Bernhardt Holtermann and the Holtermann Nugget – Hill End, The Towers and the Glass Plates – 1838 to 1885

Bernhardt Otto Holtermann was a young Hamburg lad who came out in 1858 to dodge the Prussian army, spent years scratching away on Hawkins Hill at Hill End with his mate Louis Beyers, and then, in October 1872, saw their Star of Hope mine turn up the biggest single lump of reef gold the world has ever seen. The money built "The Towers" on the heights of St Leonards, put him in Parliament and paid for thousands of glass plate photographs that sat in a Chatswood garden shed until 1951. Today those plates are on the UNESCO Memory of the World register, and they're the reason we can still walk the streets of 1870s Hill End and Gulgong.

I've done a few posts over the years using the Holtermann glass plates and the views from his tower, but I'd never sat down and told the man's own story from start to finish. So here it is, from Hamburg to the goldfields, the famous "nugget", the mansion, the Exposition that never happened and the shed in Chatswood.

Holtermann beside the giant gold specimen. This famous print is an albumen print from a composite negative, made at North Sydney between 1874 and 1876. Charles Bayliss & Beaufoy Merlin (attributed), public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Hamburg to Sydney

According to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Holtermann was born in Hamburg on 29 April 1838, the son of John Henry Holtermann and his wife Anna, née Nachtigall. He didn't fancy three years of military service, so in 1858 he left Germany, sailed from Liverpool in the Salem and reached Melbourne on 7 August. Wikipedia puts that voyage at 101 days. He didn't stay in Melbourne. He came straight on to Sydney in the City of Sydney, landing on 12 August 1858.

He'd hoped to meet his brother Herman here, but Herman had already gone off to the goldfields. Holtermann had very little English and couldn't get work on land, so on 13 September he shipped out as a steward in the schooner Rebecca for the Pacific Islands, coming back to Sydney on 20 January 1859. He then worked as a waiter at the Hamburg Hotel, where a lucky miner nearly talked him into heading for Adelong.

Hill End, Hawkins Hill and Louis Beyers

A few months later Holtermann met Ludwig Hugo Louis Beyers, a Polish miner (the ADB's description), and went with him to the Tambaroora district, the area we now know as Hill End. In 1861 the pair started prospecting on Hawkins Hill. For about five years they got very little out of it. To hang on to the claim, Holtermann took on whatever work he could find, and once he nearly died when blasting powder went off early.

By 1868 he held the licence of the All Nations Hotel. On 22 February that year, at Bathurst, he married Harriett Emmett, and on the same day Beyers married her sister Mary. So the two partners became brothers-in-law.

The All Nations Hotel in Clarke Street, Hill End, about 1872. By then J. Williams was the proprietor, but Holtermann had held its licence in 1868. American & Australasian Photographic Company, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Hill End came good in the early 1870s. Wikipedia's Hill End article says Hill End overtook Tambaroora as the main town after rich gold reefs were found at Hawkins Hill, and it puts the population at its peak at around 8,000, with two newspapers, five banks, eight churches and twenty-eight pubs (it flags that figure as needing a citation).

A horse and cart bogged in an old gold digging outside William Meares' flooded Criterion Store, Clarke Street, Hill End, in the winter of 1872. American & Australasian Photographic Company, State Library of NSW, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Two men and a horse beside a gold mine whim and shaft house going up at Hill End, about 1872. Charles Bayliss, National Library of Australia, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The warning letter

Holtermann wasn't one of the boom's cheerleaders. On 20 November 1871 he wrote to the Sydney Morning Herald warning people against rash investment. The ADB says that when copies reached Hill End he was burnt in effigy. He won people back, though, and the ADB says he became a founding member of the first Hill End Borough Council. Wikipedia gives the date the council was constituted as 6 August 1873, with Holtermann elected an alderman.

The Star of Hope and the Holtermann Nugget

The ADB tells the lead-up like this. In 1871 some rich veins were found in the Star of Hope, but they petered out. The next year one of the eight owners sold his share to Mark Hammond. Without authority, Hammond sealed off the shaft and started a new drive to the west. He hit rich veins straight away, but he'd sold out at a tidy profit before the night of 19 to 20 October 1872, when the night shift uncovered the biggest specimen of reef gold ever found. The ADB gives its weight as 630 lb (286 kg) and says it was later brought to the surface almost intact.

