Edward Thonen
[3][4] Thonen was born Eduard Thönen, in the Rommelspütt district of Elberfeld, Rhineland, Prussia (now part of Wuppertal, Germany).
[3] In an attempt to explain Edward's later role in the Eureka Rebellion, there has been some speculation about what he did during the German revolutions of 1848–1849, whether he was politically active, and if he got in trouble with the law.
Until early 1849, the mainly protestant Elberfeld had been a royalist stronghold, in contrast to the predominately Catholic provincial capital of Düsseldorf.
Opinion shifted rapidly though, and on 29 April 1849, a delegation of 500 to 800 residents of Elberfeld made the trip to Düsseldorf to demand that the Prussian government accept the Frankfurt Constitution.
[9] Others have pointed out that England had become a kind of safe haven for political refugees from Germany, and that Thonen may have been among those who found it more suitable, be it forcefully or on his own accord.
[13] In January 1851 his hotel keeper recommended him to the diamond merchants Jacques Schwabacher and Louis Birnstingl, praising his ability to speak numerous European languages (including French, German, Dutch, and Spanish[2]).
Schwabacher later testified that he last saw him on 23 April, at which point Thonen left the company, claiming to take on a new job as a teacher of foreign languages in Eastbourne.
[14][3] At that time, the merchants kept a parcel of diamonds (jewellery, including bracelets and earrings, worth £450 in total) in their strong room, to which Thonen had free access.
He had long dreamed of finding fortune in some faraway country, and had written to the British government about plans to fight the African slave trade.
Back in Liverpool, after a thorough search was conducted which revealed the remaining jewels, Thonen admitted the crime and helped the police recover the rest of the loot.
[2][3] While the media widely applauded the police, and detective Haydon in particular, for their work in solving the case, not everyone shared that positive opinion.
In a letter to the editor of the Liverpool Albion, Dismore wrote that the case could have been solved much sooner if the public had been made aware of the robbery more quickly, and that it was pure luck that Thonen had not evaded prosecution.
[18] The judge expressed his pity, saying: "You appear to be a young man of extraordinary talent and ability, and I very much regret seeing you in your present unhappy position.
German newspapers at the time were full of enthusiastic reports of gold strikes in Victoria and New South Wales, and of the rising number of Britons who returned from trips to Australia with large sums of money.
He would turn his head, allow his opponent the move, and then he would give such a glance on the chess board, that the right piece would jump to the right place, as it were of its own accord."
No immigration record apparently survives in Australian archives,[3] but his death certificate indicates that he had been in Victoria for one to two years when he died in December 1854.
The manuscript is in the Alfred Hill collection of the State Library of New South Wales,[33][34][35] where it was rediscovered in the 1980s by musicologist Kay Dreyfus.
