Australia's first surveyor general and governor Alt and Philip : the first settlers of German origin!
Brock, John F.
When first attempting to research the history of the inaugural Surveyor-General of New South Wales I was not surprised about a plaque I saw dedicated on his grave which is located not far from my office in Parramatta at St Johnns Cemetery. Placed by the German Australian Centenary Committee in 1983 it acknowledges the German father of Baron Augustus Theodore Henry Alt, Jost Heinrich Alt of Hesse Kassel. However I was totally startled when I began similar study into the background of our first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, because his father was also a German man, Jakob Philipp 1, born in Frankfurt. Both sons of these two German fathers were born in London to mothers of British origin, but surprisingly not much is commonly known of either of these principal participants in the First Fleet.
Event: XXIII International FIG Congress : Shaping the change
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