File:Portrait of Johannes Christian Brunnich with a bicycle (3230471951).jpg

Description: Son of a Lutheran pastor, Johannes was born at Gorizia, then a part of Austria on 11 September 1861. He was educated in Switzerland and obtained his knowledge of chemistry at the federal polytechnic school at Zurich. He travelled in Russia and for a period was chemist in a sugar-mill in Bohemia.
Meeting Dr Mueller of Gayndah, Queensland, he decided to emigrate to Australia and arrived in Brisbane early in 1885. He married Kate Terry in 1886 and they had two sons and three daughters. In 1887 he became chief chemist and mill manager for the Colonial Sugar Refining Company at Homebush, Mackay, and early in 1897 was appointed chemist in the Queensland Department of Agriculture.
For about 35 years he advised the Department on a multiplicity of problems relating to agriculture in Queensland, and drafted many bills for the government relating among other things to fertilizers, stock foods, pure seeds and the destruction of pests. He also made scientific investigations into the Prickly Pear problem, the use of dipping fluids, and the provision of phosphatic licks for stock. He was elected a fellow of the Institute of Chemistry in 1905. In September 1931 he retired from the Agriculture Department and died on 3 July 1933. He was survived by his wife and children.
(Information taken from: Australian Dictionary of Biography, 2006, retrieved 11 February 2009)
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