The Hoschke Family in Australia: 1870–1879
The 1870s were the decade in which Amandus August Ludwig Hoschke and Mary Ann Drew began their married life and established the family that would eventually become one of the pioneering families of Upper Orara.
When the decade began, Amandus had already been in Australia for several years. He had arrived in Sydney in 1863, aged about twenty, and had spent time working at sea before settling in New South Wales. Mary Ann Drew was an Australian-born young woman whose family had moved from Sydney to Bathurst when she was a child.
In April 1870, their lives came together.
Over the following ten years, six children were born.
By the end of the decade, Amandus and Mary Ann were no longer simply a young married couple. They were the parents of a growing family, and Amandus was establishing a working life that would eventually lead them north to the Orara Valley.
1870 — Amandus and Mary Ann marry
19 April 1870 was one of the most important dates in the history of the Hoschke family.
On that day, Amandus August Ludwig Hoschke married Mary Ann Drew at Georges Plains, near Bathurst, New South Wales.
Mary Ann was the daughter of John Wellesley Drew and Ann Jones. Her family had arrived in Australia as assisted immigrants aboard the Lorne in 1841 and eventually settled in the Bathurst district. Mary Ann was born in 1847 and spent her childhood in and around Bathurst.
Amandus had a very different beginning.
He had been born in Stettin, Prussia, on 1 January 1844 and arrived in Australia in 1863. The family history records that he subsequently worked as a sailor in coastal shipping during 1865–1866.
By 1870, the young German immigrant and the Australian-born daughter of the Drew family were married.
Their wedding took place at St John’s Church of England at Georges Plains, a church that would remain associated with the Drew family for generations.
It was the beginning of a partnership that would last for more than fifty years.
1871 — George William is born
On 4 February 1871, Amandus and Mary Ann’s first child was born.
George William Hoschke was born in the Bathurst district.
George was the beginning of what would eventually become a very large family.
He was born only ten months after his parents’ marriage, and his arrival marked the beginning of thirteen children who would eventually be born to Amandus and Mary Ann.
George would later become the eldest of the thirteen children and one of the boys who accompanied his parents when the family eventually moved to Upper Orara.
At the end of the 1870s, however, he was simply the first-born son of a young couple building their family near Bathurst.
1872 — August Frank is born
The family grew again in 1872.
On 13 October 1872, August Frank Hoschke was born at Bathurst.
He was the second son of Amandus and Mary Ann.
The family history later records him as August Frank, usually known as Frank.
Frank would eventually become an important member of the Upper Orara community. He travelled north with the family in 1886 when he was fourteen and later worked alongside his elder brother George cutting cedar and other timber used to build houses in the Orara Valley.
But in 1872, the family was still in the early stages of its story.
Amandus and Mary Ann now had two young sons, both born in the Bathurst district.
1873 — A young family establishes itself
There is no major individual Hoschke family event currently recorded for 1873.
It was nevertheless a significant period in the development of the young family.
Amandus was establishing himself as a working man in New South Wales, while Mary Ann was caring for two very young children.
The family was still connected to the Bathurst district, where Mary Ann’s Drew family had established itself.
The coming years would see the arrival of several more children and, eventually, a move towards the Orange district as Amandus found work associated with the railway.
1874 — Frederick Amandus is born
On 7 June 1874, the couple’s third child was born.
Frederick Amandus Hoschke was born at Bathurst.
He was given his father’s name as his middle name and would later become one of the most important figures in the family’s Orara history.
Frederick was only twelve when the family moved to Upper Orara in 1886.
As a young man, he would help establish the family on the new land and eventually select his own property, Fairview, which remains connected to the family story.
His descendants would form one of the major branches of the Australian Hoschke family.
1875 — Jessie Caroline is born
The family welcomed its first daughter in 1875.
Jessie Caroline Hoschke was born on 24 December 1875 at Georges Plains, near Bathurst.
Jessie was therefore born on Christmas Eve, just as summer was beginning in New South Wales.
