda. These seasonal gatherings would have been attended by both the Peramangk and Ngadjuri people as well as the Kaurna and river tribes.
European settlement from 1836 onwards spelt the end of this Aboriginal lifestyle due to parcels of land being taken up for grazing and agriculture and subsequently, much conflict arose. The Peramangk and Ngadjuri people suffered severe population decline from the introduction of new diseases, social displacement and alienation, poor living conditions and the effects of alcohol. Some found work in sheep stations, on farms or in mines. Around 1900 some of the few remaining Peramangk people sought refuge at Manuka Mission on the Murray River. Some of their descendants now live in urban centres along the river and others moved to areas in the mid-north of the State.
Historical information on this page courtesy of the Royal Geographical Society of South Australia from their books "Discover the Barossa" and "Explore the Barossa".
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