From Australia’s Jewish Past: Joseph Sternberg – one of the ‘great personalities’ of Bendigo
Joseph, the son of Alexander – a clothier – and Frederica was born on 3 April 1852 in London.
Joseph Sternberg
The family migrated to Victoria in the 1850s, where Alexander became a storekeeper and timber merchant before moving with his family in 1861 to Rochester – a small town in rural Victoria 180 kms from Melbourne.
In 1865 Joseph bought land there, which proved to be most opportune with the soil being very suitable for grains and vines as well as livestock in which he invested with his brother. The brothers established an auctioneering and stock and station agency. Joseph became a founding commissioner of the Campaspe Irrigation Trust, as well as a foundation member of the local agricultural society, president of the racing club and chairman of the Rochester School Board of Advice – a consultative, accountability and advisory body.
In 1888 the brothers’ company – Sternberg Bros – amalgamated with a Bendigo firm to become L McPherson, Sternberg & Co. Ltd catering for the rich farming hinterland. Joseph was a keen speculator in mining scrip – coal miners’ money similar to a credit card – and continuing his mining interest, he organised in 1892 the flotation of the New Prince of Wales mine in Ballarat. At the same time, he became a director of the Clarence, New Moon Consolidated and Suffolk United Mines also in Ballarat and a founder of the Sandhurst Trustees and Executors’ Co. which changed its name to Bendigo Trustees in 1985.
In 1889 Joseph stood for the Victorian Legislative Council seat of Victoria’s Northern Province and was narrowly defeated, though successful in the next election in June 1891, holding the seat until May 1904. In a parliamentary note, it was stated that:- ‘’Mr. Joseph Sternberg, MLC., has received a communication from the secretary of the rifle club movement stating that only those members who are in possession of uniform will be entitled to a free pass to the parade of all the defence force on the occasion of the soldiers returning from Africa.’’
Following a redistribution within the Council, he took on the representation of the Province of Bendigo – practically without opposition — from June 1904 until 1928 and was known as the ‘father’ of the chamber. He sat on numerous committees, including royal commissions on old age pensions (1897), the operation of the factories and shops law of Victoria (1900-03), the railway and tramway systems of Melbourne and suburbs (1910-11), and housing conditions in Melbourne and the major centres of the State (1914-18). In 1906 he had opposed adult suffrage, being prepared to extend the franchise only to women who were breadwinners!
As a member of the Bendigo Development League, Joseph supported rural capital works and development, took a keen interest in mining legislation and saw in the Closer Settlement Acts which were introduced to reform land holdings and, in particular, to break the squatters’ domination of land tenure, which was a means to decentralise population.
There wasn’t much that Joseph wasn’t involved in, including a foundation member of the first Council of Education in Victoria, where he set out to introduce agricultural high schools; the Freemasons, other friendly societies and public organisations in Bendigo such as the hospital, benevolent asylum, art gallery and agricultural society, plus holding the office of president of the Bendigo Athletic and the Sandhurst Rowing Clubs.
Joseph married Selina Lazarus with Jewish rites – conversion as best as was known at the time – on 3 November 1880. They had two children. Joseph remained in parliament as a Liberal and then a Nationalist until his passing on 13 January 1928 in Mount St Evin’s Hospital Melbourne. He was buried in Melbourne’s general cemetery following a funeral at Bourke Street Synagogue. Joseph is known as one of the ‘great personalities’ of Bendigo.
The AJHS acknowledges the following references in the preparation of this story:-
The Jews in Victoria in the Nineteenth Century – LM Goldman; Australian Dictionary of Biography – Charles Fahey; Wikipedia; New Parliament Victorian Government; National Library of Australia.
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