V - Vine Dresser

The Becker family left Rudesheim, on the banks of the Rhine, and travelled to Hamburg and board an emigrant ship in 1852 to make a new life in Sydney, Australia. Friedrich and Elizabetha had four young children, a fifth had died two years before they left aged four. The Caesar Godeffroy sailed on 17 August 1852 with 230 emigrants on board and arrived in Sydney on 11 December. How different that first Christmas must have been compared with their past ones in Germany.

The passenger list records Friedrich's occupation as Vine Dresser. The steep banks of the Rhine and fields around Rudesheim are filled with rows of grapevines, even today. A vine dresser was responsible for pruning and cultivating vines. Pruning removed dead, diseased or stunted fruits to make way for new growth and ultimately lead to a healthy and productive vine. I expect vine dressers also played an integral role at harvest ensuring the fruit was picked carefully without damaging the rootstock and vine. At the time that Friedrich and Elisabetha married in 1845, Friedrich's father was recorded as a Wine Grower.

Did that mean that different families each had their own small vineyard ? Or was it a collective arrangement shared by all of the residents of the town ? Whichever it may have been, there wasn't much call for Vine dressers in the colony of New South Wales when they arrived in Sydney.

Governor Arthur Phillip brought vines with him from the Cape of Good Hope on the First Fleet in 1788 and a number of vineyards were established in the area that is now Sydney, including the first on the site of the Botanic Gardens. Lutheran settlers from Prussia and Silesia settled in the Barossa Valley in South Australia escaping religious persecution in their homeland. Groups also settled in the Riverina district in New South Wales, many had brought vines with them and set about trying to establish vineyards.

Friedrich and Elisabetha raised their expanding family in Sydney, living in Potts Point and Surry Hills. Friedrich became a stone mason and builder, quite a different occupation to the one he arrived with.