Category: History

Related to local history or other historical content of interest to users.

Melton and Melton South

Melton is a residential township 35 km. west-north-west of Melbourne on the Western Highway to Ballarat. It was characterised as a satellite town during the 1970s, and to some extent was still that in the 1990s, as Rockbank to its east was sparsely settled in a residential sense.

Melton is on undulating basaltic and alluvial plains, dissected by the Toolern and other creeks which enter the Werribee River to the south of the township. Eastwards are two basaltic cones, Mounts Cottrell and Kororoit. The name came from Melton Mawbray, England, a place famous for hunting and coursing. Several early settlers ran hounds on their properties, which were also venues for hunt clubs.

Two early settlers stand out in Melton’s history. Thomas Pyke took up a run in 1839, extending from Pykes Creek (west of Bacchus Marsh) to Melton. It was his hunt which inspired the name for Melton. A more enduring settler was Simon Staughton, beginning his career near the junction of Toolern Creek and Werribee River in 1846. His Exford estate comprised 28,400 ha. to the south of the township by 1860, and the Exford homestead is on the Victorian Heritage Register. Staughton became a shire councillor, and his sons farmed the estate until it was broken up for closer settlement in the early 1900s. Three of the four magistrates in the district were Staughtons in 1880.


Minns Hotel Melton, 1908.
(Image courtesy Tony Davies, London, U.K.)


Gold digger’s hut, Bacchus Marsh, c.1909.
(Image courtesy Tony Davies, London, U.K.)

Melton was on the road to the Ballarat gold diggings, a hotel marking the spot early in the 1850s. A primary school was opened in 1858, the year after a Combined Protestants Church was built. On 16 September, 1862, the Melton District Road Board was formed, and the shire was formed on 24 March, 1871.

By the 1870s the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian churches were established in Melton.

In 1884 the railway line was extended from Sunshine to Melton, as part of the direct line to Ballarat which had to pass over steep hills and deep river valleys. (Before then, rail connection to Ballarat was over flatter land via Geelong.) One of the steep valleys was the Werribee River near Melton, over which a steel girder bridge was built 384 metres long and 38 metres high. The line ran about two kilometres south of the highway, creating scope for two town centres.

Melton settled into a rural existence until the 1960s. The shire’s population varied between 1,200 and 1,500, depending mainly on changes to shire boundaries. (Rockbank was added in 1916.) The town and immediate district had about 300 people. The town’s commerce actually declined, from four hotels in 1900 to two by the 1930s, and from two saw mills to one. Other facilities were a mechanics’ institute, recreation reserves, sale yards and a sheep dip.

Between 1954 and 1966 the shire’s population nearly doubled, and between 1966 and 1971 it more than doubled. The town’s population quadrupled between 1966 and 1971. The State Government identified Melton as one of two locations west of Melbourne that could absorb urban growth that otherwise would go to the over-sized eastern suburbs. By then Melton township had a population of about 4,000, and Melton South, around the railway station, had developed. Its primary school (1911), chaff mills, silo and railway siding were enlivened with a pubic hall and houses with over 1,000 people. By 1981 Melton and Melton South had blended into one, with a population of over 18,000. The Melton high school and a Regional Catholic College had opened.

Melton’s shopping area on the Western Highway was challenged by a drive-in facility about one kilometre westwards in 1973. The traditional centre has prospered, however, perhaps through having the hotels, post office, a market, library and nearby council offices. The drive-in centre with 10,800 square metres (supermarket and thirty-two shops), is the smaller of the two.

Having gone southwards in the 1970s, Melton expanded northwards in the next decade, creating Kurunjang. The shopping centre also grew in that direction, losing much of the highway’s through traffic to the Western Freeway. A large industrial park was formed east of the township, which is to be extended by the Melton East Growth Area along the Keilor-Melton Road.

The watercourse flowing through Melton have provided space for four linear parks. The largest series of spaces is along the Toolern Creek, including a golf club, a reserve with sporting facilities and an historic homestead, The Willows (1855). The second largest linear park is along Arnolds Creek, Melton South, which touches the shore of the Melton reservoir. (The reservoir is for market gardens at Werribee South.)

