Otto Schroder
Dr. Wearn, from the New South Wales Far West Children's Health Scheme mobile dental clinic with Otto Schroder (behind the windlass) and George Lowe.
Otto Herman Schroder (sometimes Schroeder, Schröder, Schrader, Schrouder) was born on 17 March 1873 in Eichen, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, the son of Julius and Wilhelmine Schroder. He married Sarah Evaline Wilson in 1899 in New South Wales.
Schroder spent almost sixty years in Australia, with a lot of that time as a miner at Lightning Ridge.
During World War I, Schroder (like other German-born miners including Marquardt and Harry Sack) was interned as an enemy alien.
Alongside Otto Marquardt, he was one of “the two Ottos.” The pair worked side by side for decades, mining at Western Fall, Old Dry Rush, and later Deep Four Mile. They were a very successful partnership. In 1932 they obtained government funding to sink shafts at the Deep Four Mile in 1932, producing good opal.
Schroder died on 15 July 1958 at Lightning Ridge, aged 85, and was buried there.
Article: Research by Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, pp. 46, 72; Lightning Ridge - The Home of the Black Opal: Unique to the World, Gan Bruce, 1983, pp. 131-132; The Occurrence of Opal at Lightning Ridge and Grawin, with Geological Notes on County Finch, J. W Whiting & R. E. Relph, 1958, p. 10.