The Platers in Australia

Many Lithuanians and Poles will know the story of Emilia Plater (Emilija Pliaterytė in Lithuanian) a young countess of the Plater nobles who gained immense popularity and was likened to Joan of Arc because of her participation and leadership during the 1830-31 uprising against the Russian Empire (click here for an outline of her story).

Emilia Plater leading peasant scythemen, by Jan Rosen

Far fewer people are aware that some of Emilia's relations, who also took part in the attempted revolution, arrived in Australia as political refugees and settled here. 

The Platers

Historical accounts vary, but most maintain that the history of the Plater dynasty began in Westphalia (Germany) in the 12th or 13th century, in the vicinity of the castle Broel. From that time, the family were known as 'de Broel Plater'. In the 1400s the Platers emigrated to Livonia (present-day Latvia and southern Estonia) and soon became powerful members of the Livonian Order (a branch of the Teutonic Knights). Over time, the family split into several lines; with the decline of the Order they identified as patriotic military leaders in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. When the Commonwealth declined and was partitioned near the end of the eighteenth century by its more powerful neighbours (Prussia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the Russian Empire) the Lithuanian regions were incorporated into the Russian Empire. The Platers maintained their extensive landholdings but lost much of their political and military influence (prior to that the Platers had ranked close to the top ten wealthiest families of the Commonwealth, assisted by marriage alliances with other powerful dynasties including the Radziwills (Radvilai)). 

Emily Plater

Emilia de Broel Plater (1806-31) was a 13th generation descendant of the original emigrants to Livonia and a member of the Dusiat branch (Dusetos, in north-eastern Lithuania). One history of her involvement in the uprising states that her third cousins Lucien and Ferdinand, who were officer cadets with the Russian Imperial Army in the fortress of Dunaburg (Daugavpils, in south-eastern Latvia), admitted Emilia into the conspiracy to stage a revolution against Russian rule. They had grown up together at the Liksna manor near Dunaburg and the brothers had already helped Emilia develop skills in shooting and swordsmanship. 

The insurrection began in November 1830 in Warsaw and spread through most of the Russian-occupied areas of the former Commonwealth. Emilia joined the uprising in March 1831 at Dusetos and was part of an unsuccessful attempt to capture the Dunaburg fortress. The uprising had a number of initial military successes, taking possession of several Lithuanian towns, Emilia was appointed to the rank of Captain of the revolutionary army and distinguished herself in battle, but by the end of 1831 the uprising was eventually quashed by the regular army. She chose not to flee to the west and died while in hiding in December 1831; she was buried under an assumed name at Kapčiamiestis (in southern Lithuania).    

Lucien and Ferdinand Plater

Counts Lucien Stanislaus (1808-57) and Ferdinand (1811-91) de Broel Plater were members of the Kurkliai (in north-eastern Lithuania) branch of the family. Their father had been a Marshal of the Polish-Lithuanian nobility in the district of Vilnius and their mother Rachel Kosciuszko was the niece of the famous Tadeusz Kosciuszko (click here for his biography) after whom Mount Kosciuszko in Australia was named. The brothers joined the insurrection in April 1831 but after it collapsed made their way to western Europe. They were sentenced in absentia by a court in Minsk in November 1831 to be deported to Siberia.  

After a few years in France and then England, Lucien married Charlotte Price Duffus from an old Scottish family. Together with Ferdinand, they emigrated to Australia in 1840 and settled in Liverpool, NSW. According to family tradition, expected grants of land were not obtained because the brothers were not prepared to become naturalised British subjects.

The former Plater home at 90 George Street, Parramatta

Lucien and Charlotte lived modestly in and near Parramatta. Charlotte's brother, the Rev. John Duffus, had arrived in Australia shortly before the Platers and in later years the family was strongly associated with St John's Church of England in Parramatta, where Lucien was buried. They had ten children and their descendants in Australia are estimated to number over a hundred; the Plater descendants (named Plater or de Plater) are now more numerous in Australia than in any other country. Lucien honoured the memory of his cousin Emilia by giving her name to his eldest daughter Emily Laura (1838-1926)  and also one of his sons, Emilian Casimir (1851-1926).

Ferdinand did not marry. He was naturalised in 1860 and and eventually established a home, garden and vineyard near Bargo, NSW. 

Ferdinand Plater with his sister-in-law Charlotte (circa 1880?)

Sources: 

'The Platers' by Simon Konarski, Buenos Aires, 1967 (translated into English by M.B. de Plater, Brisbane, 1982);

'Poles in Australia and Oceania 1790-1940' by Lech Paszkowski, Australian National University Press, 1987, (extracts in www.duffus.com);

'The Platers of Parramatta' in Puls Polonii (Australian Polish online gazette of 6 February 2006 and subsequent editions). 

Pranas and Natalija ŠEŠKAS

My previous blog post about migration patterns mentioned the Šeškas family; here are a few more details to fill out an interesting story about a couple who decided to make a home and raise a family in Western Australia.

Pranas (known as Frank in Australia, and at times as Seska) was born on 1 January 1892 near Gargždai in western Lithuania, not far from the Baltic Sea. We know little about his early years before arriving in Australia; possibly economic hardship led to him leaving home, or - like so many other young men nearing 20 years of age at that time - he may have left to avoid conscription into the Russian czar's army. Also like many other single men from the Baltics who settled in Australia he may have taken employment as a seaman before arriving in Fremantle in 1912. He remained in Australia for the next decade, somehow resisting the social and economic pressures to join the AIF during the First World War and, although working at manual jobs, seems to have done reasonably well for himself.  We next find him back in newly-independent Lithuania in 1922 and applying for a Lithuanian passport (up to that point in Australia he was classified as a Russian alien, having been born in the czarist empire).

Pranas - application for a Lithuanian passport, 1922

While in Lithuania Pranas would have met his future wife Natalija. She was born near Kybartai, by the Lithuanian-Prussian border in 1906. He returned to Australia in 1925 and was working at the Port Pirie smelters as a labourer earning a good wage (over 6 pounds per week) when he applied to the Australian government a year later to allow Natalija to emigrate to Australia. At the same time he also sought permission for another Lithuanian friend, Martinas Korallus, to emigrate with Natalija. Approval was granted and the pair arrived in early 1927; Pranas and Natalija married on 1 February 1927 in Port Pirie.

Natalija - her Lithuanian passport, 1926

Pranas' and Natalija's first child was born in Port Pirie in 1928. However that year was marred by a few unpleasant experiences, with Pranas appearing before the Port Pirie courts twice within a period of a month - appearing both as a plaintiff and defendant. In one case he took his friend Korallus to court for outstanding money lent as well as unpaid board and lodgings. Perhaps because of these experiences the family moved to Western Australia where they eventually settled near Perth, first at Muchea and later Baker's Hill.

Five more children were born to Natalija and Pranas in Western Australia from 1929. A recent newspaper feature on one of the Seskas boys [click here], born in 1930, records the lives of Depression-era children on the land and notes that he was raised speaking Lithuanian.  Pranas died in 1967, and Natalija (Natalie) in 1998.