Ernest Julius Wunderlich

Ernest Julius Wunderlich (16 May 1859 – 11 April 1945) was an Australian industrialist, arts patron, and author.

Early years Born in Islington, London, England on 16 May 1859, together with his brothers, Frederick Otto (b. 1861) and Alfred (b. 1865), he was educated in London and Germany. Ernest commenced studying architecture and technical drawing, aged 16 years, at the École Polytechnique, in Lausanne and, after an engineering apprenticeship, became an articled clerk and travelling salesman. He travelled to South Africa selling pianos, and returned to London in 1884, and married the following year.

Business in Australia Wunderlich and his new wife arrived in Sydney in 1885. He worked as a manufacturers' agent, advertising for a time as a wine and spirit merchant. He imported stamped zinc mansard windows for a Sydney builder, before importing German stamped metal ceilings, the earliest of which were installed in the Sydney Town Hall and in the piano showrooms of Octavius Beale and William Paling. which specialised in Wunderlich decorative metal panels.

By 1897 Wunderlich Limited also advertised as sole agent for imported Marseilles tiles; that became prevalent through Australia in the mid-20th century as red roof tiles. Ernest Wunderlich served as chairman of Wunderlich Limited until 1945, with his two brothers involved in operating various parts of the business

He published an autobiography, All My Yesterdays—A Mosiac of Music and Manufacturing in 1945.