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|[http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.59444 Plaisante]||1957||Floribunda||Bright pink, lighter reverse||Borderer||Unknown||Lost
|[http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.59444 Plaisante]||1957||Floribunda||Bright pink, lighter reverse||Borderer||Unknown||Lost
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|Rubens||1960||Unknown||Unknown||Unknown||Unknown||Lost
|[http://www.helpmefind.com/rose/l.php?l=2.59445 Rubens]||1960||Unknown||Unknown||Unknown||Unknown||Lost
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|[http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.29289 Silverelda]||1959?||Pernetiana||Pink blend||Heinrich Wendland||Nancy Wilson||Unknown
|[http://www.helpmefind.com/gardening/l.php?l=2.29289 Silverelda]||1959?||Pernetiana||Pink blend||Heinrich Wendland||Nancy Wilson||Unknown

Revision as of 01:00, 28 January 2012

Frank Riethmuller (1884–1965) was an Australian rose breeder.

The appearance of a gentleman. Studio photo of Frank Riethmuller in Townsville about 1910, when he was 26.
Riethmuller began to show roses in Sydney when he was about sixty.

Biography

Toowoomba

The last child of poor German immigrant farmers, Francis Lewis Riethmuller (known as Frank) was born on 10 February 1884 in Glenvale, then a village near (now a suburb of) Toowoomba, Queensland.[1] When dealing with Germans, he reverted to writing Riethmüller. In Australia, the first syllable is pronounced Reith but never spelt that way.

Chronically prone to bronchitis, Riethmuller had to live mostly outdoors.[2] He spent two years as a State-funded pupil at Toowoomba Grammar: every surname in the class was Anglo-Celtic except his.[3] He worked 1898–1905[4] as an assistant teacher at Glencoe, Queensland, Glenvale and Charters Towers, a gold-mining town.[5]

North Queensland

Moving to Charters Towers was the start of a life-long search for somewhere to breathe properly. Eventually his bronchitis became so bad that he spent 1906–07 back at his parents', too sick to work.[6] He returned at 23 to Charters Towers and worked 1908–13 as a bookkeeper to a butcher; bad health brought the job to an end, as it did most of his Queensland jobs. Charters Towers was said to be "good for his asthma"; it also had a big German-speaking population. Writing and speaking German, and devoted to his German inheritance, he may have found the First World War difficult. He was probably too unwell to join the army, though he trained in the CMF. Many people of German descent were persecuted, though Riethmuller was not interned.[7]

From 1914 to 1918 he worked mostly as a Townsville tobacconist's shop assistant, sometimes as a clerk on a station outside Richmond.[8] Two of these North Queensland businesses would have been good fronts for illicit betting shops, but only his later career implies that may have been the case. At any rate, for the rest of his life he presented the appearance of a well-bred and well-dressed gentleman, comfortably off.

Career in Sydney

After four months of enforced idleness boarding in a Brisbane pub, he moved in 1918 to Sydney[9] and found a job as a "confidential clerk",[10] code for a bookmaker's penciller. It was open-air work he was outstandingly good at and he never looked back.

He is a mathematical genius and is able to tell a bookmaker by a glance at his sheets how he stands in regard to any particular race.[11]

As well as recording bets, he had to collect losing ones on Monday, settlement day. This was work for which his calm and gentlemanly manner was an asset. Riethmuller was making £1000 a year for working two or three days a week[12] when the average annual salary of a clerk was about £370.[13] He was possibly a silent partner in the bookmaking business as well.[14] It was an income and career he kept up through the depression and the war till he retired in 1945. He allowed people to infer that he was clever with shares, but he made safe investments in land, treasury bonds, banks and firms as safe as banks.[15]

Riethmuller only had two employers, both very well known Sydney bookmakers. Jim Hackett was the between-wars equivalent of Bill Waterhouse post-war; Riethmuller worked for Hackett until he resigned to travel in Europe in 1928. When he returned he worked until he retired for Frank Alldritt. Both employers were willing to travel during the war to Canberra to testify on Riethmuller's behalf. Alldritt disclosed that at the end of the day's racing he divided his entire takings uncounted between Riethmuller and his other clerk and provided each with a signed blank document for the bank.[16]

Riethmuller made plans in 1939 to set up as a stockbroker but they were blighted by the war.[17] After the war, well into retirement, he told Your Garden he was working as an accountant, but the duties seem to have been light.[18]

Further education

At the same time as starting a new career, Riethmuller began a series of attempts to acquire a serious education in the Humanities, first at the University of Sydney, later at the University of Heidelberg.[19] He made two long trips to Europe – Belgium, France, Switzerland, England, Germany, Italy – in 1928 and in 1931. He attended a one-month course in Conversational French at Grenoble in 1928. He also attended a six-week course in 1931 in German language, art, painting and architecture at the Institute for Foreigners at the University of Berlin. He made detailed plans to visit Germany again in 1937, but his attempt to enrol at Heidelberg perhaps foundered on the increasing Nazification of Germany, perhaps on his worsening health.[20] At any rate, he was a student at the University of Sydney in 1927[21] and was back there in 1929. He spent the Second World War between roses and race meetings as a university student of Italian and German (two of the three enemy languages). He continued to enrol in subjects of general cultural interest until 1949 (when he was 65) but was always desultory, often sick. Of the 24 subjects he enrolled in over 22 years (including re-enrolments), he failed to sit eleven, sat but failed seven, passed five and got a credit in one.[22] He led people to believe he was an Arts graduate who had also studied botany and "genetics at the University of Sydney.”[23] If so it was doing independent reading in the library. He did eventually complete a major in German. And he did eventually leave most of his estate to the University for medical research.

Here is someone who feels under-educated wishing for prestige by association. But at the university Riethmuller met Professor EG Waterhouse, learned in German, French, Italian and Japanese, innovative architect of house and garden, the world's greatest expert on the genus Camellia and a camellia breeder.[24] Riethmuller was proud to call him "a personal friend."[25] Mrs Olive Fitzhardinge, the self-described "amateur hybridiser" of roses lived till 1939 in Warrawee, the suburb next to Riethmuller's, but there is no record of their having met.[26]

Internment

The upper limit of the Sydney boarding house between the wars: Wychwood, Turramurra. Riethmuller lived there 1931–1937.

For 20 years Riethmuller lived in the now vanished world of respectable Sydney boarding houses and residential hotels. He had rooms in five such places between 1918 and 1938, including nine years at "Wiesbaden" (at which a number of Germans stayed) in Bondi, and seven years at "Wychwood" in Turramurra on the North Shore. It was run by a Miss Hambledon, born Leontine Hamburger to German-Jewish parents in New York. She was 14 years older than he; they became friends.[27] Occasionally they could be heard talking in German.

Counsel. Has she ever told you that she has lived in Germany?

