Between 1824 and 1842, almost 2,400 men and 145 women were detained at the Moreton Bay convict settlement under the control of military commandants. However, non-convict European settlement of the Brisbane region commenced in 1838 and the population grew strongly thereafter, with free settlers soon far outstripping the convict population. German missionaries settled at Zions Hill, Nundah as early as 1837, five years before Brisbane was officially declared a free settlement. The band consisted of ministers Christopher Eipper (1813–1894), Carl Wilhelm Schmidt, and lay missionaries Haussmann, Johann Gottried Wagner, Niquet, Hartenstein, Zillman, Franz, Rode, Doege and Schneider. They were allocated 260 hectares and set about establishing the mission, which became known as the German Station. Later in the 1860s many German immigrants from the Uckermark region in Prussia as well as from other German regions settled in the areas of Bethania, Beenleigh and the Darling Downs. These immigrants were selected and assisted through immigration programs established by John Dunmore Lang and Johann Christian Heussler and were offered free passage, good wages, and selections of land.
