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Phillipine Bürckner

Johann Gottlieb Thiele came out to Australia with his brother Johann Gottfried and wife Phillipine Bürckner and her sister Antonie Bürckner who later married J. F. Straube in Australia.  Phillipine was from an area which is now in Poland, Lippehne, near Grünberg, now "Zielona Góra".  The region from which they all came was called "Silesia" at the time.  They settled in Doncaster (Melbourne) as there was a severe storm which prevented them from docking in Adelaide.  They came out to escape religious persecution at the hands of King Friedrich Wilhelm 111, who wanted to bring about a union between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches, under the control of the State, which prevented the people from practising full religious freedom. The delayed "Act of Toleration" was not passed until 1847 and this created distrust of the government .  Many Lutherans, left Germany for South Australia because of this political dissastisfaction.  George Fife Angas was a wealthy Christian businessman who was looking for suitable settlers, and was interested in helping them in order to develop South Australia as a new colony made up of free settlers.  The Thiele's, left Hamburg in Germany, in 1848, on the "Wappaus", and after having to bypass South Australia, arrived at Port Phillip (in Victoria) in 1849. 

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