Gustav Briskey
Born 15 February 1828 at Wollin, Prussia. Migrated to Australia in 1876 and later established Bottle Tree Farm near Brymaroo. Lloyd Davies' transcript records 23 children, 17 surviving to maturity.
Gustav Theodore Briskey & Bottle Tree Farm
Gustav Theodore Briskey (Brischke / Brieschke)
The Lloyd Davies family history records Gustav Theodore Briskey as an early ancestor of the Australian Briskey family.
Gustav was born on 15 February 1828 at Wollin, Prussia, to Georg Brischke and Katharina Schalk. Wollin was a small village near present-day Lebork, close to the Baltic Sea. The family owned a brickworks and, by the standards of the time, were described as reasonably well off.
Gustav married Maria Richter about 1852. They had nine children. After Maria's death following the birth of their ninth child, Gustav later married a 17-year-old servant girl recorded in the transcript as Maria Zishorn/Zuchom ?, who was about 27 years younger than him.
Children with Maria Richter
- Herman — c.1853?
- Rudolph — c.1855?
- Maria — 1860
- Otto Herman — 23 February 1862
- Augusta Emily — 1864
- Gustav Theodore — 1866, later changed his name to George Edward
Three other children died as infants and were buried in Germany. The transcript states that Maria died after having her ninth child and was also buried in Germany.
Migration to Australia — 1876
Gustav, Maria No. 2 and his five youngest children sailed from Hamburg on 13 June 1876 aboard the Reichstag. They arrived at Brisbane on 6 October 1876 after a voyage of 115 days.
The family may initially have stayed at German Station, now Nundah, before heading for the Roma district. Gustav found railway work, possibly splitting or laying sleepers for the railway heading west.
The transcript notes that no one named “Briskey” actually arrived in Australia: the surname at Brisbane was Brischke. It suggests the later spelling may have resulted from Anglicisation or an English rendering of the German pronunciation.
Gustav & Maria No. 2's children in Australia
- Henry Frederick — 15 May 1878, Roma (birth not registered)
- Minna Mathilda — 13 May 1880, Blythdale
- Anna Margaritta — 22 April 1882, Roma
- Louisa Marguerite — 24 December 1883, Amby
- Julia Augusta — 11 July 1885
- Alexander Gustav — 6 January 1888
- Albert August — 25 August 1889
- Edward Adolf — 26 June 1891 (“Archy”)
- Charlotte Mary — 17 July 1893 (“Lottie”), born Rosalie Plains
- William Ernest — 13 July 1895 (“Bill”), born Rosalie Homestead
- Ernest Martin — 25 March 1901, died young
The transcript says there were also two unnamed children who died young, and that at least one was buried at Bottle Tree Farm.
Bottle Tree Farm
In the late 1880s the family moved to Rosalie Plains, a large station north-west of Toowoomba. About 1890 they selected 157 acres, portion 31V, parish of Rosalie, near Brymaroo in the district of Nungil, and named the property Bottle Tree Farm.
Lloyd Davies wrote that a huge bottle tree — measured at 8.1 metres circumference at chest height in 1993 — grew beside the site of the old house. He visited the farm on 7 June 1993, when it was owned by Barry Cauley and his son Scott, and was shown the bottle tree and flattened remains of stone fences believed to have been built by the Briskeys.
A family recollection independently remembers visiting Lloyd Davies more than 30 years ago with cousin Sue and being taken to Bottle Tree Farm, where the huge bottle tree and remains of old stone fences were still visible.
Life on the farm
The transcript describes Bottle Tree Farm in the 1890s as isolated and largely self-sufficient. The family kept a dairy, pigs and poultry, killed their own meat, grew vegetables, and made butter and cheese. Water was carried from Myall Creek about a mile away.
Full cream cans were taken by cart or buckboard to Jondaryan railway siding, then by train to Toowoomba for the Silverwood butter factory. Empty cans returned by the same route.
Later years & burial
Maria No. 2 died at Bottle Tree Farm on 4 May 1908, aged 52 years 7 months. Gustav remained there until his death on 5 November 1910, aged 82 years 8 months.
Both are recorded as buried at Evergreen Cemetery, Gustav at Peg No. 38 and Maria at Peg No. 27. Neither had a headstone. The transcript says the old grave pegs were later removed by a council worker.
Gustav fathered 23 children, with 17 living to maturity.
“It is a pity that they did not record their history because so much has been lost with time.”
— Lloyd Davies, family history written 1990 and added to in 1993
— Lloyd Davies, family history written 1990 and added to in 1993
The Lloyd Davies transcript — complete three-page copy
The earlier single-page extract has been replaced in this archive by the complete three-page family history supplied by the family.
The original pages are reproduced as historical records. Some spellings and interpretations in the transcript are uncertain and have been preserved accordingly.