Melton South was chosen for a campus of the Western Institute (later Victoria University of Technology) in 1987. A Catholic regional college was opened in the west of Melton during the late 1970s.

Melton’s median house price in 1987 was 78% of the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and in 1996 it was 66%. The figures for Melton South were 73% and 61%. In 1997 37% of children in Melton belonged to families on a welfare benefit or classed as working poor.

These modest figures might come as a surprising contrast to the 1996 census figures, which found that the median personal weekly income for people 15 years or more in Melton was $402, substantially better than the $336 a week for the Melton-Wyndham region and better again than the median of $311 for metropolitan Melbourne.

The Melton shire was expanded on 15 December, 1994, by the addition of the Diggers Rest area in Bulla shire and part of Werribee shire. Its name was unchanged.

Melton shire’s census populations have been 1,217 (1911), 1,804 (1961), 4,491 (1971), 12,022 (1976), 28,812 (1986) and 39,169 (1996 – larger area). The township’s census population in 1994 was 33,500.

Further Reading:

  • Starr, Joan, Melton – Plains of Promise, Melton Shire Council, c.1986.

Kooyong

Kooyong is a residential locality 6 km. south-east of Melbourne on the south side of the Gardiners Creek valley.

Gardiners Creek was originally named Kooyong Koot Creek by the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, in 1837. It is thought that the name derives from an Aboriginal word meaning camp or resting place, or haunt of the wild fowl. Kooyong is near where John Gardiner, pioneer pastoralist who overlanded stock from Yass, New South Wales, built his house in the mid 1830s.

Kooyong is at the northern end of the Malvern area. Its railway station was opened in 1890, and tramlines were opened along Glenferrie Road and Toorak Road in 1913 and 1927 respectively. It is best known for the stadium occupied by the Lawn Tennis Association of Victoria, which took possession of the site in 1920, and opened the stadium in 1927. It became the venues for Australian Open and Davis Cup contests until they were moved to the National Tennis Centre, near Yarra Park, Melbourne, in 1988. Kooyong is also the name of an electorate of the Australian Parliament, held by Sir Robert Menzies, 1934-1966, and by Andrew Peacock, 1966-1994. Menzies was Prime Minister and Peacock Leader of the Opposition, both representing the Liberal party.

Kooyong’s residential stock was substantially completed by the end of the 1920s. The land which the Lawn Tennis Association acquired is in the Gardiners Creek valley and needed extensive flood-prevention and drainage works. Kooyong Park to the east is also in the valley. It has several ovals. The Association for the Blind has a property on slightly higher ground. On the other side of the valley there are the Scotch College sports grounds.

Kooyong has a small shopping centre near the railway station and two other reserves, one of which is the Sir Robert Menzies Reserve, on a former brickworks site.

Further Reading:

  • Yallop, Richard, A Serve to Authority: Kooyong, 100 Years of Heroes and Headlines, Mapp Corp Pty. Ltd., 1992.

Burnley

Burnley is a residential suburb in the southern and eastern parts of Richmond, 4 km. east-south-east of Melbourne. Bounded on the south and east by the Yarra River, the other boundaries are in the area of Mary and Swan Streets. Taking that to be so, about half of the Burnley area is public space and ground occupied by the Burnley campus of the Victorian College of Agriculture and Horticulture.

The area was named after William Burnley, pioneer land purchaser in Richmond, local councillor and parliamentarian.

In 1838 the area approximating Burnley’s present open space lying in a loop of the Yarra River was reserved as the Survey Paddock. It is bisected by Swan Street (1880s), trisected by railway lines diverging at Burnley (to Hawthorn, 1861 and to Glen Iris, 1890), and skirted on its eastern edge by the Yarra Boulevard (1930s) and on its southern edge by the South Eastern Freeway (1962).

The Horticultural Society of Victoria was granted 12 ha. in the Survey Paddock in 1862 for experimental gardens, mainly for acclimatization of exotic fruits, vegetables and flowers. The site was taken over by the State Department of Agriculture in 1891. The balance of the Survey Paddock became Richmond Park, containing the Picnic railway station, east of the present Burnley station, as the entry to a landscaped pleasure ground.