She would later become an important ancestor in the Davis branch of the family.
At the age of twenty, Jessie married George Davis at Upper Orara in 1896. Their descendants included Ada Mary Davis, whose recollections would eventually become one of the most valuable sources of information about life in early Upper Orara.
Jessie’s birth brought the family to four children:
- George
- Frank
- Frederick
- Jessie
Amandus and Mary Ann’s family was growing quickly.
1876 — Four children and a future taking shape
There is no major documented individual family event for 1876.
George, Frank, Frederick and Jessie were now growing up together in the Bathurst district.
Amandus and Mary Ann’s household was becoming increasingly busy, and their family would continue to grow throughout the decade.
The family history later describes Mary Ann as having begun her married life near Bathurst while Amandus found work connected with the railway near Orange.
The railway would become an important part of the family’s story, both during this period and later when Amandus’s sons worked in and around the developing districts of New South Wales.
1877 — Annie Jane is born
Another daughter arrived in 1877.
Annie Jane Hoschke was born in Bathurst.
Annie would later become one of the best-known members of the family in Upper Orara.
She came north with her parents and siblings in 1886 and spent much of her life in the old family home at Upper Orara.
That house would later become the Upper Orara Post Office, and Annie eventually took over the running of the Post Office herself. She operated it for many years and became renowned for her service to the local community.
Her later life therefore provides a remarkable example of how one of the children born during this decade became part of the social fabric of Upper Orara.
1878 — Five children and another year of family life
There is no major individual event currently recorded for 1878.
By now Amandus and Mary Ann had five children, ranging in age from George, who was seven, to baby Annie.
The family’s life remained centred around the Bathurst district, but the family’s future would increasingly become connected with the Orange area and, eventually, the North Coast.
The move north was still several years away.
1879 — Albert John is born
The decade ended with the birth of another son.
On 27 July 1879, Albert John Hoschke was born at Bathurst.
Albert was the sixth child of Amandus and Mary Ann.
He was eight years old when the family eventually travelled north to Upper Orara.
His later life would be closely associated with the pioneering settlement. In 1905, as a young man, he successfully secured 200 acres of Crown land after a highly contested selection process — the same land being sought by his brother Harold.
Albert’s birth therefore brought the first decade of the Hoschke children’s story to a close.
The Hoschke family at the end of the 1870s
By the end of 1879, Amandus and Mary Ann had been married for nine years.
They had six children:
| Year | Child | Place of birth |
|---|---|---|
| 1871 | George William | Bathurst |
| 1872 | August Frank | Bathurst |
| 1874 | Frederick Amandus | Bathurst |
| 1875 | Jessie Caroline | Georges Plains |
| 1877 | Annie Jane | Bathurst |
| 1879 | Albert John | Bathurst |
The family was already becoming substantial.
And this was only the beginning.
Four more children would be born before the family left the Orange district in 1886:
- Edward Thomas — 1881
- Harold Robert — 1883
- Amandus Ludwig — 1884
- Ernest Carl — 1886
Three further children would later be born at Upper Orara:
- Mary Gertrude Isabel — 1889
- Hulda Minnie — 1892
- Arthur Henry Charles — 1893
Together they would make up the thirteen children of Amandus and Mary Ann Hoschke.
Amandus and Mary Ann: building their family
Looking back, it is easy to see the 1870s simply as a series of birth dates.
But for Amandus and Mary Ann, these were years of enormous change.
Amandus had arrived in Australia as a young German immigrant with no established family network of his own.
Mary Ann was the daughter of an immigrant family that had already established itself in the Bathurst district.
Together they created a new household.
They began their married life in the Bathurst area, and as Amandus found work associated with railway construction near Orange, the family gradually moved towards the district where their next generation would be born.
The family website describes Amandus as someone who was prepared to take risks and look for opportunities. That characteristic would become particularly important in the following decade when he made the extraordinary decision to take his growing family into the relatively undeveloped country of the Orara Valley.