Reef gold from the Star of Hope mine in 1872, with Holtermann second from left, Richard Ormsby Kerr in the centre and Beyers second from right. Attributed to Henry Beaufoy Merlin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It wasn't really a nugget at all. Wikipedia describes it as a gold specimen, a mass of gold set in quartz. It gives the size as 59 inches (1.5 metres) long and 630 pounds (290 kg), with an estimated gold content of 3,000 troy ounces (93 kg). The Hill End article calls it the "Beyers-Holtermann Specimen" and says it is still the largest specimen of native gold ever found. It adds that, once crushed, it produced more gold than the Welcome Stranger, the biggest true nugget, from the Victorian goldfields.

Crushed for its gold

Holtermann wanted to keep the thing whole. Wikipedia says he offered the company £1,000 over its estimated value of £12,000. He was knocked back, and the specimen was sent away to have its gold extracted. The Hill End article says it was "shipped out for crushing", and that a bigger mass was reportedly found in the same mine a few days later but broken up underground. According to Wikipedia, Holtermann resigned from the company in February 1873, disheartened.

The famous photograph

The State Library of NSW says Merlin and Bayliss were able to record the specimen above ground before it was crushed. The famous picture of Holtermann with his hand resting on the gold is a bit different, though. The Commons record, drawn from the State Library's catalogue, describes it as an albumen print from a composite negative, made at North Sydney between 1874 and 1876. That's a good while after the specimen had gone to the crushers. Holtermann also had himself and the specimen put into a stained-glass window in his new house.

Shops at Home Rule, New South Wales, about 1872, another goldfields town in the Holtermann Collection. Beaufoy Merlin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Merlin, Bayliss and the Holtermann Exposition

The State Library says Henry Beaufoy Merlin had started out as a photographer in Victoria in 1864, and by 1869 he was working with his young assistant Charles Bayliss under the rather grand name of the American and Australasian Photographic Company. Drawn by reports of Hill End's gold, they moved there in March 1872 and opened a studio in Tambaroora Street. Through 1872 they photographed the town and its people shop by shop. Merlin's trick was to get the owners, the staff and anyone passing to stand out the front.

Henry Beaufoy Merlin, 1872 to 1873. American and Australasian Photographic Company, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Merlin in the American and Australasian Photographic Company's studio at Hill End, 1872. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Four men outside Condell's Great Western Boot Mart in Clarke Street, Hill End, about 1872, the classic Merlin and Bayliss shopfront shot. Charles Bayliss, National Library of Australia, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Inside Weir & Embleton's cordial factory at Hill End in 1872, where the workers are filling soda water bottles. State Library of NSW, no known restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

The State Library says a meeting between Holtermann and Merlin at Hill End in November 1872 set off the big idea. Holtermann was proud of how he'd done as a migrant and wanted to use his money to bring more people out. The plan was "Holtermann's great International Travelling Exposition", with Merlin travelling the colonies to build up a photographic gallery to show the world. The ADB describes it as a great series of 10 by 12 inch photographs of the settled districts of New South Wales and Victoria, to be sent abroad to advertise the colonies.

Merlin died of pneumonia in September 1873. The State Library gives the date as 27 September. Bayliss carried on, touring the Victorian towns in 1874 before coming back to Sydney in 1875.

Merlin’s “coating” caravan near Gulgong in 1872. Wet plates had to be coated, exposed and developed on the spot. Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mayne Street, Gulgong, looking east, about 1872. American & Australasian Photographic Company, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

A minehead on the Gulgong goldfields, 1872 to 1873. Attributed to Henry Beaufoy Merlin, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

"The Towers" at St Leonards

The ADB says that in 1874 Holtermann finished a palatial house with a tower on the heights of St Leonards, and that the tower held the stained-glass window of him standing beside the "nugget". Wikipedia calls the house "The Towers" and places it near Blue and William streets in North Sydney. Wikipedia's Holtermann Collection article, citing North Sydney Council, says the central tower stood some 27 metres (90 feet) above a ridge that was already high.