FL Riethmuller. She has said she lived in Germany before coming here.
Your main discussions with her were about Germany?
FLR. No, they were not.
What particular matters were you discussing with her?
FLR. Chiefly gardening.
Rose gardening?
FLR. I was a dahlia crank at that time.
What are you now?

FLR. I have switched on to roses now.

Unfortunately Miss Hambledon did not disguise her support for German expansion in Europe (though most of her relations in Germany had long since fled). Boarding house gossip put her words in Riethmuller's mouth. Then when war came in 1939 "fifth column hysteria" turned gossip into reports of sedition, German and Italian books into enemy propaganda.[28] Dinner at his new house was overheard as a celebration of the German occupation of Paris.[29] He never knew the identities of the neighbours, boarders and servants who reported him; he surmised gambling debts had made some people into enemies. After two months of police investigation, Riethmuller was arrested on 20 August 1940 and interned under National Security Regulation 26.[30]

He spent 130 days all told in Long Bay Gaol, and in camps at Orange and Hay in country NSW. Of that time he spent 11 weeks in camp hospitals and Orange base hospital. Riethmuller's prison camp admission card ("Report on Prisoner of War"), dated 18 October 1940, incidentally gives the best documentation of his life history to that date.[31]

Eventually he was able to force things to an inquiry ("lodge an objection") at which no good reason for detaining him could be sustained. Witnesses attested to his loyalty to the Empire and the Australian way of life. His interest in things German was part of his gentlemanly interest in culture generally. He admitted that his spoken Italian, French and German were not much good, but he made an excellent show of correcting official translations of German documents found in his possession. Allegedly he had had spy maps drawn of the La Perouse radio transmitter and the Chullora railway workshops; they turned out simply to be a plan of his own house and its Wireless Weekly radio aerial. German names in his address book were shown to be long-lost or never-met contacts beyond any hope of forming a spy ring; one made Riethmuller's suits at Anthony Hordern's.[32] Above all the committee of inquiry was impressed by the commitment of his investments and property to the Australian economy. Riethmuller's will at that stage left most of his money to Australian public hospitals.[33]

No doubt his release (10 December 1940) was just, but the matter was complex. Why would a man who grew up in Queensland speak till the end of his life "with a faint German accent"?[34] Because he was asserting an identity. For years Riethmuller had been saying to fellow lodgers "I am German."[35] He never meant to hide his Australian birth. Rather he was positioning himself in the tradition of German culture. Still, it was a politically loaded thing to say: such German Ausländer were the pretext for Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938.

Turramurra

Riethmuller in old age in his Turramurra garden. If those roses are hybrid teas bred by him, they are lost and probably no longer exist.
'Titian,' 1950. Deep pink blooms the size of coffee-cup saucers. Well formed at every stage and usually in flower.
'Titian' flowers start with a rich damask and hybrid tea scent but it fades as the colour fades.
'Kwinana,' 1962. Shoulder high clusters of single, 8-cm, red-orange flowers. Some scent, musky. The overall impression is of dressy artifice.
'Kwinana' en masse.
Rosa multiflora, the species foundation via Lambert's 'Gartendirektor Otto Linne' of all Riethmuller's Lambertianas.
'Spring Song,' 1954. Low, wide and scented, little flowers in flushes all season. Like all Riethmuller's Lambertianas, a landscaping plant.
'Honeyflow,' 1957, looks like a wild rose which happens to flower all the time. Low growing with little pale pink flowers, strong honey scent and never without a bee.
'Gay Vista,' 1955, demure as a sweet pea and equally hard to photograph. Some scent. A leafy shrub to five feet, flowering with occasional repeats. Named after a racehorse.
'Esmeralda,' 1957. Vivid 4-cm magenta-pink flowers, richly scented, recurrent on a low, dark, sprawling bush. Much more double and floriferous but paler in hot climates.
'Snow Spray' 1957. Scented white flowers in clusters on a low bush. Sometimes the flowers have creamy centres.
'Carabella,' 1960. Small single flowers perpetually on a chest-high bush. Sharp, fresh scent. Creased Multiflora leaves.
'Claret Cup,' 1962. Masses of small single flowers, intensely colored and mildly scented.
'Claret Cup' en masse. Waist high.

Riethmuller's diaries confiscated by the security police show that he was growing roses (from Hazlewood Brothers) in Turramurra from 1932. In the mid-1930s he was more interested in dahlias and cactuses, renewing his interest in roses in 1937.[36]

In 1937 he bought land (probably the land he was already using) a few streets from Miss Hambledon's boarding house.[37] The same year he built a small art-deco house on it. He was joined there by his unhappily married sister Sophia Bischof (1878–1972) and her third daughter Elsie (1910–2004), who stayed till both her uncle and mother had died.[38] A sign on the front gate said “Miss E. Bischof dressmaker” but mostly Elsie was the housekeeper. Riethmuller made health plans in 1940 to move to a higher and drier property in Bowral or Moss Vale but nothing came of them.[39]

A next-door neighbour 1937–1939 remembered him as a homebody who, when he was not prostrated by illness, spent every day working in the garden.[40]

Ayliffe's, a local rose and carnation nursery, supplied him with roses from 1938 and pruned them.[41] Riethmuller was thus at least 54 and living in Turramurra when he made his first known rose crosses; 61 when he retired to full-time rose breeding in 1945; 66 when he released his first rose for sale.[42] “His large garden is packed with roses, a fair proportion of them of his own raising.”[43] Apart from his own seedlings, most roses he is known to have bred from are of German origin. He also bred from a couple of roses by Alister Clark, and emulated Clark's refusal to pamper seedlings: “He used to give his roses a post-pruning spray but didn’t spray at all otherwise. So his seedlings had to be disease-resistant to survive.”[44]

In the early 1960s Roger Mann was his teenage pupil:

The colour shot of Frank Riethmuller [shown on the right] is as I remember him. He’s standing in his back garden, in his 'rose garden' — actually a big single bed that occupied about half the area, and which held most of his collection. (I think the camera is looking towards the back and that roof is his back-door neighbour’s.) It held not only his own roses, but anything that took his fancy, so those HTs in the picture aren’t necessarily of his own breeding — he had quite a catholic taste in roses and grew quite a few of the currently popular ones. I remember he had ‘Isabel de Ortiz’ (then brand-new), ‘Peace’ and ‘Buccaneer’.

At the very back next to the fence he had his nursery beds, compost heaps etc and the shed, next to which was a huge bush of what Miss Bischoff called 'the Nabonnand rose', which I suppose was ‘G. Nabonnand’. It was a splendid sight in mid-winter, when the main rose beds were all pruned and smothered in manure and straw. The ground sloped from front to back and there was a flight of steps up to the back porch where we’d sit and talk, and camellias growing against the house there.