Burnley’s industrial area was in its south-west corner next to the river. Basalt quarries were worked south of Coppin Street. One of them has been opened up to the river by the cutting of a channel to improve stream velocity to clear upstream floodwaters from Kew. The quarry hole became a dock depot for silt-dredging craft, and the channel also resulted in the formation, mid-stream, of Herring Island. The Richmond Abattoirs were near the old quarries, and municipal dignity was improved with Barkly Gardens (1865).

There were two ferries across the river, one being the Twickenham ferry. It was replaced by the MacRobertson bridge (1935).


River Yarra, Burnley. 1911.
(Image courtesy Tony Davies, London. U.K.)

In 1885 the first Anglican church was opened in Burnley, and two years later the first State primary school. Both are gone. The school was demolished in the 1970s to become the Golden Square Bicentennial Park. A temporary primary school in Richmond Park closed in 1987. Quite near the site of the temporary school is a remnant dead tree, evidence of the traditional Aboriginal inhabitants. It may have been a marker tree for ritual events or a tree from which bark was taken for a canoe or shelter. Separated from these areas by the railway line is a section of Richmond Park set aside for travelling circuses.

Down Stawell Street from the first primary school is George Fincham’s organ factory. Fincham (1828-1910) started a Richmond factory in 1862 and by the end of his career had built about 200 instruments for churches and civic buildings. His descendant continues the business.

In the southern-most part of the Survey Paddock, through which the freeway passes, there are a public golf course and sports facilities comprising the Kevin Bartlett Sporting and Recreation Complex. Bartlett was a Richmond footballer. In 1991 the adjacent horticultural college celebrated its centenary, by when it was famed for the training of career horticulturists and as the metropolitan venue for demonstrations for amateur gardeners. In its grounds is an ornamental garden area of several hectares, among the best of Melbourne’s passive recreation areas. It contrasts with the harshly functional public-utility buildings to the west where the river is bordered by the freeway.


Twickenham Ferry, River Yarra.
Postcard, C.1911.

Further Reading:

  • McCalman, Janet, “Struggletown: Public and Private Life in Richmond 1900-1965”, Melbourne University Press, 1984.
  • O’Connor, John and Thurley, “Richmond Conservation Study, Commission of the City of Richmond”, 1985.
  • Pritchard, G.B., “Old Yarra History as told by the . . . Geology of Burnley”, Heyington, Tooronga, F.W. Cheshire, Pty Ltd., 1944.
  • Stirling, Alfred, “Old Richmond”, The Hawthorn Press, 1979.
  • Winzenried, A.P., “Green Grows Our Garden: A Centenary History of Horticultural Education at Burnley”, Hyland House, 1991.

Moreland

Moreland, 7 km. north of Melbourne, is a residential area which is located either side of the boundary between the former municipalities of Brunswick and Coburg. It is also the name of a new city formed on 22 June, 1994, by the amalgamation of Brunswick city and most of Coburg city.

Moreland was named after the land purchased in 1839, from Robert Hoddle’s survey, by Farquhar McCrae, magistrate and speculator. McCrae (the brother-in-law of Georgiana McCrae), named his property Moreland after the place of birth of his father in Jamaica. McCrae built his La Rose home on the elevated area west of Moreland (Coonans Hill), in 1842, at 22 Le Cateau Street. It is on the Victorian and National Estate Registers.

After the railway line to Coburg was opened in 1884, residential subdivisions were released in the vicinity of the Moreland railway station. Prior to then the area had been farms, with some notable houses such as Glencairn (1861, 6 Craigrossie Avenue, also on both Registers). A primary school was opened in 1887, next to the Wesleyan church opened in the previous year. A prestigious subdivision, Moreland Park, was released in 1882, resulting in some notable homes in The Grove and nearby streets. The remainder of Moreland, however, was lightly developed, with some factories along Moreland Road.

