LINDA ATKINSON HUGO DU RIETZ Swedish Noble, Architect, Farmer and a Founding Father of Gympie HUGO DU RIETZ SWEDISH NOBLE, ARCHITECT, FARMER, and A FOUNDING FATHER OF GYMPIE The Du Rietz Coat of Arms of the Swedish Noble Family LINDA ATKINSON First published 2018 by Gympie Regional Council PO Box 155, Gympie Queensland 4570 Australia Copyright: Gympie Regional Council This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the Gympie Regional Council. Printed by Cataloguing in Publication Data National Library of Australia Atkinson, Linda, 1949 - author Hugo Du Rietz: Swedish noble, architect, farmer and a founding father of Gympie. Bibliography. Includes Index. 1. Gympie (Qld.) - History 2. Du Rietz, Hugo Wilhelm – 1831-1908 ISBN 978-0-6480274-3-0 ISBN 978-0-6480274-4-7 (ebook) Title Page: The DeVries/Du Rietz Coat of Arms from the House of Nobility in Sweden i Hugo Du Rietz-Taken by unknown photographer; date unknown Hugo lived from 3 April 1831 to 9 August 1908 ii iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 The Foundations Chapter 2 The Noble House Chapter 3 Hugo Du Rietz comes to Australia Chapter 4 Du Rietz Family in Gympie and Related Information Chapter 5 Hugo Du Rietz-Successful Life in Gympie Chapter 6 Death of Hugo Du Rietz Chapter 7 Legacy for Gympie Bibliography Index iv Hugo Vilhelm Du Rietz v Foreword During 2013 I wrote a short history about Hugo Du Rietz’s significant life and architectural contribution to the town of Gympie. This new book now comes as a historical biography of his work in Gympie and some of his extended family. This book is designed to expand and make more thorough my first work on Hugo Du Rietz and his family, and to bring together as much of the history of his contribution to this town’s architecture and the personal history of as much of his family as has been possible to upturn. With no diaries or archives to refer to, this extensive history has had to rely on other reliable sources, including information and material from descendants of Hugo Du Rietz in Australia and Sweden. I hope you will make time to read this history to discover just how significant was Hugo Du Rietz and members of his family to this town. Many of his buildings survive in Gympie, with all of the key ones having been heritage listed. Du Rietz helped to transform what was a ‘rag tag collection of tents and shanty dwellings’1 to a town with magnificently designed buildings and houses. In 2014, my book on another founding father of Gympie, Edward Bytheway, was published. Bytheway and Du Rietz were close colleagues and friends and together they did many things to provide Gympie with a quality of life and a decent town. This is really the first time that comprehensive histories have been written of those early founders of Gympie, from 1867 when the gold was discovered by James Nash in Nash’s Gully near the Town Hall where the Fiveways is now situated (some of the old bridge that was built to cross Nash’s Gully still lies under the Fiveways.) Gympie remembers Edward Bytheway and Hugo Du Rietz through dedications made at the old School of Arts building, now the Gympie Regional Art Galley. Bytheway spent 38 years of his life in Gympie, Du Rietz 41 years. In a letter dated 19 September 1995 to Glen Du Rietz, Dr Marcel Safier, a collector of nineteenth century photographs of Queensland’s photographic history, noted that Hugo is ‘not mentioned in a Gympie Historical article on Gympie’s early photographers…’2 The Du Rietz family must be remembered for their unique, innovative and major contribution to the buying and selling of valuable real estate, the gold mining industry, dairying and the management of dairy factories, poultry farming, other agricultural pursuits, architecture of major buildings and houses, education and teaching, nursing and management of the Gympie Hospital, local business by working in some of the larger stores and establishing businesses of their own, the mining industry, the management of the town, its facilities and infrastructure, war service, and the various and many community committees such as the School of Arts Committee. It was fortunate for Queensland to have the likes of Hugo Du Rietz and his brother Arthur, involved in its entry into dairy farming, as even in 1901, Queensland was facing a half million-pound deficit ($75,223,470 in today’s currency and it was reputed that its dairying industry ‘would very quickly reverse the half-million deficit into a handsome surplus.’ Queensland butter at that time was also being exported to London. Still, while gold kept the coffers of the Queensland Government Treasury buoyant, various 1 The Gympie Times 12 October 2017 2 Letter dated 19 September to Mr and Mrs Glen Du Rietz from Dr Marcel Safier of 2/41Thomas Street Greenslopes Brisbane Queensland vi Governors of Queensland visited Gympie regularly to acknowledge the contribution the town had made to the economy of Queensland ‘this goldfield, which had proved of great value to the colony at large and the yields from which still entitled it to be called the first profitable goldfield in Queensland.’ In turn, its citizens chose these visits to seek the clemency of the Governors for improvements to the town and the region, such as for railways and better roads in and out of Gympie. It appears that few Du Rietz descendants now live in Gympie or the surrounding Region. Even in the early days some of them went north to the Cairns district to try to make a living, some to Brisbane and some to New South Wales. Hugo Du Rietz has a great great grandson, Glen Du Rietz, who lives on the Sunshine Coast, another surviving relative Kay Tregaskis who lives in the Brisbane suburb of Cleveland and the great grandson of Ann Charlotte (Hugo’s daughter), Michael Moloney, who lives with his wife, Donna, in Brisbane. Ann Charlotte married Edgar Benjamin Davidson at St Patrick’s Church in Gympie on 1 June 1885. Edgar Davidson was Mayor of Gympie in 1902. The Gympie family of Heilbronn can claim to be part of the Hugo Du Rietz line. This liaison goes back to 16 June 1897 when Hugo Du Rietz’s youngest son, Charles James, married Mary Ann Heilbronn, the daughter of Mr and Mrs John Heilbronn of Widgee Crossing. Mr Heilbronn in the late 1870s had a toll gate on the city side of the Widgee Crossing having been granted this concession because he was paying ‘a rent of £50 ($7,522 in today’s currency3) a year to the Government and keeping the road in order for two miles on each side of the river.’4 The Heilbronn’s made a great business out of the toll gate together with the ‘hotel that stood on top of the bank on the right hand side of the road.’5 Finally by 1878, after having made considerable money from the toll, the toll gate had to be given up not only because it was causing some unpleasantness in the community, but because the traffic could use the Channon Street (Kidd) Bridge. So Charles James was marrying into the family of what seemed to be an opportunist business man! On 16 June 1947, Charles James and Mary Ann celebrated their golden wedding anniversary at Gympie’s St Patrick's Church!6 The four children and ten grandchildren who attended this celebration provide evidence that the Du Rietz’s continued to have large families at least until 1947. 7 3 https://www.rba.gov.au/calculator/annualPreDecimal.html 4 Gympie Gold 1867-1967, LHA 17, p. 60 5 Gympie Gold 1867-1967, LHA 17, p. 60 6 The Courier Mail16 June 1947 7 The Courier Mail 16 June 1947 vii The Du Reitz’s were prominent in every part of the Gympie community and its life, Hugo being in demand for many community improvements. As the saying goes, they were at every show and event in town. This book will hopefully give the reader an understanding of how Hugo’s extensive ‘community involvement gave him both a reputation for reliability and the personal connections that gained him private commissions to build houses, cottages, hotels, and shops for Gympie’s leading citizens. To him we owe many of the best buildings that were erected during the gold mining days and also some of the design features that make Gympie’s built environment distinctive.’8 Through marriages of sons and daughters to local people, the extended Du Rietz family remained a close-knit family, who supported each other in almost every way possible, whether it was personal or in the work they did professionally or in the community. This is indicated by a funeral notice in the paper: ROBERTS, Mrs. Doreen A.—The Relatives and Friends of Mr. L. F. (Duke) Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. C. Walker, Mr. and Mrs. S. Walker, and Family, Mr. and Mrs. R. Thomas, Colleen and Ronald, Mr. T. Murphy, senr., Mr. F. Murphy, Rev. Bro, T. D. Murphy (Hobart), Mrs. Ruby Roberts, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Roberts and Family, Mrs. E. M. Gallaher, Sister M. Jose Crea, Mr. and Mrs. C. Du Rietz (Neurum), Miss G. Felsman, Mr. and Mrs. W. C. Felsman and Family, Mrs. C. Felsman and Family, Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Felsman, Mr.