Solomon Schlossman
Hawker, Miner, Publican, Butcher, Restauranteur
People say you shouldn’t have a favourite child… but what about a favourite ancestor? Solomon Schlossman is my three times great grandfather, and certainly, if I was to choose a favourite, he would be high on my list.
Solomon’s main claim to fame is that he and his son-in-law, John David Davis (my two-time grandfather through my mother’s direct maternal line) discovered a sizable gold nugget on the German Fields in Rheola, near Bendigo, in Victoria. A beautiful hand-colored photograph commemorates the discovery (pictured – Solomon is seated)… but more about that later.
Solomon Schlossman was born in Yaraslov around 1822 to Aaron and Pearl Schlossman. Yaroslav was established in the 11th Century by the Ukrainian prince Yaroslav the Wise. It was under Austrian rule, in the province of Galicia, from the First Partition of Poland in 1772 until Poland regained independence in 1918. Today it’s the town of Jaroslaw, in modern-day Poland, on the road to Lviv.
In 1880 Yaraslov had a Jewish population of around 4500 and was one of the principal seats of the Council of the Four Lands, a major Jewish communal organization. But what could have prompted Solomon to leave and make his way to the United Kingdom? Around 1843 he married Esther Harriette Gerson. Harriett came from Witkowo, in Poznan. It’s not clear if this is where they were actually married.
In 1846 a heavily pregnant Harriet landed at Hull, in northern England. During the late 19th Century, Hull was a major point of entry for Europeans to the United Kingdom. Over 2 million people passed through the Emigration Platform at Paragon Station, Kingston Upon Hull. There is also an Certificate of Arrival to the Port of London for Solomon Schlossman, from Hamburg aboard the Princess Royal, on May 26, 1846. Solomon and Harriett’s daughter, Caroline, was also born in 1846 but I have not been able to find a birth certificate for her. She indicated her birthplace was Hull but she may have been born en-route.
Solomon and his family next turn up in official records in the 1851 census as the SLOSHMAN family, living at 128 Old Castle Street Tower Hamlets, London. Solomon is listed as 25 years old, born in Austria (Galicia was part of the Austrian Empire), Harriette’s name is illegible, but she’s noted as 27 years old, born in Prussia, and daughter Caroline is 4, born in Hull. On August 14, 1854, their second daughter, Pauline, was born in Bethnal Green.
In the 1861 Census, they are listed again under the surname SLOSHMAN, living on Totty Street Bethnal Green. The data indicates that Solomon and Esther are 39 years old. They have two children – Caroline, 15, and Polly (Pauline) who is 7. Also listed in the house that evening are Rachel Moses (Solomon’s sister), 33, and Frederick Moses and Philip Faulkenstine, both 28, listed as visitors.
Some time after 1861, but before 1867 the family migrated to Australia. Many of the ships’ manifests for this time do not list specific passenger names in steerage, so it’s difficult to work out exactly when they arrived and on which ship. In 1867, Caroline married John David Davis in Melbourne. Curiously their marriage certificate gives her maiden name as APSTEIN. This is also the maiden name used on the birth certificate of their first child, Catherine. I’ve concluded this is their certificate by cross-referencing all the birth certificates of John and Caroline’s subsequent children (they had nine altogether; my great-grandfather, Isaac Arthur Davis, was their eighth child, and youngest son. Caroline lists her maiden name as SOLOMON on the BC of her second child – Israel (AKA Isadore) but on all the other children’s BCs it’s listed as Schlossman. It’s unclear why this surname anomaly occurred.
So, back to Solomon… The whole family moved to rural Victoria and by 1870 John and Solomon were working together, hawking wares through the Victorian goldfields. Presumably, Harriette, Caroline, and the two older children accompanied them. The men decided to try their hand at mining. As mentioned at the beginning of this post, on May 31, 1870, on the Berlin-Rheola diggings, Solomon Schlossmann and John Davis discovered one of the largest gold nuggets ever found in Victoria. They named it The Viscount Canterbury and it weighed 1114 ounces (34.6 kg). In a 1913 geological survey, it’s listed as the 9th largest found on the Victorian fields. The gold was assayed as being worth 4482 Pounds!! Big money in 1870!! There was also some legal drama as another miner, who had been subcontracted to dig on their lot, sued them for a share of the proceeds. He failed in his suit but the depositions left behind are an excellent source of detail on the circumstances of the find.
The Viscount Canterbury was such a big deal that a cast of it ended up in a museum! My grandmother used to take me to the Australian Museum in College Street and show me a replica of it in their rock room. She told me that the family bought a slice of Collins Street in Melbourne… then sold it, went back to the fields, and found nothing. I was always skeptical of this claim and the reality, as is often the case, turned out to be far more interesting!
By 1877 John and Caroline had moved to Echuca on the Murray River. They ran a grocery store and eventually a “purveyors of fine foods”, and Caroline gave birth to several more children. Solomon moved to Bendigo and bought a pub. But the allure of finding more gold was too much. He sold the pub, leased it back and invested in more gold prospects. In 1879 he was declared insolvent.
Later that year, Solomon is listed as the publican of the Royal Hotel in Balranald, Western NSW. He’s listed in the Sands Directory of 1884 as residing at The Harp of Erin in Bellevue Street (not sure which suburb though). Then in 1886, he was the registered publican of the Union Inn in Newtown. It’s at this time that John and Caroline join him in NSW. In 1889 Solomon changed his career again and became a Hebrew/ kosher butcher – in partnership once again with his son-in-law John – working and residing at 69 Liverpool Street in Sydney.
Solomon’s wife, Harriette Esther, died in 1892, and the following year he married 53-year-old Rachael Schaya in Melbourne. Rachel is actually Harriette’s sister and she shows up in records concurrent with the family. In 1893, John died suddenly. He collapsed in the street in Granville. Solomon closed the business and sold off the fixtures and fittings. He advertised in the local papers for partners in a new mining venture… in Western Australia! In 1894 he and Rachael traveled to WA aboard the Bullara, and settled in the mining town of Coolgardie, near Kalgoorlie. Solomon’s younger daughter, Pauline, had moved there with her second husband, Edwin Sharpe. Solomon helped Edwin run the Vienna Café on Bayley Street (the Great Eastern Highway). Solomon died on April 3, 1894. He was buried with both Jewish and Masonic rites. Rachael passed away in September 1896. Both Solomon and Rachael are buried in Coolgardie Cemetery.