In the 1920s the electrification of the tram along Sydney Road and the extension of another northwards line between there and Coonans Hill provided additional incentive for residential growth. The Moreland Knitting Mill opened in 1920.

The Catholic church has been a strong participant in the Moreland community, building St. Francis Church (1938), Sacred Heart Hospital (1939) and two primary schools. A combined church and school building had been erected in 1927.

In the 1940s Moreland West was the name given to the Coonans Hill area, now Pascoe Vale South, which became the location of another Catholic church and school. Moreland central school was opened in 1947, becoming a high school in 1953.

Moreland city was formed on 22 June, 1994, by the amalgamation of Brunswick city and most of Coburg city. Its estimated population for 1994 was 136,550. Italian-born residents were 11.2% of its population in 1991 and Greek-born residents 4.2%. Residents in the workforce who were tradespeople or engaged in manufacturing were a few percentage points above the metropolitan average.

Further Reading:

  • Broome, Richard, Coburg Between Two Creeks, Lothian Publishing Company Pty. Ltd., 1987.
  • Keany, Leonie, St. Fidelis’ Moreland: The First Fifty Years, The Parish of Moreland, 1977.

Brunswick East

Brunswick East is an inner-urban suburb 6 km north of Melbourne. It lies between Lygon Street and the Merri Creek, and adjoins Carlton North and Fitzroy North at its southern border.

Brunswick East is within 900 metres of Sydney Road which formed the spine of Brunswick when it was first settled. An early industry in Brunswick East was bluestone quarrying, and there were numerous farms. In 1882 land subdivision centered on Evans Street was released for residential purposes.

The swampiness of some of the land was modified by drainage works, and a primary school near Lygon Street (named Brunswick South), was opened in 1886. Another subdivisional sale at the northern end of Lygon Street occurred in 1887, and another school opened in 1888, and the East Brunswick Omnibus Company began its horse bus service along Lygon Street the next year.

Lygon Street became a successful shopping strip, wider than Sydney road, and retaining its period character one-hundred years later.

An old stone quarry was filled in and became Fleming Park, the home of the East Brunswick cricket and football clubs (1919). In 1916 the tram along Lygon Street was electrified, putting the site of Brunswick’s first textile factory, Prestige Hosiery (1922), within easier reach of its workforce. A returned servicemen’s housing area was begun in 1923, identifiable by the Maori Street names, probably in acknowledgment of the Anzac War tradition.

There are eight neighbourhood parks and reserves in Brunswick East, with another being formed over the former Brunswick tip. Next to the Merri Creek is the Brunswick Velodrome, and in the 1980s the Council began its support of CERES, a site for low-energy demonstrations and sustainable ecology, also near the creek.

Another tram service, along Nicholson Street, was opened in 1956.

Brunswick East has a primary school (1893), and the Brunswick East Secondary College, which closed in 1992, was actually in Brunswick.

Bendigo

Located 150 km north-west from Melbourne and 225 metres above sea level, Bendigo has one of the finest collections of Victorian buildings of any inland city in Australia. The streets are literally awash with huge granite edifices and, in the centre of the city, a fountain dedicated to Queen Victoria’s daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra, sits in the centre of the main street.

The town was named after a boxer. The world-famous (at the time) English bare-knuckle boxer, Abednego William Thompson whose first name, a Biblical reference, was reduced to ‘Bendigo’. This nickname was given to a shepherd at Ravenswood Run because he was a good boxer. In turn a local creek was named Bendigo and thus it was that this impressive city became known as Bendigo. For much of its life the town/city was known as ‘Sandhurst’. It wasn’t until 1891 that it was officially named Bendigo.

Prior to European settlement it is thought the Jaara Aborigines lived in the area. The first European into the district was Major Thomas Mitchell who passed through the area on his journey of exploration into the western district of Victoria.

