Conrad Friedrich Anton Reese (1818-1899)

Conrad Friedrich Anton Reese (b.c. 1818 Holzminden, Kingdom of Hanover - d. 1899 Victoria Park, South Australia) was a builder in the City of Adelaide and both built and rebuilt the Duke of Brunswick Hotel in Gilbert Street.

Biography

Author: Benjamin Hollister. This text is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License

In Germany

Reese was born in Holzminden

In Australia

Bartels worked for a year worked as a labourer for Seppelt's son Bruno who was experimenting with tobacco and other crops at Seppeltsfield.

He must have returned to Germany around 1847, as it is recorded that Adolph Bartels and his sister Sophie Maria Johanne Henriette (or Maria Sophia Johanne) Bartels arrived in South Australia in April 1848 aboard President Smidt from Bremen with their parents Adolph Johann Cord Bartels (c. 1793 – 1 June 1863) and his wife Wilhelmine C. Bartels (c. 1794 – 26 November 1861). One Hans J. C. Bartels was naturalized in 1849.

He next worked as cigarmaker for retailers Gerke & Rodemann (founded 1849) of 42 Rundle Street, Adelaide. In the early 1850s he joined the exodus of South Australian men to the Victorian goldfields and after his return opened a tobacconist's shop on his own account on Rundle Street, near the York hotel. In 1854 Ludwig Uhlendorf, the licensee of the "King of Hanover" hotel, also on Rundle Street, died. The "King of Hanover", a single-storey affair, was later rebuilt as an 80-room hotel of two-storeys, then in 1916 became part of John Martin & Co.'s department store. The following year Bartels married his widow; they would have four or five children, of whom only one survived to adulthood. In 1856 he took over the hotel's licence, which he maintained until 1865, when he joined in partnership with G. H. C. Meyers as general agents and grain merchants, with which he was involved until the day he died.

His wife died in 1862, the date suggesting complications attending childbirth. A year later he married Anna Weidenbach, of Glen Osmond, who would survive him with six children.

In December 1866, Bartels was elected to the Adelaide City Council as councillor for the Hindmarsh Ward, and served for four years, then after a year's absence from the Council was in December 1871, elected Mayor, and re-elected unopposed the following year.

Bartels was characterised as a man who never spoke unless he had something useful to say. He was diligent in attending to his duties and showed sound business sense in his personal and public life. He died in Adelaide from liver cancer at the age of 58.-->

Family

Friedrich and Caroline had seven children:

Name	Birth	Death	Spouse
Augusta Wilhelmine Christine	abt 1846 Holzminden	3 Mar 1908 Crystal Brook	Edward Cox 1865
Caroline Wilhelmine Emmy	12 Jan 1850 Melbourne, Vic (aboard the ship Emmy)
Johanna Caroline Wilhelmine	30 Apr 1851 Adelaide	07 Jan 1852 Adelaide	(died as infant)
Georg Friedrich	30 Jul 1857 Adelaide	09 Sep 1934 Adelaide	Mary Elizabeth Frances Tynan 1880
Friedrich Conrad Anton	12 Oct 1859 Adelaide	04 Jul 1961 Adelaide	(died as infant)
Emma Amalie	27 Dec 1861 Adelaide	19 Jul 1908 Dulwich SA	Joseph Henry Palmer 1880
Caroline Eleanora	28 Jan 1864 Adelaide	25 Jan 1926 Adelaide	Edmund Andreas Kruss 1881

Published Obituary

From The Register, Saturday 30 November 1878:

REESE. —On the 20th August, at the residence of his son-in-law (Mr. J. Palmer), Hanover-street, Victoria Park, Conrad Frederick Anton Reese, of senile decay, late of Winifred-street, South-terrace, in his 81st year. A colonist of 50 years.