Ehrlich, James Augustus

EHRLICH, James Augustus [J Augustus] (1834 -?) may have been born at Merseburg, Saxony, Germany, son of Eduard and Frieda Hanne Ehrlich. He departed from Hamburg on the Undine in September 1854. After arriving in Melbourne in January 1855 he probably worked on the goldfields. Later that year and for the next four years and in 1876, various persons sought to contact him – with news from home. By 1864, he was practising as an architect and surveyor at Rockhampton. In December he entered a short-lived partnership with the surveyor John HAYES, as EHRLICH & HAYES. After it was dissolved in February 1865, Ehrlich continued the business. Later that year there was a court case about a theodolite owned by Hayes, which was given by Ehrlich as security to one person but taken by another debtor. By 1876 he was an engineer in Melbourne, but insolvent from “from want of remunerative employment, loss of all his instruments, inability to procure others and pressure of creditors”. He was still in Victoria in 1880.