By 1840 squatters had moved in and sheep were being successfully grazed. The history of Bendigo changed in 1851 when gold was discovered. No one knows who made the first discovery. A committee in 1890 claimed that the first discoverer was Henry Frencham but there is also a claim that a man named William Johnson was the first person to pick up a nugget. According to one popular legend, Margaret Kennedy, wife of the station master at Ravenswood Run, found gold. If she did discover it, she could not have known that her discovery would create one of the greatest goldrushes in Australian history, that Bendigo bloated by the wealth from gold would build huge buildings celebrating its new wealth, or that the Bendigo gold seam covered an area of 3600 hectares. In the period from 1851 until 1954 (the year of the last gold mining in the district) a total of 25 million ounces of gold were taken from the area around Bendigo.

As miners rushed to the site the settlement grew dramatically. Like so many mining communities Bendigo formed a series of small ethnic communities. The Irish moved into the district known as St Killians. The Cornish (many of whom had come from the copper mines in South Australia) established themselves at Long Gully. The Germans settled at Ironbark Gully. The Chinese at Emu Point made a huge impression on the goldfields. In 1854 there were over 3000 Chinese on the Bendigo goldfields and by 1861 they formed such a distinctive part of the community that Cobb & Co ran a special coach service from Bendigo to Guildford especially for Chinese passengers.

The early discoveries of alluvial gold quickly gave way to the more difficult quartz-based gold. By the 1860s the goldfields had changed from small operations to major mines with deep shafts.

By 1870 Bendigo, or Sandhurst as it was known at the time, was the most important gold mining site in the world. As a producer of gold from quartz it was unequalled for the next thirty years.

When Mark Twain visited the city in 1897 he described it as ‘The town is full of towering chimney stacks and hoisting works, and looks like a petroleum city.’

Today Bendigo is a charming and elegant rural centre with an economy which is driven by a mixture of tourism, industry and servicing the surrounding agricultural district.

The Bendigo Easter Fair, operating since 1871 and climaxing with a famous parade featuring historic Chinese processional dragons, is a popular annual event, as is the Bendigo Cup in November. The Australian Sheep and Wool Show is held on the third or fourth weekend in July each year.

Ararat

The first white men to pass through the Ararat district, around 200km north west of Melbourne, were explorer Thomas Mitchell and his party on their “Australia Felix” expedition. Mitchell’s description of the land in the west of what is now Victoria encouraged squatters to the area.

In 1841, Horatio Wills passed through the area on his way to selecting country further south, wrote in his diary, “like the Ark we rested” and named a nearby hill Mt. Ararat. It is from this entry and the nearby Mount that the town takes its name.

Gold was first discovered in the vicinity at Pinky Point, 6 km west of present-day Ararat, in 1854. Other leads followed and there were soon 9000 people strewn about the area known as ‘Cathcart’ after a popular actress of the day. One such prospector was escapee bush ranger ‘Gipsy’ Smith who killed Sergeant John McNally during an attempted arrest at the Cathcart goldfields in 1856 (Smith was soon caught and executed).

The strike which established the town came about, indirectly, as a result of racial strife on the Victorian goldfields. As a result of anti-Asian sentiment, the state government, in 1855, placed a 20 pound poll tax on every Chinese person entering Victorian ports. Consequently, ships from China began landing at South Australia leaving the immigrants a walk of 500 km or more to the Victorian goldfields, often in winter with few opportunities to renew supplies or water and with unreliable guides.

Thus one party of 700 Chinese miners came to rest on the future town site while en route to Clunes. One member discovered alluvial gold in a stream and thus the Canton Lead was established. Within two weeks, the population was allegedly 20 000. With the assistance of the Chinese Protector, the Chinese miners survived violent attempts from whites to oust them from their claims. 93 kg of gold were shipped out in the first three weeks and 3 tons were officially escorted from town in the first three months.

ararat_shire_hall


Ararat Shire Hall

By 1863 gold reserves were depleted, but the town continued on as a centre for surrounding pastoralists, and in 1875 became an important railway centre.


Ararat Town Hall

Ararat’s first newspaper was published in 1857. The town was named after the nearby mountain and declared a municipality almost immediately (in 1858). Buildings such as the mechanics institute, a hospital, a church and a courthouse were all under construction by 1859. Pyrenees House, featuring a decorative exterior in Queen-Anne style, was constructed to replace the original hospital in 1885.