The front garden was fairly conventional, with a low brick front fence with some floribundas — ‘Eutin’ among them as I recall — but mainly other plants behind it; the bed was fairly narrow and shaded by the street trees. The house was set close to the south boundary, and there was a curving path to the front door lined on one side by maybe a dozen roses, among which I remember ‘Sunlit’ and ‘Marjory Palmer’. It led into a bed at the corner of the house which had ‘Cara Bella’, ‘Honeyflow’ and ‘Claret Cup’ with ‘Spring Song’, and down the north side of the house where the land was a bit wider were half-a-dozen original plants of ‘Titian’ trained espalier and reaching the eaves … I remember asking him why he’d registered it as a floribunda when it was so obviously a climber, and he said he hadn’t realised at the time that it would grow like that. Which seems a bit odd if he’d had it in his nursery bed since 1937.[45]

Riethmuller died at 81 on 23 April 1965, bequeathing to the University of Sydney the proceeds of the sale of his house and garden: in 1972 they realised over $80,000, a big sum at the time.[46] No. 21 Eastern Road, Turramurra is now buried under four concrete-slab units; plenty of clipped box and ficus but not a rose to be seen.

Friends and relations

John Flynn was a doctor friend Riethmuller used to exchange drinks with at Tattersall's Club after the races. Dr Flynn told the 1940 internment tribunal:

He is a very mild mannered man. He is very mild in regard to matters that might be regarded as political, in fact, he had very little interest in politics … He is interested in poetry, architecture, gardening and so on. … I have never known him to use coarse language or to lose his temper. He was always courteous to such an extent that it was outstanding … He was a genial, well-mannered, good citizen.[47]

Queensland great-nieces old enough (and young enough) to remember their honeymoon visits to Sydney in the 1950s say "He was a lovely, sweet man, mainly interested in his wine collection and his roses." If it matters any more, he was rather tall, lean and blond, going grey in his fifties. He had a "long Riethmuller face," blue Nordic eyes and, in later years, a mouthful of gold teeth.[48] Most memories of him reveal unfailing generosity to others. He waived all rights to royalties from roses he released for sale.[49]

Above all, despite having lived away from his family for 27 years, Riethmuller took in his sister and her spinster daughter and supported both till the end of their lives, far beyond his own death. His sister lived on this support for 35 years, his niece for 67.[50]

Riethmuller was a lifelong bachelor and there is no record of his having made any deep attachment beyond family and friends, usually married women. He was particularly close to his nephew Max Riethmuller (1912–1972) who, like him, never married.

Though he maintained strong family contacts, no rose is named for anyone in his family (most unusual for a rose breeder). Several are dedicated to socially prominent Sydney women. 'Carabella' was named for a Rose Society friend, Belle Marsden, probably Agnes Belle nèe McMahon, Mrs Edward John Marsden (1915–1998).[51] However, it is important to note that two other dedicatees may have lived in Carabella Street, Kirribilli – one of several instances of Riethmuller names doing double duty. 'Evelyn Buchan' was Mrs John Buchan (probably Evelyn Amy nèe Ennis 1900–1976) of 67 Carabella Street, Kirribilli, a garden and house, since demolished, on a double block overlooking the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron. Both Mrs Marsden and Mrs Buchan were experts in floral art, Mrs Marsden at the Rose Society, Mrs Buchan at the Horticultural Society.[52] 'Carmel Bice' may have been the Lorraine Carmel Bice who died in 1953; more likely Mrs CM Bice of 49 Carabella Street, Kirribilli. 'Denise McClelland' is said to have been a garden club friend of Elsie, Riethmuller's niece. She was perhaps Miss Denise Ann McClelland who died in Moss Vale in 1963. 'Florrie Joyce' was probably Caroline Florence née Pople, Mrs Colin Joyce (1906–1995) of Asquith, though the name may have referred simply to the American ballet and vaudeville dancer of the Twenties. 'Pearl Costin' was perhaps Alice Pearl née Clarke, Mrs Henry James Costin (1891–1967) of William Street, Turramurra at one time.[53] 'Elaine White' was perhaps Elaine White (1923–1991) of St Ives but more likely a well known 1950s and 1960s Channel Nine presenter and Women’s Weekly journalist in Sydney. 'Lady Woodward,' born Amy Weller and known as Bud or Buddy, was the wife of Sir Eric Woodward, then Governor of NSW.[54] Then as now, convention required the Governor to be patron of the Rose Society, and convention required the Society to dedicate a new rose to his wife. 'Ngarla' was probably named for Ngarla Kunoth (born 1937), star of the film Jedda, which came out at the same time. 'Chip's Apple Blossom' was given unnamed to Edith 'Chip' Smallwood (1915–1994), who became Mrs Wilfred 'Bill' Farram and a well-known Sydney figure.[55] The point is that, to the small and neat Miss Smallwood, he gave a small and neat rose.

There are signs among other names of a light-hearted view of the world, even a 'Gay Vista.' 'Kwinana' may have been a gift to a South Australian service club, but its colour alludes to the burn-off flames of the Kwinana oil refinery. 'Claret Cup' has masses of cup-shaped flowers, claret coloured. 'Galah' was the same pink as the breast feathers of a galah. 'Spring Song' was the Mendelssohn Song Without Words familiar to a hundred years of piano students.

People with breathing disorders often idolize sport stars; Riethmuller admired "great" racehorses. His roses 'Alma,' 'Filagree' (misspelling of 'Filigree'), 'Gayness' and 'Helios' were all named after 1940s racehorses. 'Gay Vista,' 'Honeyflow' and 'Titian' were 1950s racehorses in Australia. 'Esmeralda' (misspelling of 'Esmerelda'), 'Plaisante' and 'Rubens' were 1950s horses in England or France but whether Riethmuller's roses were named after them is hard to tell.[56]

Afterglow

Riethmuller's unmarried niece and housekeeper Elsie Bischof outlived him by nearly 40 years. Elsie had long been an enthusiastic and knowledgable member of the NSW Rose Society. She returned to Toowoomba in 1972 and made his roses widely known there.[57] Her family aside, Elsie's main social group was the Presbyterian church, in which disapproval of gambling, and thus horse racing, would have been usual. Consequently she seems to have played down the gambling money on which she herself lived for 67 years and played up the beauty of the Riethmuller roses.[58] Elsie's embarrassment would have been deepened by the reputation of her brother Frank, Chief Commissioner of Police in Queensland 1958–1969, whose notorious corruption involved vast race-gambling debts.[59]

After Riethmuller died, Elsie often showed people interested in the roses, 'Titian' especially, around Eastern Road (the property remained her mother's to use till she died). When Elsie moved to Toowoomba, however, she seems to have taken Riethmuller's Lambertianas and floribundas with her but left the hybrid teas behind. Why Elsie did this is at present unknown. Perhaps it is significant that every rose bearing a woman's name has been deleted from the canon (Lady Woodward is the only exemption). In old age she was given to claiming ‘Esmeralda’ was not a Riethmuller rose because "no Riethmuller rose was named after a woman".[60] Her constant advocacy seems to have been the main reason those she took with her survive.

