Daniel Henry Schreyvogel (1817-1886)

Daniel Henry Schreyvogel (c. 1817 - 13 December 1886) was the first person of German descent to permanently migrate to South Australia.

Daniel Henry Schreyvogel
Born	Daniel Henry Schreyvogel c. 1817 Tranquebar, Madras Presidency
Died	13 December 1886 Adelaide, South Australia
Nationality	British Subject
Occupation	clerk bank worker pastoralist

Biography

Author: Benjamin Hollister ©2022. All rights reserved.

Daniel Henry Schreyvogel was born in Tranquebar (today Tharangambadi, Tamil Nadu), India to Lutheran missionary Daniel Schreyvogel and his English wife Charlotte Lloyd.

In India

His exact date of birth has not been identified as yet, but Daniel senior was a well-known member of the Danish Lutheran Mission and we know he was stationed at Tranquebar from 1804, with his wife Charlotte dying there in 1819, leaving him to look after 2 year old Daniel Henry and his three year old sister Charlotte Matilda Eliza. His mother-in-law came to live with the family, but also died within a year, followed by his wife's sister and her husband, all four deaths occurring within 17 months. At this point Daniel senior started to make calls for Daniel Henry to be placed in either an orphanage or Maroavion school near Halle, unfortunately unsuccessfully.

By 1826 the family had left Tranquebar as Daniel senior was appointed to Trichinopoly (today Tiruchirappalli) and Daniel senior seems to have used an opportunity of meeting the new Bishop of Calcutta to a school place for Daniel Henry in England. This occurred and Daniel Henry spent the next 8 years living in England.

In England and Germany

Nothing is known of Daniel Henry's time at school, but in 1834 his father was given 2 years leave (on full pay) to visit England, due to his own and Daniel Henry's health, as well as needing to help prepare a transition for Daniel Henry from schooling to adult life. On arrival, Daniel Henry's health was clearly failing and, following continued correspondence with Hermann Agathon Niemeyer of Halle, a noted physician, the father and son travelled to Halle in March 1835, with Daniel senior returning to England in late 1835 while Daniel Henry remained in Halle for two more months. Daniel Henry's father, as well as marrying his second wife, Ann Howland of Kent, in December 1835, had arranged with the South Australian Company for a position as clerk for Daniel Henry, and on 24 February 1836, The Duke of York left with Daniel Henry and 46 other passengers and crew for South Australia. At least briefly. The ship had to turn back for repairs twice due to storms in the Bay of Biscay, making final departure on 17 April 1836.

In Australia

On 27 July 1836, The Duke of York anchored in Nepean Bay on Kangaroo Island, and Daniel Henry became the first German colonist (or at least colonist of German descent) to settle in South Australia. His obituary records a serious fall from a horse in 1838 that appears to have left Daniel Henry with what today would likely be described as a traumatic brain injury. Daniel Henry was seemingly known for his odd temperament and visage, put down to the effects of the horse accident, but it may have had an underlying cause. The medical condition he was treated for in Halle has never been revealed in the writings of his father. An incident is recounted in 1928, and from the context needs to be taken with some care, when Daniel Henry and Johannes Menge were the only non-British inhabitants of the Island. This had to have been Daniel Henry is stated to have stood up, drunkenly, and "denounced them all, ... their country and their countrymen, Great Britain and her colonies. ...'There is a black spot on the English character'". Menge and Schreyvogel only inhabited the island together between January 1837 and June 1838, and the Solway, with about 67 Germans, had arrived on the Island in June 1837, so presumably this happened in the first half of 1837, when Daniel, born of an English mother in a British colony and educated at an English school, felt uninhibited enough to sound forth at his employers.

By 1841, Daniel Henry is described as a land and stock proprietor in Rundle St, with a cattle brand registered to him. His obituary has him working for some time at the Sank of South Australia, in the debt collection business for dishonoured bills, a process that apparently was known locally was "getting a Schreyvogel" or "being Schreyvogeled", a term first seen in print in 1848. By 1861, there is an application from him to be admitted to Destitute Asylum on medical grounds, although by 1867 he is regularly signing petitions of good health to members of the royal family and in 1875 is noted as purchasing land.

Family

Daniel had no known relatives in the colony of South Australia.

Residences in the City

Dates	Place	Current Address	Co-ordinates

Work in the City

Dates	Place	Current Address	Co-ordinates

Published Obituary

From the Evening Journal, Monday 13 December 1886:

"Death of an Old Colonist.
Another of the old colonial first settlers has passed away in the person of Mr. D. H. Schreyvogel who died on Monday morning, December 13, in his 70th year. Daniel Henry Schreyvogel was a German, who came out from London in the first ship that arrived in the colony, the Duke of York, in 1836, as a clerk in the employ of the South Australian Company. In 1838 the deceased was accidentally thrown from a horse, and received injuries which up to the time of his death seriously affected his mental faculties. For several years following the accident, however, he was engaged at the Bank of South Australia. One of his duties consisted in serving notices of dishonoured bills, and so thoroughly did his name become associated with the task that the recipients of the unwelcome documents got in the habit of saying they had been "Schreyvogeled." After leaving that situation he lived for about twenty years on capital that he had accumulated. Thereafter Mr. Thomas Giles (of Messrs. Anstey & Giles) found a sinecure for him at a sheep station on Yorke's Peninsula; but eventually he came to Adelaide, and for six years previous to his decease he was an inmate of the Destitute Asylum. He was one of the oldest members of the first Congregational Church under the late Rev. Q. T. Stow, and since the accident that befell him he received continual tokens of interest and sympathy from his fellow members. Owing to the unfortunate accident deceased was subject to many strange delusions, and frequently wrote to the Government and private individuals on various topics. Most old colonials remember the old gentleman who was so thoroughly identified with the early days of the colony, and his death will revive bygone times. The committee arranging for the Old Colonists' gathering had sent him a complimentary ticket for the conversazione only the week before his death took place. As far as we know the deceased had no relatives in the colony."