Philipp Schaffer

Philip (p) Schaffer , also Schaeffer (* in Hesse ; † 1828 (?) In Sydney , Australia ) was a German winemaker who was one of the first free settlers in Australia to establish viticulture there .

Life

Schaffer initially served as a soldier in a German rifle company in the American War of Independence under the British. After that, after his first wife had died, he and eight other farmers were recruited by the British to guard convicts in New South Wales at the request of Governor Arthur Phillip . In September 1789 he sailed with his ten year old daughter Elisabeth on the British HMS "Guardian" to Australia. After a shipwreck on the Cape of Good Hope , they were rescued by the "Lady Juliana" with four other guards and reached Sydney in June 1790.

Since Schaffer did not speak English, he was deemed unfit to supervise prisoners. Instead he received a 140 acres (about 57 hectares ) piece of land in Parramatta , which he farmed with his daughter and four assigned male convicts from March 30, 1791 and called "Vineyard". Together with William Reid and Robert Webb , sailors from the "Sirius", he was one of the first three free settlers in Australia.

Schaffer planted the first vines on Australian soil on his farm on an area of ​​just one acre (0.4 hectares) . So he was the first winemaker in Australia. There were only a few vines left in the governor's garden. Four years later (1795) Schaffer was able to present the first Australian wine.

Schaffer's court, however, was followed by failures. Despite further land and cattle allotments, most recently in November 1825, Schaffer and his second wife Margaret McKinnon, whom he had married on October 14, 1811, soon sold their property and were taken to the "Benevolent Asylum" because of poverty, old age and alcoholism. committed in Sydney, where Schaffer died around 1828.

The Hunter Valley , only a short distance from Sydney, still has a large part of Australia's wine-growing area.

literature

• Schaffer, Philip (? –1828) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 2. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1967 (English).