The Ararat County Gaol was finished in 1861, and continued in this role until 1887. Three murderers were hanged here during this time and the graves can still be visited. The Classical Revival style bluestone building became known as J Ward and from 1887 until 1991 it functioned as Victoria’s asylum for the criminally insane. The longest serving inmate, Bill Wallace, was held here for over 60 years, during a time when inmates were housed under tight security and often terrible conditions.

Ararat was advanced to the status of a borough in 1863 but, by that time, the gold had already begun to dwindle. However, the town survived as a service centre to the old pastoral properties and as a regional administrative centre. Moreover, from 1862, the process of breaking up the old squatter’s estates began. Selectors gained a foothold and farming commenced. When the railway arrived in 1875 Ararat became a major rail junction.


Barkly St., Ararat, Vic. 1914.

The Mafeking goldrush at Mt William in 1900 saw a revival of gold fever and a resurgence of Ararat’s population. Other goldmines contributed to the local economy from 1909 to 1920. The borough became a town in 1934 and a city in 1950.

langi_morgala_museum


Ararat’s Langi Morgala Museum

The town hall (c1898) and shire hall (c1871) were also built in Classical Revival style. The town hall contains a clock tower in the middle of its symmetrical exterior.

Ararat’s role as a pastoral centre is evidenced by buildings such as the 1874 blue stone wool and grain store, now functioning as the Langi Morgala Museum.

The Old Ararat school, with a central bell tower and gabled, symmetrical blue stone wings, was built in Gothic Revival style in 1867. Ararat’s second courthouse was also constructed in 1867, but was built in a Romanesque style.


Ararat Gum San Chinese Heritage Centre

Nathalia

Nathalia is a rural township on the Broken Creek, about 30 km. east of where the creek joins the Murray River in northern Victoria. It is 40 km. north-west of Shepparton.

The origin of the name is unclear. In the mid 1870s news was reportedly received from a passer-by in the Nathalia district that a titled European lady had given birth to a daughter named Nathalia. The story was probably inaccurate. The Queen of Serbia, formerly Natalya Keshko (and alternatively spelt Natalie and Nathalia), was married in 1875 and gave birth to a son in 1876. No better explanation has emerged as to the source of the name Nathalia.

The Nathalia township was surveyed in 1879, a period when pastoral runs in north Victoria were being subdivided for farm selections. Additional surveys in 1886 and 1889 enlarged the township site.

Before the name Nathalia gained the formality of gazettal in 1880, the name Barwo was more widely used. The Barwo school (1877) became the Nathalia school in 1882. The town also gained a hotel in 1880, a newspaper in 1884, a flour mill in 1885 and a mechanics’ institute in 1887. In 1889 the Victorian Municipal Directory described Nathalia as a rising township with two bank branches, a school, a mechanics’ institute, a large private hall, three churches, flour mills, two cordial factories, a printing office, four hotels, a number of shops and a railway line from Numurkah (1888).

The Nathalia and Lower Moira Agricultural Pastoral and Horticultural Association held its first agricultural show in 1888, after a prolonged drought in the district. In better years the flat ground near watercourses held enough moisture for orcharding and dairying. A butter factory was opened in 1892. Stock were grazed on the Barmah Common during years of poor rainfall. In 1903 The Australian Handbook described Nathalia –

In 1914 an Irrigation League was formed, inspired by a recent drought and the benefits on the other side of the Goulburn River with the Western Channel from the Goulburn Weir. Unfortunately the waters would not stretch to Nathalia, even when the Sugarloaf (Eildon) and the Yarrawonga Weirs were completed in the 1930s. Farmers continued with adverse dry seasons and occasional years when floods inundated paddocks and threatened the township. Wheat was the mainstay, silos replacing the grainstore at the Nathalia railhead in 1942.

