The Reverend Doctor Zillmann (pictured above) lived one of the most remarkable lives. This story begins in a regional courthouse one hundred and forty-five years ago last week. I told a version of the tale on West Bremer Radio.

On the 17th of February 1879 in the Ipswich courthouse, west of Brisbane, there was a most incredible criminal sitting of the Queensland supreme court.

It was before Justice Alfred Lutwyche who was the first judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Prosecuting was Queensland’s first attorney general and the member of Queensland parliament for Ipswich, Ratcliffe Pring.

Defending was Patrick Real, who had risen from a twelve-year-old apprentice carpenter in Ipswich to become one of the highest earning barristers of his day.

Mr Pring opened the case by saying it was with an amount of pain, that he was compelled to discharge his public duty by charging the prisoner with the crime of manslaughter.

He added that he was glad that the prisoner was defended by so able an advocate as his learned friend Mr Real and felt sure that justice would be done. This was an astonishing opening statement by a prosecutor, almost begging to fail at his task.

The facts of the case were that a number of people were fishing from a wharf in Ipswich on the Bremer River. One was fishing when two others joined him, and then two more. It was alleged that the original fisherman was deliberately pushed into the river and drowned.

After a short consideration, the jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. But what was amazing about this case was that all of those involved – the victim, the accused, and the witnesses – were all young boys aged just ten to thirteen years of age.

The tragic victim was a ten-year-old boy. The accused was thirteen-years-old and three of his school mates collected money for his defence because his parents were so poor.  The chief witness was twelve-year-old Kendall Zillmann. He swore that he saw the boy be deliberately pushed into the water. After cross-examination and other evidence, however, it appears that he made the whole thing up.

It’s the story of the young boy Zillmann and his father where this becomes even more incredible.

The boy’s father was The Reverend Doctor John Herman Leopold Zillman who is quite simply the most amazing resident in the history of Ipswich.

Born at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in 1841 of Polish parents, he became a powerful and eloquent speaker. He was associated with religious work his whole life – except for a period when he was editor of the ”Darling Downs Gazette” in Toowoomba.

Reverend Zillmann was married five times. His first three wives died at a rapid rate all within a five-year period. His first wife Catherine is buried in Kiama, New South Wales. His second Lavinia is buried in Ipswich, third Elizabeth in Melbourne, fourth Emily in Los Angeles, USA, and his fifth and final wife Reubina at Rookwood, New South Wales.

He sampled many denominations. He was raised by the Moravians, trained as a Wesleyan parson, spent time with the Lutherans and Episcopalians, went over to the Church of England, and succumbed to the charms of Congregationalism. After a time the Church of England re-acquired his liking. Then he preached for the Unitarians.

Zillmann ministered in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, England, and North America.

In Australia he preached from Maryborough and Ipswich, Queensland, in the north, to Melbourne and Hamilton, Victoria, in the south. He departed the latter in a rush after a public spat with the bishop of Ballarat. Rev Zillmann later wrote, “I have been so unjustly, cruelly, I might put it wickedly, treated by English Bishops that I have come to loathe the very name English in church life.”

In Ipswich, he was in charge of St Paul’s Church. Many improvements to St Paul’s were done under his watch. These included the surrounding fencing and stone-foundations there today.

In Forbes in New South Wales, he baptised the posthumous child of the bushranger Ben Hall.

In America he preached in churches and prisons where he witnessed the world’s first execution by electricity. The degree of Doctor of Philosophy was conferred on him by a university in Chicago.

He helped run a campaign opposing Theodore Roosevelt for the U.S. presidency. He was asked to stand for the United States Senate but declined.

Back in Queensland, he was approached a number of times to enter Queensland parliament but didn’t entertain that suggestion either. He was a close friend of prime minister Billy Hughes.

The Brisbane suburb of Zillmere is named after him, more specifically after a chain of waterholes called Zillman’s Waterholes where he would meet members of the Lutheran church to hold open-air services.

He travelled the globe, wrote books, edited newspapers, courted by politicians, witnessed executions, antagonised church leaders, baptised bushrangers’ offspring, and even accompanied his second son and his bride on their honeymoon.

The Reverend Doctor Zillman was seventy-seven years old when he died in Sydney in 1919. If he isn’t one of the most incredible residents ever of every town in which he lived, and in fact most amazing Queenslander, then I can’t wait to find out who is.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO A VERSION OF THIS STORY TOLD LIVE ON RADIO.

Photo credits:
Reverend Doctor Zillmann – Australasian, Melbourne, 13th May 1899, page 27.
Alfred Lutwyche c1865–1880 – Queensland Art Gallery.
Honorable Judge Patrick Real – State Library of Queensland.
Portrait of Mr J.H.L. Zillman, undated – Maryborough Family History.
Ben Hall, 1863, Freeman Brothers, Sydney – State Library of New South Wales.
Billy Hughes, 1908 – National Library of Australia.