The Hoschke Family in Australia: 1860–1869
Amandus arrives in Australia and Mary Ann’s family establishes itself in Bathurst
The 1860s were the decade in which the two people who would become the founders of the Australian Hoschke family were living completely separate lives.
Amandus August Ludwig Hoschke was a young man from Prussia who left Europe and eventually found his way to Australia.
Mary Ann Drew was an Australian-born girl growing up in the Bathurst district after her immigrant parents moved their family west from Sydney.
They would not marry until 1870.
But the foundations of their story were laid during this decade.
By the end of 1869, Amandus had been in Australia for several years and was working as a sailor, while Mary Ann was a young woman in the Bathurst district, only months away from meeting the man who would become her husband.
Their lives were about to converge.
1860 — Two families, two very different beginnings
At the beginning of the 1860s, Amandus was still in Prussia, while the Drew family was already established in New South Wales.
Amandus had been born on 1 January 1844 in Stettin, Prussia, the son of John Martin Hoschke and Frederika Thoms. The family history identifies Stettin as his birthplace; today the city is known as Szczecin in Poland, although at the time it was part of the Kingdom of Prussia.
Mary Ann Drew, meanwhile, had been born in New South Wales in 1847.
The current Hoschke website contains two versions of her birthplace — its timeline says Newcastle, while the more detailed Mary’s Story says Glebe, Sydney. The latter account says that when Mary was about three years old, the Drew family moved west to Bathurst.
This small discrepancy is worth retaining in our research notes until it can be resolved through the original birth registration.
What is clear is that Mary Ann spent her childhood in the Bathurst district, and this is where the future paths of the Drew and Hoschke families would eventually meet.
1861 — A young Amandus looks towards the wider world
Family recollections give different accounts of when Amandus left Germany.
One set of family notes says that he left Germany as early as 1861, aged about 18.
The more firmly documented evidence places him in Australia later in the decade.
The family website’s recent investigation into his journey explains that there are two traditions concerning his arrival:
- that he came to Australia as a sailor aboard the Aurora, and
- that he and a friend were sailors on a German immigrant ship and deserted when it reached Brisbane.
The first version is much better supported by the surviving documentary evidence.
His later NSW naturalisation record states that he arrived on the Aurora, and the family researchers have located Trove newspaper reports showing an Amandus Hoschke as a member of that vessel’s crew.
So while 1861 remains part of the family tradition, it is safer to say:
Amandus may have left Germany around 1861, but the first firm evidence we currently have of him in Australia comes from 1865.
That distinction is important for a published family history.
1862 — Mary Ann loses her father
While Amandus’s future remained uncertain, an important event occurred in Mary Ann’s family.
Her father, John Wellesley Drew, died in Bathurst in 1862, aged only 44.
The Hoschke family timeline records his death in that year.
John Drew had been born in Worcestershire, England, in 1818. He married Ann Jones in Shrewsbury in 1838, and the couple emigrated to Australia with their young son Robert aboard the Lorne in 1841. They went on to have four more children in Australia.
Mary Ann was therefore only about fifteen years old when her father died.
His death would have left Ann Drew with a large family to support.
For Mary Ann, the loss of her father was an important event in the years immediately before she married Amandus.
The Drew family was already firmly established around Bathurst and Georges Plains, however, and the family connections created there would continue for generations.
1863 — Amandus arrives in Australia
1863 is the year traditionally recorded as Amandus Hoschke’s arrival in Australia.
The Hoschke family timeline says simply:
1863 — Amandus arrived in Australia.
The more recent research into his journey has complicated that date slightly.
The family has found evidence that Amandus was a crew member on the Aurora, but that evidence relates to the vessel’s arrival in Sydney in October 1865.
Consequently, there is currently a difference between the traditional family timeline, which gives 1863, and the documentary evidence which firmly places him in Australia by 1865.
For the family book, I would phrase it carefully:
Amandus is traditionally recorded as having arrived in Australia in 1863. Documentary evidence currently confirms his presence in Australia by 1865, when he was working as a sailor aboard the Aurora.
This preserves the family’s established date while being honest about the evidence.
A young German in a new country
If Amandus did arrive around 1863, he would have been only 19 years old.
He had travelled from Prussia to a country thousands of kilometres away, where English was not his first language and where he had no immediate family network.
The family website notes that at some point he had to learn English as his second language.
His later life demonstrates just how completely he would eventually make Australia his home.
But in 1863 he was simply a young German immigrant finding his way in a new country.
1864 — A young immigrant finding his way
There is currently no specific Hoschke family event documented for 1864.
This is one of the quieter years in the surviving record.
It is quite possible that Amandus was already working in the maritime industry during this period.
His later documented employment as a sailor suggests that the sea provided one of his first opportunities to earn a living in Australia.
This would have suited a young man accustomed to movement and adventure, and it also gave him an opportunity to travel between Australian and Pacific ports.
The following year, we get our first detailed glimpse of his working life.