The Drew family connection
The 1870s were also important because they established the connection between the Hoschke and Drew families.
Mary Ann’s parents, John Wellesley Drew and Ann Jones, had arrived in Australia in 1841. Their family eventually became well established around Bathurst and Georges Plains.
The St John’s Church of England at Georges Plains was an important Drew family landmark, and it was here that Mary Ann and Amandus were married in 1870.
That connection would remain important to the Hoschke descendants.
The family history therefore begins not simply with Amandus arriving from Germany, but with the meeting of two very different stories:
a young Prussian immigrant and an Australian-born daughter of an immigrant family from England.
Their marriage brought those two histories together.
What the Trove record tells us
The Trove research is particularly useful for understanding the broader context in which the young Hoschke family was living.
However, the surviving 1870s newspaper references to the surname Hoschke are relatively sparse compared with the much richer newspaper record from the 1880s onward.
This is not surprising.
Amandus was not yet a prominent public figure, the family had not yet arrived in Upper Orara, and the local newspapers that later reported on Progress Association meetings and Upper Orara events had not yet developed the same level of coverage.
The Hoschke Family Reunion’s own explanation of its Trove research is important here: nineteenth-century newspaper pages were scanned using OCR, and names can be misread, meaning searches can miss relevant articles. The site recommends checking the original newspaper image rather than relying solely on the searchable text.
For that reason, I would treat the 1870s newspaper record as supplementary rather than the foundation of this chapter.
The family events themselves are much more securely documented through the Hoschke family records and associated birth, marriage and cemetery information.
The significance of the 1870s
The importance of this decade becomes much clearer when viewed from the perspective of later generations.
In 1870, there was no Hoschke family in Australia beyond Amandus himself.
By 1879, there were eight people in the immediate household:
Amandus, Mary Ann and their six children.
Their eldest child, George, was eight.
Their youngest, Albert, was only a few months old.
Within seven years, this family would undertake a journey that would change their lives forever.
They would leave the Bathurst/Orange district and travel north to the newly opened land at Upper Orara.
The six children born during the 1870s would all make that journey.
George would be fifteen.
Frank fourteen.
Frederick twelve.
Jessie ten.
Annie nine.
Albert only seven.
They would become the first generation of Hoschke children to grow up in the Orara Valley.
Closing the decade
The 1870s were the decade in which Amandus and Mary Ann became a family.
They married at Georges Plains in 1870 and welcomed six children during the decade.
They built their early married life around Bathurst and the Orange district while Amandus worked to support his growing household.
For Mary Ann, these were years of raising one child after another.
For Amandus, they were years of work, settlement and looking for an opportunity that could provide a future for his family.
Neither could have known in 1870 that their marriage would eventually lead to a family of thirteen children, thirty-nine grandchildren and generations of descendants.
Nor could they have known that their decision to leave the settled districts of central New South Wales would eventually make the Hoschke name part of the history of the Orara Valley.
But the foundations had been laid.
By the close of 1879, the Hoschke family was ready for its next great adventure — the move north to Upper Orara.
And that is where the story of the Hoschke family in Australia would truly begin to take shape.
Sources for the 1870–1879 chapter
For your family-history publication, I would use the following as the principal references:
- Hoschke Family Reunion — Timeline of the Hoschke Family and Orara Valley, for the chronology of Amandus and Mary Ann’s marriage and the births of their children.
- Hoschke Family Reunion — Our History, for the overall family story and Amandus and Mary Ann’s marriage and children.
- Hoschke Family Reunion — Mary’s Story, for Mary Ann’s childhood, the Drew family background and the beginning of her married life.
- Hoschke Family Reunion — The Drew Family, for the Drew family’s arrival in Australia and the Georges Plains/St John’s Church connection.
- Individual family biographies for George, Frank, Frederick, Jessie, Annie and Albert, which provide corroborating details about their births and later lives.
- Trove research methodology, explaining the limitations of OCR and the importance of checking the original newspaper images.
