J. M. Wendt

Joachim Matthias "J. M." Wendt (26 June 1830 – 7 September 1917) was a silversmith and manufacturing jeweller in the early days of South Australia.

[1] In 1848 Holstein was conquered by Prussia, and he found German rule so distasteful that he emigrated to South Australia, arriving in 1851,[2] and was naturalised as a British citizen in 1864,[3] facts which he used to deflect the popular ill-feeling against people of German origin during the Great War.

In 1869 he opened another shop at Mount Gambier and in 1888 another in Broken Hill, New South Wales, though this business was sold around 1895.

[7] In 1903 his son Julius M. "Jule" Wendt and stepson Hermann Koeppen-Wendt were brought in as partners in the firm and took over its management.

[1] Business was transferred to a new shop at 74 Rundle Street in December 1904, with an optician's department and workshops on the first floor.