Bethany (South Australia)

Bethany
Bethany viewed from Mengler Hill
State :  Australia State : South Australia Founded : 1841
Coordinates : 34 ° 32 ′  S , 138 ° 58 ′  E Coordinates: 34 ° 32 ′  S , 138 ° 58 ′  E Area : 9.4  km²
Residents : 151 (2016) Population density : 16 inhabitants per km²
Time zone : ACST (UTC + 9: 30) Postal code : 5352 LGA : Barossa Council
Bethany

The small town of Bethany , also known as Bethanien or New Silesia , is located in South Australia in Australia in the Barossa Valley , about 2 km southeast of Tanunda and 74 km northeast of Adelaide . It was founded in 1841 by German immigrants. Today 151 people live here (as of 2016).

Bethany with the biblical name Bethanien was founded as the first place in the Barossa Valley by Lutheran believers from Poznan and Silesia in 1841 on the initiative of Pastor Gotthard Daniel Fritzsche , who emigrated from their homeland due to religious disputes with the Prussian authorities . The 270 immigrants who reached Port Adelaide on October 27, 1841 on the ship Skjold , formed the second wave of emigration from Germany to Australia and were divided according to settlement areas. Some of them settled in the towns of Hahndorf and Klemzig , which had already been founded by Germans , of which 21 families built Bethanien. Other numbers are also given: 28 families, 34 children and 83 adults.

A small group of Aborigines originally lived in the area of ​​the Barossa Valley.

George Fife Angas , who was connected to Fritzsche, leased the land on which Bethanien was founded to the immigrants who later bought it from him. In 1843 the place had about 200 inhabitants and in 1844 the settlers had cleared 500 acres of land, grew wheat and raised cattle. They built the place up in the form of a hoof village . The construction of a hoof village enabled the construction of a thoroughfare, access to the water of the nearby Tandunda River and to the fields.

In 1842 Pastor Frietzsche founded a local school that existed for many years.

Bethanien did not develop as well as the nearby town of Tanunda, founded earlier by German emigrants. One reason for this was possibly that the main road ran right through Tanunda and that the first post office in the area was established there. A hindrance was that the surrounding land around Bethanien was owned by the British Crown and no wood, stones or soil could be removed, which hindered the economic development of the place.

Life in Bethanien was tough and many from the town moved to the surrounding towns of Rosenthal , Hoffnungsthal and Langmeil .

When Pastor Heinrich AE Meyer became responsible for the congregation in 1848 and looked after it until 1862, his missionary work contributed to the fact that members of the Bethanien Congregation left the place and missionary other places such as Ebenezer, Neukirch-Schönborn, Gnadenfrei (now called Marananga ), Steinau and Eden Valley . When the religious disputes in Germany ended after the 1840s, more immigrants came there for social, family, economic or other reasons. The citizens of Bethany are said to have been involved in the founding of the Hermannsburg mission station .

During the First World War , the place, like many other German place names, was renamed Bethany.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Australian Bureau of Statistics : Bethany ( English ) In: 2016 Census QuickStats . June 27, 2017. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
2. ↑ ^{a b} German Australia ( Memento of December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ): Bethany - the first settlement in the Barossa Valley , English
3. ↑ ^{a b} smh.com.au : Bethany. The first major European settlement in the Barossa Valley , in English, accessed November 28, 2011