In 1945 the State Government began the acquisition of dry-farm properties in anticipation of settling returned servicemen on irrigated orchards and dairy farms. By 1951 a work camp was in the Nathalia district to construct irrigation and drainage channels. Nathalia-and-district’s population increased by 70% between the 1947 and 1961 censuses. Housing Commission houses and an extension to the shopping area were completed during the 1950s and a hospital was opened in 1955. On 26 April, 1957, the municipality which was named Nathalia shire (30 May, 1957), was severed from Numurkah shire, after a period of acrimony between the two towns.

Since 1919 the Nathalia school had been a Higher Elementary one, taking local children and boarders to Leaving standard. In 1959 a separate high school was opened. In 1961 a Catholic school was opened, extending to secondary education in 1974. The mechanics’ institute building, after periods of neglect, was acquired by the Nathalia historical society in 1972. Registered historic buildings in the township comprise the post office (1887) and Butler’s Store (1888), a good example of a large general store.

Nathalia township is situated on a horseshoe bend of Broken Creek from where flooding is held back by a levee bank. Behind the bank is a large reserve with ovals, tennis courts and a swimming pool. There are a caravan park, three hotels and a golf course. The former butter factory is a milk receiving depot for the Murray Valley factory in Cobram. The hospital, schools and four churches serve a town of about 1,500 people. The railway line from Numurkah closed in 1987.

Nathalia shire was amalgamated with Cobram and Numurkah shires and most of Tungamah and Yarrawonga shires to form Moira shire on 18 November, 1994. Nathalia shire had an area of 1,239 square kilometres, including Barmah and the Barmah State Forest along the Murray River, Picola and Waaia. In 1994 739 square kilometres of the shire was farmed, carrying 17,700 meat cattle, 26,500 dairy cattle and 64,000 sheep and lambs. Wheat and cereals were also grown.

The median house price in Nathalia in 1987 was $49,500 and in 1996 it was $93,000.

Nathalia’s census populations have been 689 (1891), 954 (1947), 1,859 (1961) and 1,455 (1996). The shire’s census populations were 3,225 (1966) and 3,406 (1991).


Nathalia from Broken Creek.
Postcard dated 1928. (Valentine postcard)

Further Reading:

  • Hibbins, Gillian, “A History of the Nathalia Shire: The Good Helmsmen”, Hawthorn Press, 1978.

Numurkah

Numurkah, a rural township in north Victoria, is about mid-way between Shepparton and the Murray River. It is situated on Broken Creek, in the Murray Valley irrigation area.

The area was occupied by the Yota-Yota people prior to European settlement. Squatters moved into the area from NSW in the late 1830s. After the pastoral runs were made available for farm selection, the township of Numurkah was surveyed in 1875. The name is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word meaning war shield, although a recent authority thinks that this is mistaken.

Six years after the Numurkah township was surveyed it was connected by railway to Shepparton. That same year the Chaffey Brothers were asked to look into the area’s prospects for irrigation development but they considered it unsuitable.

By then Numurkah had four hotels, a primary school (1879), a Bible Christian church (1879), a newsagent, the Numurkah Leader newspaper, a general store, a butcher and a baker. The coming of the railway, however, led to rapid growth during the 1880s, particularly while Numurkah was a terminus until 1888. Presbyterian, Catholic, Anglican and Wesleyan churches, a mechanics’ institute, numerous community and recreational societies and an agricultural implements factory were established. In 1903 The Australian Handbook described Numurkah –

There was also a cordial factory until 1902, when it moved to Bendigo and became Tarax Drinks.

Having grown from fewer than 100 people to over 1,000 during the 1880s, Numurkah remained at about 1,400 until the outbreak of the Second World War. The Numurkah district was just beyond the reach of inter-war irrigation schemes from the Goulburn Weir (1905) and the Hume/Yarrawonga Weirs (1936), although a small private irrigation scheme from the Broken Creek watered a five hectare orchard which was a local showpiece. Farmers relied on dry-farming techniques in a variable rainfall environment of between nine and thirty-eight inches a year.

In 1939 the Yarrawonga Main channel began carrying irrigation waters towards Numurkah, but work was delayed by the war until 1944. Resumption of irrigation works coincided with the settlement of demobilized soldiers in the Murray Valley irrigation area. In 1946 as land holdings were acquired for subdivision into orchards 16 ha. and dairy farms 49 ha., irrigation and drainage channels were built. By 1956 the works were ending at northern-most Ulupna at the Murray River. Some immigrants who laboured on the works settled on the new farms.

