Niemann, John Henry (Harry)   (1864 - 1942)

Born at Dunedin, New Zealand, on 24 June 1864; died at Greenhill Road, Glenside (Adelaide), SA, on 19 March 1942.

Born in New Zealand, John Henry (Harry) was just over three years old when his parents emigrated to Melbourne in c.1868. They settled at Sandhurst (Bendigo), Vic, where John first attended school until the family moved to Sale in 1877.

It was in Sale, at the age of 13, that he worked as an apprentice chemist, and five years later he attended the College of Pharmacy at Melbourne where he was taught chemistry, botany and the Materia Medica. He graduated in November 1884.

One month later his father died, and John became a proprietor of a chemist shop at Middle Brighton (Melbourne). From then on, he was to take on much of the responsibility of caring for his mother and his younger brothers and sisters.

As a young chemist, he developed and marketed 'Liquor Canis' in collaboration with a physician Dr Caffyn, a preparation made of beef juice used as a food supplement for infants, invalids and in cases of severe haemorrhaging. When Dr Caffyn departed for England to produce their product, John continued to search for a more palatable alternative.

This led him to Sydney where he met his first wife, Helen Mary Webster, who he married on 24 May 1888. The marriage was sadly cut short: Helen died on 19 June 1894.

At about this time the British Admiralty advertised for tenders to supply 'Invalid Meat Extracts' and John secured a large order for his more palatable 'Meat Essence'.

John's personal life changed considerably from 1896, when he met and married his second wife, Mary Nicholson, on 24 June 1896. Two years later, with their two infant daughters, they moved to the Northern Territory.

Some weeks after their arrival up north the Niemann family boarded a pearling lugger, the Midge, and along with the crew, sailed from Darwin with the intention of arriving in a couple of days at a cattle station on the Victoria River to set up a meat works. However, disaster almost befell the Midge when they were precariously stranded on a mudflat in a Victoria River backwater by the vast sweeping tides, and were forced to survive on what they could shoot and scarce catfish. However, they were able to refloat the Midge with the next high spring tide and finally. after a 44-day ordeal, they returned to Darwin malnourished and in poor health.

Ater recovering from this experience, the family moved to a cattle station on the lower Daly River, to recuperate and to further John's interests in the meat extract business. But after this business failed the family returned to live in Darwin and John was later appointed Government Chemist at Pine Creek, NT, c.1908.

Continuing ill health plagued the family, and they finally returned to Melbourne with the assistance of the government in appreciation for his services at Pine Creek. The Niemann family then moved to Adelaide, SA, where John managed a branch of the 'Friendly Society'. Increasingly ailing towards the end of his life, John died on 19 March 1942 at Glensde, a suburb of Adelaide.

Source: Extracted from book: 'Passions in Ornithology: A century of Australian Egg Collectors' (2020), Mason & Pfitzner, Canberra. [consult for source references]
Portrait Photo: 1885, from Cafiso, J.L. (1986) A Niemann Family Histony, p.34', extracted from Mason & Pfitzner book above.

Collecting localities for 'Niemann, J.H.' from AVH (2022)

Data from 53 specimens