Perhaps the leading rose thinker in Australia after the Second World War was the registrar of new varieties, AS Thomas. His book Better Roses went through many editions. The 1969 edition, in its chapter "Australian and New Zealand Roses," lists 80 "highly prized cultivars." Twenty are roses by the great Alister Clark. Next in importance come the roses of Riethmuller: 'Esmeralda,' 'Gay Vista,' 'Plaisante,' 'Silverelda,' 'Snow Spray,' 'Spring Song' and 'Titian.'[61]

By the 1990s the passage of time once more threatened the survival of Riethmuller's remaining roses. The task of collecting and cultivating them was taken on by Phillip Sutherland of Golden Vale Nursery, Benalla. His plants came partly from NSW collectors but also from relations and friends of Elsie in Queensland. He also is responsible for the survival of Riethmuller's only extant hybrid tea, Lady Woodward. Golden Vale closed in 2011, but the plants he sought out are now safely established in public collections.

Roses

Riethmuller is known to have released 26 roses in all. Ten are currently available; many have been lost.[62] Most of those we still have are remarkably well bred: healthy, hardy, well-formed, well-scented and floriferous.

Floribundas

Floribundas are typically stiff shrubs, smaller and bushier than the average hybrid tea but less dense and sprawling than the average polyantha. The first of Riethmuller's surviving floribundas, and the best, was 'Titian.'

Mr. Riethmuller studied genetics at the University of Sydney to further his knowledge, taught himself Spanish in order to correspond with Pedro Dot, and is a constant correspondent with Kordes (in German) and of other hybridists in England, Italy and America.[63]

Riethmuller used Kordes' roses as breeding stock. In return the Kordes firm acted as Riethmuller's agent in Europe, where at least 'Titian' among his roses became well known. Riethmuller released 'Titian' in Australia in 1950, though he said he had bred it in 1937. Given his preference for German stock, it was probably a cross between a Kordes hybrid tea such as 'Crimson Glory' and a Kordes floribunda such as 'Eutin.' But

he told us 'Titian' was a fluke he wasn't trying for and he had no idea of the breeding. It was one of about 200 he had cross-pollinated and thought so little of it he didn't bother to record the cross in his book.[64]

The flowers are semi-double and open out flat to a muddled centre and an old fashioned shape, like a Bourbon rose … it makes an excellent ever-blooming rose in warm climates like Australia's, and a sturdy, tall bush in cool climates like northern Europe's.[65]

Riethmuller registered 'Titian' as a floribunda but others quickly realised it grew best as a short climber. Kordes' firm subsequently patented a climbing sport ('Tizian'), though that was more to secure European royalties than due to any change in the rose. Kordes particularly valued the resistance of 'Titian' to disease.[66] It is still the most widely grown of Riethmuller's roses and easy to get from nurseries.

Roger Mann:

I remember him showing me [in the early 1960s] an unnamed seedling out of ‘Titian’ x ‘Elmshorn’, which I thought was nicer than its pollen parent — bigger flowers, darker and brighter colour. Again, I don’t think it was ever introduced. I remember his pointing out that it had inherited the almost square leaflets of ‘Titian’.[67]

'Kwinana' came out in 1962. With it the Riethmuller floribunda reaches the height of sophisticated artifice, everything about it carefully designed for decorator effects. Nothing else makes sense of its still rather shocking red-orange colour.

Lambertianas

Lambertianas descend from roses created by the German breeder Lambert in the 1920s using Rosa multiflora. To some rosarians they are simply members of the wider class of polyanthas, but Lambertianas have the characteristic leaf shape and scent of R. multiflora. By these criteria, some of Pemberton's Hybrid Musks descended from Lambert's 'Trier' are Lambertianas, some are not. But all of Riethmuller's polyanthas are Lambertianas.

Riethmuller adapted them to make mounds of perpetually flowering clusters of single flowers. In Sydney and similar climates they are all between knee and shoulder high: neither climbers nor dwarves nor ground-cover. The new type added colour and strong low shapes to garden structure. 'Spring Song,' a chance Lambert seedling, came out in 1954. From it he bred 'Nglarla,' released in 1955; 'Gay Vista,' 'Honeyflow' and 'Esmeralda,'[68] all released in 1957; Carmel Bice’ and ‘Elaine White’ in 1959, both now lost; 'Carabella' (or 'Cara Bella') in 1960; 'Claret Cup' in 1962. 'Carabella' in particular grows easily from cuttings and is always in flower.

'Carabella' is the best of the billowing shrub roses [he] bred from the old Lambertiana 'Gartendirektor Otto Linne' … The flowers are borne abundantly and continuously in large clusters of 10–30 right through the year in warm climates.[69]

Peter Cox and others have pointed out that 'Carabella,' like 'Titian,' can easily be grown as a pillar rose, some examples reaching 2.5 metres.[70] In Toowoomba it can reach 3.7 metres.[71] Bentall's 1937 hybrid musk 'Ballerina' is similar, but grown side by side 'Carabella' is bigger, healthier, more floriferous and with bigger clusters; 'Ballerina's' petals shade to a deeper pink and the scent is muskier.

‘Snow Spray’ is another multiflora-leaved Lambertiana sometimes misleadingly labelled a floribunda. It is a highly-scented, very double self-cross of ‘Gartendirektor Otto Linne’, flowering all season and growing a metre high and across. Allowing for its creamy yellow flower centres, it is the closest to an all white Riethmuller rose since the loss of ‘Elaine White.’

'Chip's Apple Blossom' is a dwarf form of 'Carabella,' never registered. If it is true he gave it to Miss Smallwood, he must have bred it by November 1939 when she became Mrs Farram.

The well-known 'Cousin Essie' is not by Riethmuller but a seedling of 'Honeyflow,' perhaps an improvement because its clusters are a purer white but lacking 'Honeyflow's' air of wildness.

Hybrid Teas

Hybrid teas are shrubs with flowers high-pointed in the bud, opening to big scented double flowers, preferably recurrently. Riethmuller's 'Lady Woodward' came out in 1959. The deep pink 'Filagree' appeared in 1962; the dark red 'Denise McClelland' in 1964.

Roger Mann reports a red hybrid tea called 'Showboat' grown at Turramurra: "Not sure if he ever registered or introduced it. It was a bit like 'Ena Harkness' in flower, but with an even weaker neck."[72] 'Showboat' may of course be identical to the rose registered as 'Denise McClelland.'

Pernetianas

Riethmuller extended his hybrid tea breeding into Pernetianas. Pernet was the first to cross breed hybrid tea roses with the Persian yellow Rosa foetida. Pernetianas often had good scent and glowing combinations of red and yellow. Riethmuller characteristically took a Pernetiana bred by Kordes to make his own. 'Evelyn Buchan' came out in 1959 and 'Silverelda' (no doubt with silver tints somewhere) probably at the same time. Neither is known still to exist. The breeding of the light pink 'Lady Woodward' ('Heinrich Wendland' × 'Elli Knab') suggests it too had been intended to be a Pernetiana.