Turning the tower into a camera

This is where Bayliss and Holtermann did something nobody had done before. The State Library says Bayliss turned the tower windows into a giant camera, and that the venture cost Holtermann over £4,000. The ADB says that, after great difficulties, Bayliss took the view of Sydney from the tower on two single negatives, each over 5 feet by 3 feet (150 by 90 cm). These were the largest photographs ever taken by the wet-plate (collodion) process, at a time when nobody could yet enlarge a photograph.

They also made a panorama. Wikipedia describes it as 23 albumen silver photographs joined into a continuous view of Sydney Harbour and the suburbs, 978 centimetres long. The State Library just says it measured 10 metres.

Glass plate negatives from the 1875 panorama of Sydney Harbour and its suburbs, taken from the tower of Holtermann's house at St Leonards. Charles Bayliss, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Berrys Bay and Goat Island, 1875, from one of the giant collodion negatives, 136 by 95 cm. Charles Bayliss and Bernhardt Holtermann, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Philadelphia, Paris and the road

In the end, the State Library says, the Exposition itself never took place. The photographs still got out into the world. The ADB says some were lent to the government for the international exhibitions at Philadelphia in 1876 and Paris in 1878, where they won medals. Another set was mounted on a roll of cloth, and Holtermann took it to America and Europe, where it was shown in pleasure gardens and at special gatherings. According to Wikipedia's Holtermann Collection article, citing a Grafton paper of 12 September 1876, the Photographers' Art Society of the Pacific Coast saw one of the negatives in 1876, called it the largest negative ever produced, and thanked "B. O. Holterman" for it.

Holtermann's shooting party at a bush camp in New South Wales, 1875 to 1876. Charles Bayliss, State Library of NSW, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Holtermann's Life Preserving Drops

Holtermann had always been interested in medicine. The ADB says he came back from abroad with a number of agencies, which he pushed hard, and that his "Life Preserving Drops", made up from a German doctor's formula, were very popular. Wikipedia adds that he was proud of curing fellow passengers on the 1858 voyage out, and that after he left mining he wrote papers and worked out formulae for medicines.

Member for St Leonards

Wikipedia says that in October 1874 he was elected an alderman for the Belmore Ward of the Borough of St Leonards at a special election. He had two goes at the Legislative Assembly and lost both. On the third try, in 1882, he won the seat of St Leonards. The ADB quotes him calling himself "a man of indomitable energy and perseverance" and "the staunch friend of the working man". He turned up to Parliament regularly until 1885 and took a keen interest in immigration and in the progress of North Sydney. That included a "North Shore Bridge", and the ADB says he was willing to put £5,000 of his own money towards it. That was almost fifty years before the Harbour Bridge opened.

His death in 1885

Holtermann died on his 47th birthday, 29 April 1885, according to the ADB biography and Wikipedia. He was buried in St Thomas's cemetery at North Sydney. Wikipedia gives the cause as "cancer of the stomach, cirrhosis of the liver and dropsy". He left his wife, three sons and two daughters, and the ADB says his estate came to £54,000, mostly in local land.

What happened to the house

Sydney Church of England Grammar School (Shore) was founded on 4 May 1889. Wikipedia says the first headmaster chose Holtermann's mansion as the site, that Holtermann's sons were among the first boys enrolled, and that the house is now a Shore boarding house.

Shore's own magazine, Shore Reports, told the full story in March 1988 in an article by Roderick W. Glassford. Holtermann's executors sold The Towers to his next-door neighbour, T. A. (later Sir Thomas) Dibbs of Graythwaite. The tenant, Edward Chisholm, stayed on until 1888, and then Dibbs subdivided the estate. On 26 March 1888 he sold "3 acres, 3 roods, 29½ perches … including Holtermanns Tower" to the Church of England Property Trust for a church school.

The house became the school's first building. At first it was adapted with internal changes and some new building, and the McCaughey Bequest paid for two lower dormitories in 1920–21. By the end of the twenties there had been so many makeshift additions that it needed a complete rebuild, and that was done in 1934. In Glassford's words, "Not only was the building remodelled and enlarged, but it was also encased in brick, including the Tower which was stripped of its ornamentation." The architect was Rupert Villiers Minnett, an Old Boy of the school.

