Grafton: Sunday, March 15 1868. Bishop William Collinson Sawyer was returning home by boat with his second son Hewley and servants, having given evensong at Ulmarra.
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The Anglican Diocese of Grafton and Armidale had been formed in 1863 by the subdivision of the northern parts of the Diocese of Newcastle.
However, it was not until January 1867 that Sawyer was appointed as inaugural Bishop of Grafton and Armidale, arriving in the colony from England in December 1867.
After staying initially with Bishop Tyrell at Morpeth, Bishop Sawyer brought his family to Grafton early in 1868 to live. Their time there would be cut brutally short.
Sunday, March 15 was stormy. The small boat the party was in was caught by a wind gust and capsized just before arrival. Neither the bishop nor his son could swim. Both drowned, along with a servant.
The house that the Collinsons were living in, Argyle Villa, had been constructed by Wilhelm Kirchner to provide a home for his growing family close to Kirchner’s burgeoning business interests in the Clarence.
Joseph Sharpe, Kirchner’s partner in Kirchner, Sharpe & Co, had arrived in the Clarence in 1841. In addition to his land interests, Sharpe had established a boiling down plant in 1844. By 1851, this was processing 40 bullocks a day.
Kirchner and Sharpe decided to establish a candle and soap making plant using tallow previously exported from the boiling down facility. They also decided to establish a steam sawmill next to the factory.
Now back in Europe, Kirchner set about acquiring the necessary equipment for the factory, while recruiting the German labour he needed to build and run the factory and sawmill.
In March 1856, the barque Cesar Godeffroy arrived at Grafton with equipment and supplies, along with a first group of 182 German migrants. They included soap makers and chemists, engineers to set up the plant and equipment, and carpenters to erect the necessary buildings.
Many of the workers and their families lived in accommodation built around the factory site, creating a German enclave that became known as Kirchnerstadt.
By 1861, 11 per cent of Grafton’s population was German, a higher proportion than either the Scots or Irish.
Some German settlers settled permanently in the Clarence, making a major contribution to Grafton life.
Meantime, Kirchner, Sharpe & Co was in serious financial difficulties.
Jim Belshaw’s email is ndarala@optusnet.com.au. He blogs at http://newenglandaustralia.blogspot.com.au/ and http://newenglandhistory.blogspot.com.au/