Sortable list of Riethmuller roses

This list of the known roses has been compiled from Peter Cox, Australian Roses[73] and the online Help Me Find Roses entry for Riethmuller, Frank.

Name Date Type Colour Pollen parent Seed parent Extant
Alma 1957 Floribunda Crimson Orange Triumph Eutin Lost
Amore 1957 Lambertiana Deep Pink Orange Triumph Spring Song Yes
Carabella 1960 Lambertiana Single white with pink edges Gartendirektor Otto Linne Seedling Yes
Carmel Bice 1959 Lambertiana Pink blend Gartendirektor Otto Linne Seedling Lost
Chip's Apple Blossom 1988 (named) Dwarf Lambertiana Single white with pink edges Gartendirektor Otto Linne Seedling Yes
Claret Cup 1962 Lambertiana Red with white centres Spring Song Eutin Yes
Denise McClelland 1964 Hybrid tea Dark red Amy Johnson New Yorker Unknown
Elaine White 1959 Lambertiana White Gartendirektor Otto Linne Seedling Unknown
Esmeralda 1957 Lambertiana Magenta Gartendirektor Otto Linne Seedling Yes
Evelyn Buchan 1959 Pernetiana Pink and yellow Luis Briñas Crimson Glory Unknown
Filagree 1962 Hybrid tea pillar Deep pink Titian Sterling Unknown
Florrie Joyce 1960 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
Galah 1956 Hybrid tea Carmine-pink, i.e. galah-coloured Unknown Unknown Unknown
Gay Vista 1955 Lambertiana Bright pink with white centres Unknown Unknown Yes
Gayness 1955 Hybrid tea Unknown Unknown Unknown Lost
Helios 1960 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown
Honeyflow 1957 Lambertiana Blush pink Spring Song Gartendirektor Otto Linne Yes
Kwinana 1962 Floribunda Red-orange Orange Triumph Seedling Yes
Lady Woodward 1959 Hybrid tea Light pink Heinrich Wendland Elli Knab Yes
Ngarla 1955 Lambertiana Probably dark red Unknown Unknown Unknown
Pearl Costin 1959 Hybrid tea Yellow blend Elli Knab Amy Johnson Lost
Plaisante 1957 Floribunda Bright pink, lighter reverse Borderer Unknown Lost
Rubens 1960 Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown Lost
Silverelda 1959? Pernetiana Pink blend Heinrich Wendland Nancy Wilson Unknown
Showboat no date Hybrid tea Red Unknown Unknown Unknown
Snow Spray 1957 Lambertiana White blend Gartendirektor Otto Linne Gartendirektor Otto Linne Yes
Spring Song 1954 Lambertiana Carmine-pink Gartendirektor Otto Linne Self Yes
Titian 1955 Floribunda Deep pink Unknown Unknown Yes

Where Riethmuller roses can be seen

  • The old rose section of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne has 'Carabella' and 'Claret Cup' in island beds.
  • The Victoria State Rose Garden at Werribee Park has 'Carabella', 'Claret Cup,' 'Honeyflow,' 'Kwinana' and 'Titian.'[74]
  • The National Rose Collection created by David Ruston at Renmark in South Australia has 'Carabella,' 'Spring Song' (sometimes sold as 'Bert Mulley'), 'Lady Woodward,' 'Titian,' 'Snow Spray' and 'Chip's Apple Blossom.'[75]
  • The Morwell Centenary Rose Garden in Gippsland has 'Carabella', 'Claret Cup,' 'Gay Vista', 'Honeyflow,' 'Spring Song' and 'Titian.'[76]
  • The Adelaide Botanical Garden, South Australia has 'Titian.'
  • The rose garden in Newtown Park, Toowoomba has 'Titian' and had 'Carabella.' (The website of Toowoomba Regional Council claims these roses were bred in Toowoomba, but this is incorrect.)
  • The Kodja Place Roze Maze at Kojonup, Western Australia uses hedges of Australian roses, including Australia's best collection of Riethmuller's: 'Carabella', 'Claret Cup,' 'Esmeralda,' 'Gay Vista', 'Honeyflow,' 'Spring Song' and 'Titian.'[77]

Few Riethmuller roses can be found in collections made outside Australia. 'Titian' and 'Snow Spray' are in the Europas-Rosarium at Sangerhausen in north Germany. 'Titian' is in the Rosarium Budatétény at Budapest. 'Titian' and 'Gay Vista' are in the catalogue of the Californian nursery Vintage Gardens.

