From left to right the photo shows

Pierce (Percy) Frededrick; Ann Charlotte (seated); Alma Josephina; Hugo Du Rietz (seated); William John (son of Hugo Du Rietz with his first wife Ann Beazley); Annie Scanlon; Hugo’s secon wife, (seated); Mary Beatrice; Charles James (seated). Missing from photograph Hugo Adolphus.

Hugo William Du Rietz: Architect and Visionary

by | Jun 9, 2021 | Hotels

Hugo William Du RIETZ was a direct descendant of an old Huguenot family, DURIES. In 1660, the family was elevated to the Swedish nobility for services to Sweden during its 30 year war, and for over 3 centuries the Du RIETZ coat of arms has hung in the Grand Hall of the Palace of Nobil­ity in Stockholm.

Hugo Du RIETZ was the son of a lieutenant of the Swedish Royal Navy. He trained as an architect before emigrat­ing in 1852 at the age of 20 to Victoria attracted by its gold discoveries. He engaged in min­ing with fair success on the Ballarat gold fields and was there during the Eureka Stockade.

In 1857 he married Annie BEASLEY in Sydney and a son John William was born the same year. An Ann Du REITZ died in Glebe in 1859.

Gold discovery near Rockhampton drew him to Queensland and from there he found his way to Brisbane, starting in business as a contractor. He met Anne SCANLON, a young girl from Limerick, Ireland, who he married on the 21.01.1862. They had 6 children, 3 boys and 3 girls. Ann Charlotte 05.12.1862; Hugo Adolphus, 17.05.1864, Pierce Frederick 03.12.1865, Charles James 11. 12.1867, Mary Beatrice 08.03.1870 and Alma Josephina 07.12.1871.

He was an architect by profession and after his marriage he returned to this occupation, designing buildings in Brisbane and was elected alderman for the Kangaroo Point Ward in the first Brisbane Municipal elections for 1865. He owned several buildings and a metal quarry at Kangaroo Point. In the slump which crippled the colony in 1867 he became insolvent. After his case was finalised in December of that year, Du REITZ joined the rush to Gympie where he stayed for the rest of his life.

Recognising the varied opportunities and needs of the diggings, he established a soap factory in 1870, the first of many innovative business enterprises he pioneered in the district.

While maintaining an active interest in gold mining as an investor, by 1871 he had begun to practise his original profession of architect. Some of his major achievements in Gympie in­clude Surface Hill Methodist Church, the School of Arts (now the Gympie Art Gallery), the National Bank, the old Bank of New South Wales (now the Cooloola Shire Council chambers), and the Town Hall Clock Tower.

In 1882, Hugo was the first man to introduce the cream separator to Queensland. One story is that Hugo saw the innovative separator at a Sydney Show and managed to acquire it, and another is that he received a letter from his uncle in Europe and imported the new inven­tion “Alpha Laval Separator” and installed it on land rented from Thomas O’BRIEN of Pie Creek. He built a concrete floor dairy on the site of the present Pie Creek Hall site. In 1885 he took up land between Stumm Road and the Mary River. Here he built a dairy which for many years was considered as one of the finest in Queensland. He was one of the foundation mem­bers of Gympie’s Dairying Industry which became one of the biggest butter producers in the Southern Hemisphere. His Southside property was affected by floods and his land was cov­ered with mine tailings, so Du REITZ turned to poultry farming. He had the largest poultry farm in the Shire. He became a major egg producer and a breeder of the Silver Wyandotte. He also invented and patented several devices including a mechanism for loading sugar cane in 1896 and two years later a means of “preventing dirt entering rainwater tanks whilst rain is falling”.

He held the position of Secretary at the General Hospital, when it was conducted by means of public subscription and voluntary committee work, and he was a founder on the Gympie Agricultural, Mining and Pastoral Society. He really was one of the Gympie’s visionaries who saw past the gold and had faith in the future of the soil of Gympie.

Each year, in recognition of his work, the Gympie regional Gallery conducts a national art competition, the Du Rietz Art Awards.

The Du Rietz Art Awards are open to artists of all experience levels and entrants can enter 2 dimensional and 3 dimensional artworks which are eligible for seven different awards.