Hallam School, No. 224.

Our Archive gets many donations and these photographs of  Hallam School, No.244, were donated by Mr Jim Alexander. Mr Alexander was an inaugural Councillor for the City of Berwick from 1973 until 1982. James Alexander Reserve in Endeavour Hills is named in his honour.

Hallam School was established in 1858 as the Eumemmerring Denominational School. There were 44 students and the Head Teacher was Daniel Cusack. It is probable that this school was located on the corner of Heatherton and Hallam roads. In 1862, the School became the Eumemmerring Common School, No.244.  I n 1873, it was renamed Eumemmerring State School. At this time it was located on the Princes Highway, opposite the end of Olive Road, where the General Motors Holden factory is. Daniel Ahern was the Head Teacher from 1870 until 1890.

In 1894, it became an adjunct to Dandenong State School, No.1403 and only the infant School remained on the site. It wasn't until 1902 that the Education Department recommended that the School be separated from Dandenong. A new school building was erected and opened in November 1904, on the Princes Highway, just west of the Hallam Hotel. In 1906, the school changed its name to Hallam’s Road School. The School was enlarged in 1921 with the addition of a second class room. In 1923 it was renamed Hallam State School.

Opening of the second class room at Hallam's Road School in February 1921.

The Hallam's Road School Committee, 1921. Standing at back - left to right - Mr Wallace, Mr Service, Mr Kirkham, Mr Butcher. Front row - possibly Mrs Burton, Mr Carter.

I looked in the Electoral Rolls on Ancestry database to see if I could find out more about these people and this is what I found - Jeremiah Wallace, address - Main Road Hallam, occupation - farmer, wife - Augusta Emma Wallace; John Service, Berwick Road Dandenong, dairy farmer, wife Elizabeth Duncan Service;   Francis Edward Kirkham, Hallam's Road, farmer, wife Margaret Beatrice Kirkham; Alfred Butcher, Hallam, dairy farmer, wife Amy Louise Butcher; Elizabeth Burton, Hallam, home duties, husband  John Frederick Burton, farmer; I can't find Mr Carter in the Electoral roll.

The Hallam's Road School Mothers Club, 1921. Standing at back - left to right - Mrs Boles, Mrs Crean, Mrs Gatter (nee Wallace), Mrs J. Meehan, Mrs Rout, Miss T. Morgan (teacher) and Mrs Blackley (nee Wallace). Seated at front - Mrs Opperman, Mrs Butcher, Mrs Wallace, Mrs Service.

According to the Electoral Rolls - Mrs Boles - I can't find Mrs Boles in the Electoral roll; Annie Florence Crean, Hallam, home duties, husband Andrew, a farmer; Mrs Gatter - I can't find Mrs Gatter in the Electoral roll; Ruth Rebecca Meehan, Hallam's Road Hallam, home duties, husband James Joseph, farmer; Ellen Rout, Hallam, home duties, husband Charles Rout dairyman;  Miss Morgan - I can't find Miss Morgan in the Electoral Roll but she may not have been 21 years old; Mrs Blackley - I can't find Mrs Blackley in the Electoral roll; Bertha Opperman, Berwick Road Dandenong, home duties, wife of Adolphus Samuel Opperman, water carter; Amy Louise Butcher, wife of Alfred Butcher listed above; Augusta Emma Wallace, wife of Jeremiah Wallace, listed above; Elizabeth Duncan Service, wife of John  Service listed above.

The school population grew in the late 1950s, partly due to the growth of the area after the International Harvester, H.J. Heinz and General Motors Holden factories were established in Doveton. By 1958, the School had to use the Hallam Public Hall, on the other side of the Highway, for extra class rooms. Unfortunately this involved children crossing the Princes Highway and a tragic accident resulted in a student losing his life in a car accident in October 1962. Community agitation saw the construction of a new school on its existing site in Harmers Road and this opened in November 1963.

Hallam School in 1924.

Back row - Mr Webb (teacher), W. Hawksley, L.Vines, ? Hansen, unknown, A. Hyde, H. Knight, L.Dight, A. Kanes.

Second back row - B. Kirkham, R. Butcher, E. Wallace, W. Harmer, I. Hawksley, M. Hansen, O. Harmer, N. Douglas. 

Second row from front - G. Hawksley, C. Dight, I.Haines, E. Graham, I. Crean, G. Barnes, A. Vines, A. Kane, O. Grahame, M. Vines.

Front row - J. Kirkham, J. Rust, H. Kirkham, T. Kirkham, R. Sorenson.

