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First Free Settlers Monument is a heritage-listed memorial at Sandgate Road, Nundah, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1938. It is also known as First Free Settlers of Queensland Memorial Cairn. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 26 June 1998. == History == The First Free Settlers Monument at Nundah, a blunt tapered octagon of rusticated sandstone blocks, commemorates the centenary of the arrival of free settlers in the Moreton Bay district which was later to become a part of Queensland. It was unveiled on Easter Saturday, April 23, 1938 as a part of Nundah's celebration of the centenary of Queensland's free settlement.〔 The original group of settlers were recruited for the colony by the Rev. John Dunmore Lang who had heard of the works of their leader, Pastor Johannes Evangelista Goszner during his journey to England to recruit free settlers. Lang had a vision for improving the calibre of Australia's settlers by encouraging people of good Protestant stock to emigrate. Goszner had established a community in Germany where he trained lay people for missionary work. These people eminently filled the requirements that Dunmore Lang had established for his free settlers and he encourage Goszner to prepare a group for travel to Moreton Bay.〔 In 1837, ten men volunteered to travel to Moreton Bay which was, at the time a convict settlement based at Brisbane. The men, inspired by Lang's descriptions, intended to establish a mission for the Aborigines living in the vicinity of the convict settlement. Several of the men brought their wives and families with them. Two clergymen joined the group to provide pastoral care and guidance to the mission. Each of the lay men had practical skills with trades such as shoemaking, farming, brickmaking, tailoring, blacksmithing and medicine which would assist in the establishment of the proposed missionary colony. Schneider, the medical student, died of typhus at the quarantine station in Sydney on his arrival in the new country. Four more men arrived in 1844 to further the work of the mission, however although accepted by the local Aborigines, the settlers were unsuccessful in their efforts to convert them to Christianity.〔 The original settlement of Zion was located on the rise behind Toombul Shopping Centre in the vicinity of the street now known as Walkers Way. It was watered by Kedron Brook, now contained within an artificial canal. The mission itself was unsuccessful in converting any of the local Aborigines, but when, in 1848, the Government surveyed the land into blocks, many of the original settlers and their families chose to remain and purchase the land for their own use. The area became known as German Station as a consequence of their presence and was later renamed Nundah, as the suburb is now known. Many of the first free settlers are buried in Nundah Cemetery established in the 1840s.〔 The monument was erected as a consequence of the suggestion of George Joy Walker, born 1852 who, as an infant in arms had travelled with his family to the settlement at Zion when his father was appointed as tutor to the families of the first settlers. Walker died in 1933 and never saw the monument, although he would have been aware of the activities of the First Free Settlers Committee which took up the challenge with which he had presented them.〔 The location of the monument was described as the intersection of new and old Sandgate Roads (old Sandgate Road passing through the Nundah shopping street and new Sandgate Road passing through the George Bridges Tunnel) and the original setting of the cairn is shown in early photographs as being a broad swathe of mown grass which has subsequently been formalised into the clearly defined space evident today. The monument was designed to "rise from the turf without step or platform, symbolising the growth of European civilisation in Queensland out of the soil of Nundah." It was unveiled by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Leslie Orme Wilson, under the auspices of the First Free Settlers Committee. The unveiling ceremony was broadcast by radio station 4QG and a celebration ball was held in the evening.〔 Each year, in October, a ceremony is held at the memorial to commemorate the arrival of the first free settlers. The ceremony is generally attended by representatives of both State and Local government, diplomats, as well as local residents and others who are descended from the first missionary settlers.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「First Free Settlers Monument」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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