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Schmidt Farmhouse & Outbuildings is a heritage-listed farm at 3 Worongary Road, Worongary, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1880s to . It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 8 April 1997. == History == This farmhouse and outbuildings were constructed in the late 19th/early 20th centuries on land which in the 1850s was part of the Murry Jerry pastoral run, leased by William Duckett White of Beaudesert. The site was subsequently included in the 200 acres taken up by WD White as a pre-emptive selection in 1869, but the present buildings and structures appear to date to a later period, when the land was used for agricultural purposes. It was occupied by the Schmidt-Kurth family, Worongary dairy farmers, from to .〔 Murry Jerry, a 25 square mile cattle run based around the present town of Mudgeeraba, was taken up by Alfred Compigne in 1852 and transferred to WD White in September 1853. Following the introduction of the Crown Lands Alienation Act of 1868, designed to open the large pastoral holdings of southern Queensland to agriculture and closer settlement, Murry Jerry was opened for general selection in April 1869. Initially timber getters took up the land, but were soon joined by farmers growing corn or maize, and later establishing dairies. Timber remained an important industry, especially after the establishment of the first saw mills in the Mudgeeraba area by the mid-1880s. Under the conditions of the 1868 Land Act, WD White applied in December 1868 for a pre-emptive selection of 200 acres of the Murry Jerry run (portion 7A), on the southern side of Worongary Creek, to commence at a marked tree on the right (southern) bank of the creek about 250 yards northwest from Worongary Hut. White's selection application made reference to improvements including a stockman's hut and a store/dairy. When the block was being surveyed early in 1869, surveyor GL Pratten noted a hut in the vicinity of the present farmhouse and outbuildings. No connection has been established between the huts (probably of slab construction) referred to in 1868/69 and the present structures.〔 White acquired freehold to the Worongary selection in 1878 and in August 1879 this was transferred to his son Ernest, who controlled WD White & Son's coastal properties from his base at Nindooinbah near Beaudesert following his father's move to Brisbane . It is understood that during the 1870s Ernest White used the Worongary land for pastoral purposes.〔 In the 1880s the selection changed hands a number of times and its use for agricultural purposes appears to date from this period. The form and construction of the farmhouse core, with its 8" wide beaded vertical boarding, suggest that it also dates from this period. Title was transferred in April 1880 to Anne Stephens of Brisbane, widow of Thomas Blacket Stephens, who in 1877 had established the Hillview dairy on part of his 11,000 acre estate east of Worongary, acquired in the mid-1870s. The Stephens family subdivided portion 7A and title to the 163 acres west of the Mudgeeraba Road passed early in 1885 to the Starkey family, who had taken up land at upper Mudgeeraba in the early 1880s. Later in 1885 title passed to John Etchells of Nerang Creek, who in 1870 had been amongst the first to select land at what is now Surfers Paradise. Etchells mortgaged this land in the second half of the 1880s, and in mid-1889 title returned to Anne Stephens, and remained in the Stephens family (Stephens Estates Limited from 1904) until transferred to Mudgeeraba farmer Carl Schmidt in July 1912.〔 Johann Karl (Carl) Schmidt had emigrated from Germany to Queensland in 1881, aged 21 years. He appears to have worked as a farm labourer in the Nerang-Mudgeeraba district and in 1890 married Bertha Abraheim, whose parents had selected land in the Mudgeeraba district in the late 1870s. In 1891 Schmidt selected portion 24, parish of Mudgeeraba, where he took up mixed farming and later established a dairy. The Schmidt family moved to the Worongary property , and may have leased the farm from the Stephens Estate, or managed it for them, prior to acquiring title in 1912. Schmidt descendants understand that the farmhouse was already on the property .〔 At the Worongary property the Schmidt family engaged in the district's principal economic activity: commercial dairying, heavily promoted by the Queensland government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1889 the Queensland Department of Agriculture (established 1887) sponsored the colony's first travelling dairy, which opened at Tallebudgera in April 1889 before moving on to other centres on the Gold Coast and throughout southeast Queensland, encouraging interest, demonstrating the technology, and imparting information and skills. The 1893 Meat and Dairy Act offered subsidies to dairy farmers, and introduced a tax on non-dairy cattle which funded the establishment of cheese factories and creameries. Quality controls were implemented with the introduction of compulsory grading of butter and cream in 1898, and inspection of dairies and factories under the Dairy Produce Acts 1904-05. Importantly, the Queensland Agricultural Bank was established in 1901 to increase the flow of credit to selectors - many of whom had taken up dairying. The Schmidt dairy was small - 20-30 cows - but typical of small selector farming practice in the early 20th century.〔 A number of turn-of-the-century alterations appear to have been made to the farmhouse, including: a detached kitchen joined to the main house; the shingled roof replaced with corrugated iron; weatherboard cladding on the external walls; new sash windows and window hoods; new front balustrading; ceilings and some internal walls lined with narrow tongue and groove boarding, with fretwork ceiling ventilators in the principal rooms; and a partition wall erected in the larger of the front rooms, to create a central hallway. These improvements, probably made by the Schmidt family and completed by , reflect the rise in living standards which accompanied the expansion of dairying on the Gold Coast hinterland, as well as the determination of hard-working German immigrant families to succeed on the land.〔 Bertha Schmidt died in 1924 and in 1930, prior to Carl's death in 1931, the property was transferred to their youngest daughter, Mrs Eda Catherine Kurth. The farmhouse remained in the Schmidt-Kurth family until 1992, although by then on a substantially reduced site of . The land between the farmhouse and Worongary Creek was acquired by Albert Shire Council in 1987-88 for use by the Mudgeeraba Show Society, and the Schmidt's former creamery is now located within the showgrounds. The bales and separating room, initially situated east of the house and later re-located south of Worongary Road, no longer exist.〔 Rapid, sustained population growth on the Gold Coast hinterland in the last 15–20 years, and particularly since the early 1980s, has led to substantial re-development of former farming areas for new residential estates. The former Schmidt farmhouse is understood to be one of the earliest, and one of the few, surviving farmhouses on the Gold Coast hinterland.〔 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「Schmidt Farmhouse」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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