References

  1. ^ Jenny Gersekowski, Humphrey Families in Australia, Cranbrook Press, Toowoomba, 1985, p. 72. ISBN 0-9590369-0-3. See also (translated from the German) Hans Wolfgang Rath, List of Ancestors of Frank Lewis Riethmuller in Sydney, Australia, Ludwigsburg, Würtemberg, Germany, unpublished, compiled 1928–1929. FLR's Queensland birth record shows that he was born in 1884, not 1885 as most writers claim. Similarly, his NSW death certificate shows he died in Sydney Sanitarium and Hospital, Wahroonga on 23 April 1965, not 1966. The immediate cause of death was a heart attack; the long term cause was bronchitis and related empyema (see below).
  2. ^ As well as bronchitis, he had bronchiectasis from an early age: instead of the air passages becoming steadily smaller in diameter until they are minimal at the periphery, the terminal passages open into small cylindrical or flask-like spaces. In these mucus readily collects which is then exceedingly likely to become secondarily infected because at that level there are no hairs wafting foreign material towards the larger airways where it can be coughed up. The mucus often gives the feeling you are drowning. Until sulphonamides became available when FLR was in his fifties, the only relief was from "postural drainage," shifting position in bed so the mucus moved to a place from which lung hairs could dislodge it; and a lifelong quest for clean air and "ozone." Mild physical exercise daily would eventually bring a sense of relief. Perhaps wide reading was a distraction from nighttime misery. FLR's health seems to have become notably worse in his late fifties. Antibiotics came into general use when he was about sixty and must have been some help in controlling secondary infections. But from his mid-sixties till his death he was also prone to pleural empyema, pus collecting between his lungs and ribs. This information comes from FLR's 1940 testimony (see below) and his death certificate as interpreted by Dr Murray Sandland, retired physician of Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital 1966–1996 and the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne 1996–2005. Dr Sandland has himself suffered since age two from bronchiectasis.
  3. ^ Toowoomba Grammar records, thanks to Ellen Morosini.
  4. ^ FL Riethmuller, 1928 letter applying to matriculate at the University of Heidelberg; in the collection of Revd Timothy Jarick; statutory declaration made to internment tribunal 23 August 1940, National Archive A12102/37.
  5. ^ School information due to Mrs Jean Jarick, one of Riethmuller's surviving great-nieces. His sister had just married and settled on a farm at Glencoe (Gowrie Junction), site of his first school. His parents' farm was at Glenvale, site of the second.
  6. ^ Statutory declaration made to internment tribunal 23 August 1940, National Archive A12102/37.
  7. ^ Australian National Archive MP1103/2 Report on Prisoner of War 19 October 1940; Gerhardt Fischer, Enemy aliens: internment and the homefront experience in Australia, 1914-1920. 1989, University of Queensland Press, St Lucia. ISBN 0-7022-2178-3. Riethmuller disappears from the electoral rolls between 1913 and 1930, though enrolment was not compulsory till 1925. He was certainly not a member of the armed forces in the First World War. He is not on the list of native-born internees.
  8. ^ Statutory declaration made to internment tribunal 23 August 1940, National Archive A12102/37; statutory declaration p.2. Also electoral roll for Kennedy district 1905, 1908 and 1913. Riethmuller does not reappear on an electoral roll till 1930 — for Wentworth, Sydney. Thereafter Parramatta 1943; Bradfield 1949; Bradfield 1954.
  9. ^ The Queenslander, 25 January 1919, p.13. This reference is thanks to Revd Timothy Jarick.
  10. ^ Letter to University of Heidelberg applying for matriculation there. Translation in National Archive C123/2679.
  11. ^ Riethmuller's counsel to the committee hearing his objection to being interned in World War II, 20 November 1940. National Archive A1202/37.
  12. ^ National Archive A1202/37.
  13. ^ Study Guides of the State Library of Victoria
  14. ^ National Archive C123/2679, dossier of the NSW security police. Silent partnership may have been no more than an unfounded police suspicion however.
  15. ^ A complete list of his holdings in 1940 was provided to the internment tribunal; National Archive A1202/37.
  16. ^ National Archive A367, C18000/42. FLR's counsel described Hackett as a Leviathan.
  17. ^ This inference is based on his entry in the phone directory for that year: "FL Riethmuller Stkbr".
  18. ^ Dave Barnes, "Gold Medal for Titian Rose," Your Garden, 21 January 1959, p21.
  19. ^ National Archive C123/1 Item 2679, FL Reithmuller [sic] letter dated 15 March 1928. He specifies Philology, which would typically have been combined with German Language, Literature, and Philosophy. Reference due to Revd Timothy Jarick.
  20. ^ Gersekowski p. 72. Also National Archive A1202/37 and National Archive MP1103/2. National Archive C415/70 for Reithmuller [sic] contains a University of Sydney Union diary for 1929. See also Penny McKinlay, Heritage Roses in Australia, 2005, vol. 27, no. 4, p. 5. When Riethmuller was in Germany he had a genealogist draw up the Riethmuller family tree; but when he brought it home he was the only member of the family who could read it: for it was in German. Gereskovski p.65 also shows a photo FLR took in 1928 of the house his father was born in in Neckarrems, Wurtemberg, Germany.
  21. ^ FL Riethmuller letter to University of Heidelberg.
  22. ^ Julia Mant writes from the University of Sydney archives: "Riethmuller’s student card records he was enrolled in English, French, German, History I in 1927, but does not sit the exams. His 1929 enrolment is not recorded on the card (only [in] the Calendar). He then is enrolled in 1941, English I (deferred pass), History I (not up), Botany I (did not enter); 1942 History I and Botany I (not up); 1943 ditto; 1946 French I (not up), German I (credit), Italian I (pass); 1947 German II (pass), Italian II (pass); 1948 German III (pass), History I (did not enter), Anc[ient] Art & Archae[ology] (did not enter); 1949 French I (not up). He is recorded as having sat the Leaving Certificate in November 1926, School S E Blight, date of birth 10/2/1884, post-box address only (Box 856 GPD, Sydney)."
  23. ^ For instance National Archive A12102/37, hearing transcript, Dunworth testimony, p. 37. Also KJ Travallion, Australian Rose Annual, 1959, p. 121. Also ANZ Rose Annual 1960 p102.
  24. ^ Australian Dictionary of Biography entry for Waterhouse, Eben Gowrie (1881–1977). Waterhouse lived in Killara, two stations south of Riethmuller, but FLR is more likely to have seen Waterhouse over a sherry in his rooms at the university. Waterhouse established the cult of Japanese glade plants in Killara, where is still flourishes, but it seems to have had little effect in FLR's part of Turramurra.
  25. ^ National Archive A367, C18000/42, internment hearing p7.
  26. ^ See the Fitzhardinge entry on Help Me Find.
  27. ^ Miss Hambledon (born 24 September 1870) has her own Security Service file C123/15592, now online. Her death was registered in Chatsworth in 1955 as Leontine Hambledon. "Wychwood" remained as guest house after her death, but she was still listed as its proprietor in the Sydney white pages for 1954. "Wychwood" was at 11 Ku-Ring-Gai Chase Avenue, now called just Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue and the house renumbered as 17. Originally on nine acres, it was designed by Robertson and Marks architects for George McFarlane, tobacco merchant, and completed in 1901 (see the Heritage NSW website under Cossington and Wychwood). From 1901 till 1916 "Wychwood" occupied the entire triangle formed by the Pacific Highway, Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue and Womerah Street. In 1916 there was a sell-off of blocks 1–9 along Ku-Ring-Gai Chase Avenue (leaving "Wychwood" to be No. 11 till the 1960s) and along the entire frontage onto the Pacific Highway. What remained was sold as "Wychwood" in 1921 for ₤11000. In 1928 it was converted into a 28-bedroom guesthouse, probably by Miss Hambledon. Miss Hambledon's ad in the Sydney Morning Herald for 7 May 1932 read "AT TURRAMURRA WYCHWOOD NORTH SHORE LINE 600ft above sea. Ideal sunny surroundings. Near station. Tennis. Excellent cuisine. Garage. Reduced tariff. Hot water service throughout. Miss Hambledon Wah 699." There were indoor and outdoor servants. Miss Hambledon also had cows, horses, cats and many dogs. A 1943 aerial photo reproduced in the Ku-ring-gai Town Centres Heritage Conservation Area Inventory Sheet shows that "Wychwood" in Miss Hambledon's day occupied the current blocks 11–19 of Ku-Ring-Gai Avenue and 2–10 of Womerah Street: it was still an enormous land holding in one of the most valuable parts of Sydney. Further subdivisions after Miss Hambledon's death in 1955 were effected in the 1960s — reducing the land of "Wychwood" itself to half an acre. The house was bought and restored in about 1987. The boundary trees are original but the garden architecture is not.
