People Australia

Joseph Francis Xavier Schellenberg, also known as Shellenberg (c.1856-1938) gardener, gaoled anarchist and trade unionist 

Birth: about 1856 at Ansbach, Bavaria [Germany], son of Alois Schellenberg, civil servant, and Johanna, née Rogner. Marriage: 24 October 1900 at Queen Street, Melbourne, Victoria, with Free Christian Church rites to Tasmanian-born Annie Morgan (1863-?). Death: 16 August 1938 in Balmain Hospital, New South Wales. Religion: buried with Methodist forms. 

• Arrived in Sydney from Queensland aboard the Barrabool in December 1878. Worked as a gardener for Captain Broomfield in 1882. Became prominent as an anarchist in Sydney. Was a founding member of the Australian Socialist League (ASL) in Sydney in 1887.
• Obtained a certificate of naturalisation at Sydney on 20 February 1891.
• Operated flower and vegetable farm at Smithfield, NSW, which served as rendezvous point for radicals and base of operation for the 'Communist-Anarchist Group of Central Cumberland' (about 1890-1891). Was possibly expelled from the ASL in 1891 because of his anarchist position.
• With John Arthur Andrews, produced the first issues of the newsletter Anarchy in late 1891. In 1893 he, Sam Rosa, William Henry McNamara and others distributed the radical newspaper Hard Cash, reportedly edited by Arthur Desmond.
• In 1893 Schellenberg was charged, with others, with distributing a libellous issue of Hard Cash. He surrendered to police at Forbes after attempting to jump bail. In 1894 he was tried and sentenced to ten months gaol.
• Moved to Melbourne about 1895. Attended meetings on Yarra Bank from about 1897-1898. Lived in Carlton and was later active in the Postal Workers' Union.
• Leaving his wife Annie in South Yarra, Melbourne, Joseph apparently returned to Sydney about 1919. From 1930 he was a gardener, and an old age pensioner, living in Balmain.
• Cause of death: cardiac failure and pneumonia. His death certificate, signed by a person who was no relation, which had details about his parents, stated that he was not married.

Sources
E. H. Lane (Jack Cade), Dawn to dusk: reminiscences of a rebel (Brisbane, 1939); W. M. Hughes, Crusts and Crusades; tales of bygone days (Sydney, 1947; Bob (Robert Noel) James, Anarchism and state violence in Sydney and Melbourne 1886-1896: an argument about Australian labor history (Newcastle, 1986); information from Bob James, 1992; Information from Laurie Ferguson, 2003; R. Sharpe thesis, 2003.