1865 — Amandus and the Aurora
1865 is the most fascinating year of the decade for Amandus.
The Trove research undertaken by the Hoschke Family Reunion has uncovered newspaper reports concerning the vessel Aurora, a brig of 227 tons under Captain Lessing.
The Aurora had been operating in the Pacific, carrying cargo between ports including Hong Kong, Manila and ports in South America.
In September 1865, the vessel sailed from Tome in Chile to Brisbane, carrying a cargo of breadstuff. A Trove report in the South Australian Advertiser recorded its arrival in Brisbane on 14 September.
Then, in October, the Aurora sailed from Brisbane for Sydney.
A report in the Brisbane Courier, dated 9 October 1865, records:
“Aurora, brig, 227 tons, Captain Lessing, for Sydney, in ballast.”
The report lists Master Lessing as the passenger, while the family research has located Amandus Hoschke in the crew records.
This is currently the strongest documentary evidence for Amandus’s arrival in Australia.
The mystery remains
The evidence creates an intriguing question.
If Amandus was a sailor aboard the Aurora in 1865, how did he first get to Brisbane?
Family stories say that Amandus and his friend Frederick Goeths deserted from a German immigrant ship in Brisbane.
There was indeed a connection between the two men. Both came from Germany, and their families remained connected for many years.
Frederick Goeths later married Margaretha Wittman, who arrived in Brisbane aboard the La Rochelle in December 1865.
However, the surviving evidence makes it unlikely that Amandus and Frederick deserted from the same ship at the same time.
The Aurora evidence places Amandus at sea at the time Frederick was apparently travelling on the La Rochelle.
So the family story may contain a kernel of truth — the two young German men may indeed have known each other and both settled in Queensland/New South Wales — but the precise circumstances remain unresolved.
That mystery is worth preserving.
1866 — Amandus continues as a sailor
The Hoschke timeline records 1865–1866 as the period when Amandus worked as a sailor in coastal shipping.
The family research also identifies another vessel, the Alexandra, with which Amandus was later associated.
This period gives us an interesting glimpse of Amandus before he became a farmer and family man.
He was not yet the Amandus Hoschke remembered by later generations as the pioneering Upper Orara selector.
He was a young sailor.
He travelled.
He worked.
And he was establishing himself in Australia.
It is tempting to imagine that these years at sea helped shape the adventurous and practical character that would later lead him to take up land in a remote part of the Orara Valley.
1867 — Building a life in New South Wales
There is no major documented Hoschke event for 1867.
By this stage, however, Amandus had established himself in Australia.
Mary Ann, meanwhile, was approaching adulthood in the Bathurst district.
She was about twenty years old.
The Drew family remained connected with Georges Plains, where St John’s Church of England would later become the setting for one of the most important events in the family story: Mary Ann’s marriage to Amandus.
The church and its surrounding cemetery remain important physical reminders of the Drew family’s presence in the Bathurst district.
1868 — Two lives drawing closer
Again, there is no major individual event recorded for the Hoschke family in 1868.
But the two separate stories were moving steadily towards their meeting.
Amandus was now a young adult who had spent several years in Australia.
Mary Ann was a young woman from a well-established Bathurst family.
The circumstances in which they met are not currently known.
That is a question worth leaving open rather than filling with speculation.
We know that by 1870 they would be married.
1869 — The year before the marriage
By 1869, Amandus was approximately 25 years old and Mary Ann about 22.
The following year would change both their lives.
They would marry at Georges Plains and begin a family that would eventually number thirteen children.
At the end of 1869, however, the future was still unwritten.
A young German immigrant and an Australian-born daughter of English immigrants were about to establish a new family.
Their marriage would bring together two very different migration stories.
Two migration stories meet
One of the most interesting things about the 1860s is that it tells two migration stories at once.
The Hoschke story
Amandus came from Prussia, arriving in Australia as a young man.
His journey was adventurous and remains partly mysterious.
He worked as a sailor and travelled between Australian and Pacific ports before eventually settling in New South Wales.
The Drew story
Mary Ann’s parents, John Wellesley Drew and Ann Jones, came from England.
They married in Shropshire in 1838 and emigrated to Australia aboard the Lorne in 1841 with their young son Robert.
They eventually established their family in the Bathurst district.
Their daughter Mary Ann grew up in that Australian environment.
So when Amandus and Mary Ann eventually married in 1870, they represented two very different immigrant journeys converging in rural New South Wales.
The Bathurst connection
The Bathurst district was central to the early story of both families.
The Drew family had established itself there after leaving Sydney.
Amandus and Mary Ann would marry at St John’s Church of England, Georges Plains, in April 1870.
The church was part of a wider rural community in which families were closely connected through marriage, work, churches and neighbouring properties.
The surviving cemetery records provide further confirmation of the connection.
The Coffs Harbour Historic Cemetery record for Mary Ann later identifies her as:
Mary Ann Hoschke, née Drew, born 6 August 1847, daughter of John and Ann Drew.
It records her death in 1923 at age 76.