So the tower didn't come down. Glassford wrote that "it is architecturally incorporated in School House", and that Holtermann's stained-glass window of himself and the nugget was by then in the school library. School House opened in 1889 when the school was founded, and it's still Shore's oldest and biggest boarding house, with room for up to 75 boys.

The shed in Chatswood

The State Library tells it like this. In 1951 Keast Burke, editor of the Australasian Photo-Review, wrote to the Mitchell Librarian, Phyllis Mander Jones, asking about Holtermann, a name he'd seen on some nineteenth-century panoramas in the Library. She told him that Holtermann's daughter-in-law, Mary Holtermann, lived in Chatswood and might have his plates. Burke's own account, on a website dedicated to his work, says her letter was dated 22 November 1951 and gave the address as 15 Thomas Street, Chatswood. It also says Mrs M. C. Holtermann was the widow of Holtermann's youngest son, Leonard, and that the garden room had been locked for years until her son Bernard got hold of a key.

"It was an incredible sight: neat stacks of cedar boxes of various dimensions, each with slotted fittings which had held the large negatives in perfect preservation. And there were the actual negatives of the huge 1875 Harbour panorama, noted in all the records of photography as being the largest ever taken by the wet-plate process." Keast Burke

Inside were about 3,500 glass plate negatives in cedar boxes and lacquered tins, which had sat untouched for nearly 80 years. Holtermann's grandson Bernhard gave them to the Mitchell Library in 1952, and they became the Holtermann Collection. Burke worked out that the small plates were Hill End, then spent the next 20 years identifying them. The State Library says the negatives were cleaned, rehoused and rescanned in 2011 and 2012, and they're now online for anyone to look through.

UNESCO Memory of the World

The Australian Memory of the World register lists the Holtermann Collection as inscription number 43, added in 2013, and the State Library says that was in May 2013. Wikipedia's Holtermann Collection article, citing the State Library's SL Magazine, says three giant views of Sydney Harbour from the collection were added to UNESCO's International Memory of the World Register in November 2017. In 2015 the Gulgong Holtermann Museum was launched to tell the story using the high-resolution scans, and according to Wikipedia it officially opened on 26 October 2019.

The restored facade of the Gulgong Holtermann Museum. Ginni649, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Timeline

• 29 April 1838: Born in Hamburg.
• 1858: Sails from Liverpool in the Salem, reaches Melbourne on 7 August and Sydney on 12 August in the City of Sydney.
• 13 September 1858 to 20 January 1859: Steward in the schooner Rebecca to the Pacific Islands, then a waiter at the Hamburg Hotel.
• 1861: Starts prospecting on Hawkins Hill with Louis Beyers.
• 22 February 1868: Marries Harriett Emmett at Bathurst, on the same day Beyers marries her sister Mary. By then he holds the All Nations Hotel licence.
• 20 November 1871: His warning letter in the Sydney Morning Herald. He is burnt in effigy at Hill End.
• March 1872: Merlin and Bayliss open their studio in Hill End.
• 19 to 20 October 1872: The night shift uncovers the giant specimen in the Star of Hope.
• November 1872: Holtermann and Merlin plan the International Travelling Exposition.
• February 1873: Resigns from the Star of Hope company (Wikipedia).
• 6 August 1873: Elected an alderman of the first Hill End Borough Council.
• 27 September 1873: Merlin dies.
• 1874: The St Leonards mansion and tower are finished. In October he is elected an alderman for Belmore Ward.
• 1875: Bayliss makes the giant negatives and the panorama from the tower.
• 1876 and 1878: The photographs win medals at Philadelphia and Paris.
• 1882: Elected MLA for St Leonards on his third attempt.
• 29 April 1885: Dies on his 47th birthday and is buried at St Thomas's.
• 26 March 1888: Dibbs sells the house and tower to the Church of England Property Trust.
• 4 May 1889: Shore is founded, with the mansion as its site.
• 1934: The house is remodelled and encased in brick, tower and all, to Rupert Minnett's design.
• Late 1951: Keast Burke traces the plates to the Chatswood garden shed.
• 1952: The plates are given to the Mitchell Library.
• May 2013: The collection goes on the Australian Memory of the World register.
• November 2017: Three giant harbour negatives go on the International Memory of the World Register.
• 26 October 2019: The Gulgong Holtermann Museum officially opens.

