J. H. L. Zillmann's father was one of a group of German Moravian Missionaries who arrived in Moreton Bay in 1838. He was born on the Mission three years later and was educated privately. By 1850 the mission had broken up and members had taken to farming. Zillmann worked on farms at Nundah and Caboolture before travelling to Sydney in 1862 to study for the ministry. After ordination he served in parishes in New South Wales and Queensland, including five years as Rector of St Paul's Anglican Church in Ipswich during the 1870s. He went to England in 1889 and spent some time in the United States of America where he served as chaplain of the New York City prisons and earned a PhD. He returned to New South Wales in 1896 and served in a number of parishes until his death at Sydney in 1919. In addition to his creative works, Zillmann published a book of sermons and Past and Present Australian Life (1889).
