Labour Australia

Sonnemann, Otto Franz (1854-1888) shoemaker, later engine driver killed at work

Birth: probably December 1854 in Germany the son of German parents Christian Sonnemann (1804-1885), tailor, later labourer, born in Braunschweig [Brunswick], Saxony, and his wife Augusta (1817-1876), cook and laundress, born in Hanover, who arrived with his parents and step-brother at Hobart, Tasmania, as bounty (indentured) immigrants aboard the Wilhelmsburg, departed from Hamburg on 10 May 1855 and arrived at Hobart on 26 August 1855. Marriage: 27 May 1876 in his father’s residence at Stockwell, South Australia, to Cristiana Karoline Ernestine Fichtner. They had five sons, three surviving infancy. Death: 22 November 1888 at Eudunda, SA.

• The family moved to Stockwell, South Australia, by 1870. Otto gave his occupation as shoemaker on his marriage registration.
• Began working at E. Davey & Sons mill, Eudunda about June 1888. The miller, Edwin Davey, described Sonnemann’s duties as “stoking, looking after the engines and pumping gear”.
• Described as “a Rechabite and a good-natured and industrious man”.
• Inquest found cause of death as: fracture of the skull through a fall while going down Davey & Sons well. Jury was of the opinion “he was stupefied through foul air thereby losing his hold on the ladder”.

Sources
NSW Unassisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1826-1922, 1873 December Wakefield [seen on Ancestry file]