Where the Sources Disagree

• Weight of the specimen: The ADB and the State Library give 630 lb or 286 kg. Wikipedia converts the same 630 lb to 290 kg. Gold content isn't settled either. Wikipedia gives an estimated 3,000 troy ounces (93 kg), the Hill End article gives "an estimated 3,000 troy oz (205 lbs or 93 kg)", and the caption on the Hill End article says the rock contained "more than 75 percent gold". Those figures don't sit easily together, since 93 kg is nowhere near 75 per cent of 286 kg, so treat the gold content as an estimate.
• Date of the find: Most sources say 19 October 1872. The ADB says the night shift found it on the night of 19 to 20 October.
• Holtermann's role: The State Library calls him the mine's manager. The ADB says there were eight owners, and Wikipedia and the Hill End article make him and Beyers partners or founding directors.
• The photograph: The State Library says Merlin and Bayliss photographed the specimen above ground before it was crushed. The well-known portrait of Holtermann with it is catalogued as a composite made at North Sydney between 1874 and 1876.
• Date of birth and death: The ADB biography and Wikipedia give 29 April for both. The ADB's own life summary page gives 28 April 1838 and 28 April 1885.
• Where he landed: Wikipedia mentions only his arrival at Melbourne in August 1858. The ADB adds that he went on to Sydney, arriving on 12 August.
• Medals: The State Library says bronze at Philadelphia in 1876 and silver at Paris in 1878. Wikipedia mentions only the Philadelphia bronze, and the ADB just says "medal awards".
• Size of the giant negatives: The ADB says two negatives, each over 5 by 3 feet. Wikipedia's Holtermann Collection article identifies four, two at 160 by 96.5 cm and two at 136 by 95 cm. The Australian Memory of the World listing describes the largest as 0.9 by 1.6 metres.
• Who found the plates: The State Library and Burke's own account credit Keast Burke. Wikipedia credits Burke and Vyvyan Curnow, and says it was Curnow who visited the house in Chatswood.
• The house today: North Sydney Council's "The Towers" page says the house and tower were "encased in modern brickwork and essentially demolished" in the mid-1930s. Shore's own 1988 account agrees about the brick but says the tower is "architecturally incorporated in School House", which is still a boarding house.

My Earlier Posts

• "The Towers" - Lavender Bay - The Holtermann Gold Nugget
• Glass Negatives from the Holtermann Collection & Holtermann Mansion, North Sydney
• Hellespont - Lavender Bay - North Shore - New South Wales

Sources

• Keast Burke, "Holtermann, Bernhardt Otto (1838–1885)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, vol. 4, 1972: adb.anu.edu.au, and the ADB life summary: adb.anu.edu.au
• State Library of NSW, "The Holtermann Collection" (story): sl.nsw.gov.au
• State Library of NSW, Holtermann Collection (significant collections): sl.nsw.gov.au
• State Library of NSW, "Bernhardt Otto Holtermann c 1872-85", collection item: sl.nsw.gov.au
• Australian Memory of the World, "The Holtermann Collection", inscription #43: amw.org.au
• Keast Burke, Gold and Silver, opening chapter: photo-web.com.au
• Roderick W. Glassford, "From a Golden Mountain to a Golden Rose", Shore Reports, March 1988: kipdf.com
• Sydney Church of England Grammar School, "Boarding at Shore": shore.nsw.edu.au
• North Sydney Council, "The Towers", At Home in North Sydney: athomeinnorthsydney.com.au
• Wikipedia, "Bernhardt Holtermann": en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Holtermann collection": en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Hill End, New South Wales": en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia, "Sydney Church of England Grammar School": en.wikipedia.org
• Image descriptions and catalogue details from the Wikimedia Commons file pages linked under each picture.