Born in Posen, then part of Russian Poland, in 1834, he arrived in Australia in 1854. The date of his death is not known. He migrated initially to England and became apprenticed to a watchmaker in Sheffield. He arrived in Ballarat, Victoria, intending to set up a watchmaker's store. The day he commenced business, the Commissioners Rede and Johnson, staged the licence hunt which precipitated the violence culminating at Eureka three days later. His memoirs, written in 1901, give an account of this time.