  28. ^ Christopher Andrew's The Defence of the Realm: the Authorized History of MI5, Allen Lane, 2009, pp221–5 is excellent on the Empire-wide fear and ignorance of pro-German responses in Imperial populations: there were none. "Fifth column hysteria" is a phrase from the period.
  29. ^ National Archive, Security Serice dossier, deposition by a neighbour eight houses down Eastern Road.
  30. ^ National Archive C123/2679, "Security Service Black List" on which he remained till the end of the war.
  31. ^ It is available online as part of the Australian National Archive: NAA document MP1103/2, PWN1389
  32. ^ National Archive A12102/37
  33. ^ National Archive MP508/1 255/742/61, Report of the Advisory Committee, p3.
  34. ^ Personal communication from Roger Mann.
  35. ^ National Archive MP508/1 255/742/61, Application for ministerial warrant, p1. It is worth noting that Miss Hambledon was never interned: it was policy to intern no women.
  36. ^ National Archive C415, 70; diaries 1929–37; ANZ Rose Annual, 1960, p102, which says he has been a member for 23 years of the National Rose Society of NSW, that is, joined the Society in 1937.
  37. ^ Riethmuller's house was at 21 The Eastern Road, now called just Eastern Road. It was a small house on a quarter-acre block.
  38. ^ Postcards to Riethmuller's Turramurra address from a Herr Mansfeld in Germany dated 1936; Revd Timothy Jarick collection. Mrs Bischof married at 17 and had nine children before she left her husband's farm at Gowrie Junction. It seems likely she retreated to her parents' home till her father died in 1923, then to her brother Otto's home till he died. Frank may have been her only option left. After Frank died in 1965 she returned to Brisbane, though 21 Eastern Road remained in her name (Sophia Carolina Bischof) till her death in 1972. Frank left Elsie a cottage in Sydney; after her mother died in 1972 she sold it and returned to Toowomba.
  39. ^ National Archive A12102/37, transcript of hearing pp3–4.
  40. ^ National Archive A12102/37, transcript of hearing, Dunmore evidence, pp37–8.
  41. ^ National Archive A12102/37, internment appeal p39.
  42. ^ Australian Rose Annual, 1960 p. 102.
  43. ^ KJ Travallion 1959.
  44. ^ Roger Mann, personal communication.
  45. ^ Roger Mann, personal communication.
  46. ^ University of Sydney Calendar, 1975 vol. 1. Angela Topping of the University writes: "Mr Riethmuller appointed Perpetual Trustee Company to manage his estate. In his will he stipulated that on the death of the life tenant of 21 Eastern Road, Turramurra, the property be sold and the surplus paid to the 'University of Sydney to be used in the Medical School as the authorities see fit'." So the property must have been sold when Riethmuller's sister Sophia died in 1972.
  47. ^ National Archive A1202/37. Transcript pp26–27.
  48. ^ Information from Riethmuller's great-nieces Mrs Merle Kiehne and Mrs Jean Jarick, both of Queensland.
  49. ^ Dave Barnes, "Gold Medal for Titian Rose," Your Garden, 21 January 1959, p21. FLR could not have witheld local rights for more than a year, overseas not at all. Plant breeders' rights did not exist in Australia till the Plant Variety Rights Act of 1987, replaced now by the Act of 1994.
  50. ^ National Archive A12102, 37, statutory declaration p.5 says Riethmuller is their whole support.
  51. ^ Circumstantial information from Roger Mann, who knew both Mrs Marsden and Riethmuller. "I remember Mrs Marsden (of ‘Cara Bella’) well — my family lived in Turramurra and she often gave my mother and me a lift home from the Rose Society’s evening meetings in the city. She was one of the Rose Society’s 'floral art' judges. The 1965 Oz Rose Annual lists her among the judges as 'Mrs A. Marsden'." She and Riethmuller are seen from another angle in Roger Mann's Naming the Rose: Discovering who roses are named for, Ebury Press, 2008, pp. 32–33. ISBN 978 1 74166 830 8.
  52. ^ Information about Mrs Buchan is thanks to Judith Oyston, historian of the Rose Society.
  53. ^ National Archive WWI attestation paper B2455 for Henry James Costin
  54. ^ Edward Woodward (her son), One Brief Interval, 2005, MUP, pp2–6.
  55. ^ The information about Mrs Farram is thanks to Margaret Furness of Heritage Roses in Australia: "Mary Davis [says] Chip Smallwood used to sell her rose as a fundraiser for the Henry St Infants' Home. Chip led the 23A Club, a garden club named for the Farram house at 23A Cleveland St, Wahroonga [another half-acre block]. It was Mary who named the rose, in 1988."
  56. ^ Except for 'Helios' all their names can easily be found on the thoroughbred database at http://www.pedigreequery.com/ . This is confirmed for 'Gay Vista' by Dave Barnes, "Gold Medal for Titian Rose," Your Garden, 21 January 1959, p21. For Helios, search Thoroughbred Heritage on Helios. Plenty of racehorses have been called 'Amore' but dates and places do not correspond to FLR's rose of that name.
  57. ^ Judith Oyston, RSNSW historian, personal communication. Also Heritage Roses in Australia vol. 4, no. 4, p. 6. See also the eulogy of Elsie by her niece Jean Jarick. Elsie's return to Toowoomba in the year her mother died suggests that she left Turramurra when she no longer had to take care of what had become her mother's house.
  58. ^ A 2011 quote from a Heritage Roses member in Queensland: "I knew his niece for many years and have never heard the racehorse connection." Private communication from Margaret Furness. Mrs Jean Jarick reports that Elsie worked during WWII as a seamstress for the armed forces, but that would probably have been as a volunteer. See also Pat Lewis of Corinda, Journal of Heritage Roses in Australia (1982) Vol 4, No. 4 p. 6: "Several members had made plans to come and Elsie Bischof arrived from Toowoomba to lend a hand. She doesn’t grow Heritage roses but gives me some of her uncle's roses to put in the garden."
  59. ^ G. E. Fitzgerald, Commission of Inquiry into Possible Illegal Activities and Associated Police Misconduct (Brisbane, 1989); Sir Thomas Hiley, Courier Mail (Brisbane), 5 June 1967, 18 Sept 1982.
  60. ^ Mrs Dawn Eldridge nèe Riethmuller, personal communication.
  61. ^ Dr AS Thomas, Better Roses, Angus and Robertson, 1969, pp90–91. Clark registered 151 or so roses of which 100 are still extant. Riethmuller registered 27 roses of which about 12 are extant. The figures for their Spanish contemporary, Pedro Dot, are 176 roses named, 120 extant.
  62. ^ Peter Cox, Australian Roses, Bloomings Books, 1999, pp. 36–7. ISBN 1-876473-02-9.
  63. ^ KJ Travallion, 1959. Travallion's claim that Riethmuller studied genetics at Sydney is not supported by University records — see a previous note.
  64. ^ Dave Barnes, "Gold Medal for Titian Rose," Your Garden, January 1959 p21.
  65. ^ Charles & Brigid Quest-Ritson, The RHS Encyclopaedia of Roses, Dorling Kindersley, 2003, p. 399. ISBN 978-1-4053-3511-9. Most unusually for the Quest-Ritsons, their biographical information on Riethmuller is unreliable.
  66. ^ Doubts about two forms of 'Titian' are due to Patricia Routley, personal communication. See also Dave Barnes, "Gold Medal for Titian Rose," Your Garden, 21 January 1959, pp19&21, which attributes both the discovery of 'Titian's' value as a climber and Kordes' opinion of its disease resistance to Dr AS Thomas of the National Rose Society of Victoria. Kordes' list or rose patents. Said to have been patented in 1954. Dr Thomas's later book Growing Roses, 1983, Nelson, ISBN 0-17-006188-4 p.96 settles the matter: "Many roses have always been available only as climbers; there is no bush form of them. Good examples of these are 'Albertine' … and 'Titian'."
  67. ^ Roger Mann, personal communication
  68. ^ The oldest of the references for 'Esmeralda' is the Australian Rose Annual for 1956. "Rich carmine single blooms with a white eye and a lighter reverse." This has raised doubts about the authenticity of the later references and plants currently sold as 'Esmeralda' with a lighter reverse but with double blooms lacking a white eye. But Woman's Day, 25 May 1959 page 43 has five colour photos of Riethmuller roses taken under Riethmuller's own supervision. In fact he himself appears in the photo of a bowl of 'Titian' on his mantelpiece. A fine head of 'Esmeralda' flowers is shown, unmistakably double, with pale yellow stamens, no white eye but light pink reverses to the petals.
  69. ^ Quest-Ritsons, p. 79.
  70. ^ Peter Cox, Australian Roses, Bloomings Books, 1999, pp. 36–7. ISBN 1-876473-02-9.
  71. ^ Personal communication, Bonita Cattell.
  72. ^ Roger Mann, personal communication
  73. ^ Peter Cox, Australian Roses, Bloomings Books, 1999, pp. 36–7. ISBN 1-876473-02-9.
  74. ^ Victoria State Rose Garden at Werribee Park
  75. ^ National Rose Collection of Australia
  76. ^ Morwell Centenary Rose Garden
  77. ^ Kodja Place Roze Maze

