Otto Marquet
Otto Heinrich Marquardt (often Marquet) was born in 1875 at Mühlhausen, Germany, the son of Gustav and Henriette Marquardt (nee Gepp). He came to Australia and spent thirty-five years in New South Wales and nine in South Australia.
Marquardt was one of several German miners at Lightning Ridge, and he worked alongside Otto Schroder. Referred to as “the two Ottos,” they worked together for many years. At the Old Dry Rush field in 1913 Marquardt held a claim at the top end of the field, where he and partner Darkey Robinson found £450 worth of opal. He also worked at Western Fall with Schroder. In 1932, the Two Ottos started work at the Deep Four Mile under government funding, where they again got good opal in deep ground. In 1938, Marquardt and his mining mates were recorded as finding “the biggest opal on record in Australia”.
In the 1920s, Marquardt lived for a time at Mrs. Maher’s boarding house in Morilla Street.
Otto Marquardt never married, remaining a bachelor miner until his death.
On 25 March 1940, Otto Marquardt was killed after falling 40 feet down a mine shaft. His mining partner Dickie Springer rigged up a makeshift shelter underground to protect Otto from falling debris after the accident, but unfortunately Marquardt did not survive. He is buried at Lightning Ridge Cemetery.
Signature of Otto Marquardt, sourced from a petition to resist the move from Old Town and The Flat into the surveyed town.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, p. 92; Walgett Spectator, 28 August 1919, 3 April 1940; A Journey With Colour: A History of Lightning Ridge Opal 1873-2003, Len Cram, 2003, p. 170; The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 46, 60, 70, 72, 73; ‘Found Biggest Opal; Dies in Fall’, News, 30 March 1940, p. 5; ‘Miner Shields Dying Mate’, Daily Telegraph, 7 April 1940, p. 5.