For Amandus, the cemetery record later identifies him as the son of John Martin and Frederika Hoschke, born in Germany on 1 January 1844.
These later records provide useful corroboration of the identities of the two people whose story begins here.
What was happening in Australia?
The 1860s were also a period of enormous change in the colony of New South Wales.
The decade was characterised by expanding settlement, railway construction, agricultural development and increasing communication between previously isolated districts.
This broader environment would become important to the Hoschke family.
Amandus’s later work on the Bathurst–Orange railway placed him within one of the major infrastructure developments of nineteenth-century New South Wales.
Railways were opening new possibilities for people, produce and settlement.
They also helped connect inland communities such as Bathurst and Orange with the wider colony.
For the young Hoschke family, the railway would eventually become part of the path that led them towards the north coast.
The beginning of the Australian Hoschke story
By the end of the 1860s, the foundations were in place.
Amandus had left Europe and made Australia his new home.
Mary Ann had grown up in the Bathurst district.
The Drew family was established in the area.
Amandus had gained experience working at sea.
And somewhere during these years, the paths of Amandus and Mary Ann crossed.
The following year they would marry.
And from that marriage would come a family of thirteen children and, eventually, the many descendants whose stories make up the Hoschke family today.
A decade of beginnings
The 1860s can therefore be seen as the prelude to the Hoschke family in Australia.
It was not yet a family story.
There were no Hoschke children.
There was no Upper Orara farm.
There was no Orara Post Office, Progress Association or family home.
There was only Amandus, a young German immigrant making his way in a new country, and Mary Ann, a young woman growing up in the Bathurst district.
Their individual stories had begun separately.
By 1869, they were about to become one.
1870 — The next chapter
On 19 April 1870, Amandus and Mary Ann married at St John’s Church of England, Georges Plains.
Ten months later, their first child, George William Hoschke, was born.
The family that would eventually move to Upper Orara had begun.
The 1860s were over. The Hoschke family story had begun.
Research notes and sources
For your family-history publication, I would use the following sources for this chapter.
1. Hoschke Family Reunion — Timeline
The family’s master timeline records Amandus’s arrival in 1863, his work as a sailor in 1865–66, Mary Ann’s family connection to Bathurst, and the later 1870 marriage. It is an excellent starting point but itself notes that some dates are approximate.
Hoschke Family Reunion — Timeline of the Hoschke Family and Orara Valley
2. Hoschke Family Reunion — Amandus’s journey to Australia
This is particularly valuable for the 1860s because it brings together family recollections, naturalisation information and Trove newspaper evidence relating to the Aurora. It establishes the October 1865 Sydney arrival as the earliest firm documentary evidence currently located for Amandus in Australia, while explaining the competing family traditions.
The Mystery of Amandus’ Journey to Australia
3. Trove — South Australian Advertiser, 15 September 1865
The newspaper reported the Aurora arriving at Brisbane from Tome with 400 tons of breadstuff. The Hoschke researchers use this as part of the reconstruction of Amandus’s movements.
4. Trove — Brisbane Courier, 9 October 1865
This records the Aurora, a 227-ton brig under Captain Lessing, clearing Brisbane for Sydney in ballast. The family research connects Amandus with the vessel’s crew.
5. Hoschke Family Reunion — The Drew Family
This provides the history of John Wellesley Drew and Ann Jones, their 1841 arrival aboard the Lorne, their Bathurst connections and the Georges Plains church where Amandus and Mary Ann later married.
The Drew Family — Hoschke Family Reunion
6. Coffs Harbour Historic Cemetery records
The cemetery publication provides later corroborating information for both Amandus and Mary Ann, including their parents’ names and Mary Ann’s birth date.
Coffs Harbour Historic Cemetery records — Hoschke Family Reunion PDF
7. A note about the evidence
I think it is important that the book does not state categorically that Amandus arrived in 1863 aboard a particular ship.
At present, the evidence supports:
- 1863 — the established family-history date for his arrival.
- 1865 — the earliest strong documentary evidence currently found, showing him as a sailor associated with the Aurora.
- October 1865 — the Aurora arrived in Sydney from Brisbane, with Amandus identified by the family researchers as a crew member.
- The story that he deserted from a German immigrant ship in Brisbane remains a family tradition but is not conclusively demonstrated by the surviving evidence.
I would actually make this a small feature box in the finished book:
The Mystery of Amandus’s Arrival
Family tradition says that young Amandus Hoschke deserted from a German immigrant ship in Brisbane. Documentary evidence, however, places him as a sailor aboard the Aurora, which arrived in Sydney in October 1865. His naturalisation papers also name the Aurora. Exactly how and when he first reached Australia remains an intriguing family mystery.
That gives future descendants something to investigate rather than closing off a question that the evidence has not yet completely answered.
And with that, the story naturally leads into 1870–1879 — the decade in which Amandus and Mary Ann married, their first six children were born, and the foundations of the family that would eventually settle Upper Orara were laid.