Articles written by Riethmuller

FL Riethmuller (Turramurra, NSW), "Co-operative Rose Breeding," Australian and New Zealand Rose Annual (ANZRA), 1955, p112.

F Riethmuller (Sydney NSW), "Nora Cunningham," ANZRA, 1957, p135. A puff for the European release of the Alister Clark climber, 'Nora Cunningham.'

Frank Riethmuller (Turramurra, NSW), "Roses from Seed," ANZRA, 1960, p118. Shows how FLR actually thought as a breeder.

Riethmuller in the Australian national archive

The National Archive of Australia is indispensable to researching Riethmuller's career. All his records are listed online under the heading Security and intelligence records. As can be seen in the table below, his name is often misspelt and there is some overlap between holdings in different cities.

Archive series Date Barcode Location Title Contents Available
A1539, 1940/W/3994 1940 6922353 Canberra Trading with the Enemy Act, 1939 - Mr. F L Riethmuller FLR's two-page letter asking permission to import two German texts about the German language, the brief official refusal and notification to another official. Online
C123/1, 2679 1940–1943 3905523 Sydney Reithmuller, Francis Lewis (Australian) Seventy-nine pages of Security Service dossier, with lists of foreign books held, translations, public complaints and stat. decs. by complainants, official assessments of FLR as a security risk, record of arrest. Online
C415, 70 1929–1945 7297693 Sydney Frank Lewis Reithmuller [also known as Francis Reithmuller] This series contains six very small Johnnie Walker Diaries 1931, 1933-1937, a 1930 Dewar's Diary, a 1929 Sydney University Union Diary, The Shooter's Year Book 1932, a folder containing copies of the magazines 'Mutterlpradje' (Jan-Aug 1939), 3 copies of the publication 'Proceedings of the Deutsche Akademie' 1936 vols 2–4, two postcards in German, newspapers cuttings, the libretto of an "evangelical cantata," "Die Krone des Lebens," one address book, invoices (mainly from German publishers) and correspondence from German acquaintances abroad. It also includes FLR's successful one-page application in German to matriculate from the University of Heidelberg. The address book and the diaries rarely record appointments: they are mostly memoranda of plants bought, phone numbers of friends and clients, shoe sizes and lasts, written-out Australian and European railway timetables, and scores of addresses of European pensions. The address book itself seems to have been conscientiously started in 1922 and later adapted to the same purposes as the diaries. Open to physical inspection and being photographed
MP1103/1, PWN1389 1940 8613738 Melbourne Prisoner of War/Internee: Riethmuller, Francis Lewis; Date of birth - 10 February 1884; Nationality - British One-page card recording FLR's internment camps and dates Online
MP1103/2, PWN1389 1940 9902704 Melbourne Prisoner of War/Internee: Riethmuller, Francis Lewis; Date of birth - 10 February 1884; Nationality - British One-page camp reception card. Online
A367, C18000/42 1940 776278 Canberra Objection No.71 of 1940. Reithmuller Francis Lewis. Advisory Committee The 58-page transcript of his appeal against internment 20 November 1940 Online
A12102, 37 23 Aug 1940 – 20 Nov 1940 5169109 Canberra Riethmuller, Francis Lewis - Objection No. 71 of 1940 … Alien Advisory Committee FLR's 9-page stat. dec. to the internment committee. Rest is same as barcode 776278, plus most of barcode 3905523. Online
MP508/1, 255/742/61 1940 3382652 Melbourne Francis Lewis Riethmuller - Release from internment Four-page report of the ministerial advisory committee summarising Riethmuller's circumstances and concluding that "it is neither necessary nor desirable" that he remain interned. Five pages of related official correspondence. FLR's stat. dec. to the committee, identical to that included in barcode 5169109. Two-page application for ministerial warrant. The original detention order and 6 pages of related official documents, not the same as barcode 3905523. Online
C123, 2683 24 Oct 1938 - 23 Jun 1948 3905526 Sydney Hamburger, Miss Leontine aliases Hambleton and Hambledon (American - naturalised British subject) Her complete Security Service dossier Online
C415, 65 1932-1939 7283882 Sydney Leontine Hambledon [? formerly Hamburger] This item consists of a summary by Military Police Intelligence of biographical details of Leontine Hambledon; police certificates of good conduct for Lilly Lust, a relative of Leontine Hambledon; 3 postcards to Elsa Rose from Julius Schmitt, in German with English translations; the following correspondence to subject in German with English translations: a postcard, 2 letters and a Christmas card; correspondence mostly from European relations in German and English. There is some overlap with barcode 3905526. Online

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