Numurkah is a service township for a rural community. Its secondary and tertiary industries are mostly limited to the town’s service function. There are a high school (1951) and State and Catholic primary schools, three hotels, three motels, five churches, a saleyards and a showground. Local sports and recreation are provided for by a golf course, two ovals, a rifle range, a bowling green, tennis courts, a swimming pool and a caravan park. There are a hospital and elderly persons’ facilities. In 1962 the annual Numurkah Rose Festival began and there is a rose garden where the main street crosses Broken Creek. A museum houses the local historical society and the courthouse (1889) is a registered historic building. Court operations ceased in 1986 and the building became a community learning centre.

The Numurkah hinterland was placed under local government in 1871 as part of the Echuca shire. It was later part of Shepparton shire, which was severed from Echuca shire in 1879. Numurkah shire was formed in April, 1884, but oddly called Shepparton until named Numurkah on 11 September, 1885. The shire also contained Nathalia and the two towns had periods of an uneasy relationship until separation into two shires occurred on 31 May, 1957. Numurkah shire’s area was reduced by about 63% to 820 sq. km. The shire contained the towns of Katunga, Strathmerton and Wunghu and the localities of Baulkanaugh, Dranmure and Ulupna on the Murray River.

In 1994 Numurkah shire had 613 sq. km., or 75% of its area, as farmland. There were 52,800 dairy cattle, 11,300 meat cattle and 35,000 head of sheep and lambs.

The shire has sufficient retail floor space for its local needs. In 1985 there were 8,100 sq. metres, much larger than Tungamah (700 sq. m.), but less than Shepparton city (100,000 sq. m.).

On 18 November, 1994, Numurkah, Nathalia and most of Yarrawonga and Tungamah shires were united to form Moira shire.

In 1987 the median house price in Numurkah was $55,000 and in 1995 it was $78,550.

Numurkah’s census populations have been 96 (1881), 1,011 (1891), 1,519 (1947), 2,658 (1976) and 3,128 (1991). The shire’s census populations were 6,111 (1961), 5,507 (1976) and 6,813 (1991).

Further Reading:

  • Bossence, W.H., “Numurkah”, Hawthorn Press, 1979.
  • Morieson, Hilda, “Shaping a Shire: The Story of Numurkah”, Apex Back To Numurkah Committee, 1970.

Katamatite

Katamatite, a rural township in northern Victoria, is in the Murray Valley irrigation area and is 42 km. north-east of Shepparton. The name is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word naming or describing a local creek. The township is on Boosey Creek near its junction with Broken Creek.

In the 1870s pastoral stations were opened for closer settlement as smaller farms, and in 1874 a township was surveyed on Boosey Creek. Four years later township buildings were erected – although on the side of the creek opposite the surveyed town site – and a school was opened. Methodist and Presbyterian churches were opened in 1882 and 1884, and a mechanics’ institute in 1884. A private tramway joined Katamatite to the Dookie railway line in 1890, and was absorbed into the Victorian railways network in 1896. In 1903 The Australian Handbook described Katamatite –

Katamatite farmers mostly grew wheat and animal fodder, and bagged wheat was transported from the Katamatite railway station until a silo was built in 1943. In 1939 irrigation waters from the Yarrawonga main canal were distributed in the Katamatite district, providing dairy pastures in place of wheat paddocks. The township is surrounded by irrigation channels.

Katamatite has a primary school, Anglican, Catholic and Uniting churches, a public hall, a recreation reserve with football, cricket and tennis clubs, a hotel, motel and a caravan park, a local museum and several community organisations. There is also a school at Katamatite East, ten kilometres north-east of Katamatite.

Katamatite’s census populations have been 120 (1901), 367 (1921), 586 (1961) and 204 (1996).

Further Reading:

  • Rudd, Ada, Katamatite: The First 100 Years 1876-1976, 1986.