Francis Edward Kirkham and Margaret Beatrice Kirkham (nee Moran) were the parents of the famous Kirkham Brothers - the show jumping team. They married in 1904 and had Honora  Margaret (born 1905), Alice Helen (1907), Francis Henry (1909), Charles (b and d 1910),  Margaret (b and d 1911), Bessie (1912), John Moran 'Jack' (1915), Edward William (1915),  Henry Alexander (1917),  Malcolm Frederick 'Mac' (1919). All the children were born in Dandenong, Berwick or Cranbourne.  John, also known as Jack, Kirkham was a City of Berwick Councillor from 1974 until 1980, when he retired due to ill health. Jack Kirkham  Reserve in High Street Berwick is named in his honour.

This photo of the Kirkham Brothers is from Oak Trees and Hedges:  a pictorial history of Narre Warren, Narre Warren North and Harkaway, published by the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society.

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Postcards of Tooradin

These are a series of postcards from the 1940s or 1950s of Tooradin. Tooradin, has always had  a reputation as a 'Sportsman's Paradise' and by that they meant there was plenty of good fishing and hunting (ducks, quail and swans seemed to be the target). There is a first hand account of this sport in Around Tooradin : the Sportsman's Paradise by Hawkeye. It was published, in serial form, in late 1888 and early 1889 to promote the sale of land around Tooradin. Hawkeye described the journey to Tooradin by train, the fishing, local hospitality. Hawkeye's observations have been re-published in Tooradin: 125 years of Coastal History.

Tooradin township was first sub-divided in 1869 and cottages were built along Sawtell's Inlet. The Cranbourne Shire Historical Society manages one of the few remaining Cottages as a Museum. This Cottage was built circa 1873 and you can see it in the circa 1900 photograph, below. As you can also see, sailing and promenading were also popular past-times.

Sawtell's Inlet, Tooradin - circa 1900. The people in this photograph have been named as  (left to right) Ateyo girls, Edith Walker, Frederick Atyeo snr, Mr Lemme, Bob Basan, Vic Lemme, Larry Basan.*


The Foreshore, Tooradin.

Moored boats on the Foreshore - the c.1873 cottage, referred to above, can be seen just to the right of the yacht's mast.


Jetty and Anchorage, Tooradin.

Another view of Sawtell's Inlet. Sawtell's Inlet was named after Melbourne merchant Edwin Sawtell around 1840. Sawtell had  an early interest in the Tooradin run, which was taken over by Frederick and Charles Manton in 1840. Sawtell died at the age of 95 in 1892.  The fisherman's shop is visible on the left. A long time resident told me that this was where the fishermen stored their boxes and their catch until a larger boat came and collected it. Locals used to buy fish direct from the fishermen from there.

Camping Ground, Tooradin.

Causeway from Children's Pool, Tooradin

There were two pools in Tooradin - one near the old State School, on the inlet, opposite the Tooradin Public  Hall and the other was at the end of Bayview Road, near Isles View guest house. This appears to be taken from the Bayview Road pool. 

The Causeway, Tooradin. 

The photograph is looking towards the garage that was on the corner of the South Gippsland Highway and the Foreshore. the garage was built in 1920 by John Colvin. Behind the garage is Cova Cottage cafe. The original bridge over Sawtell's Inlet was built possibly 1858, as the State Government Gazette lists a contract being accepted for erecting three bridges over the Tooradin inlets at Western Port in the edition published April 23, 1858 (see below). The contract was let to Arbut Brown and the cost was two thousand, four hundred and twenty pounds.

State Government Gazette April 23, 1858

http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/

The Shire of Cranbourne advertised for tenders to repair the bridge, in The Argus of December 27, 1872. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

The Flood Gates, Tooradin

The Flood Gates over Sawtell's Inlet were constructed in 1904 with Turnbull Brothers being the Contractors. In an article in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal of October 26, 1904 (see below) it appears that the cost for the 'extensive work' would amount to 1000 pounds, double the contracted price. The purpose of the flood gates was to control the flow of water during the many floods on the surrounding Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, however they have been unpopular with farmers who feel that they impede the flow of flood waters from their properties and a report in a newspaper from 1917 complains that the restricted flow of water has caused the inlet to be silted up. 

South Bourke and Mornington Journal of October 26, 1904
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

This is the cover of the post card collection.

*The circa 1900 photograph of Sawtell's Inlet was reproduced in the book Tooradin: a history of a Sportsman's Paradise and the first 100 years of State School No. 1503 by David Mickle, published 1975. This book formed the basis of Tooradin: 125 years of coastal history.

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Small family farms

This is our 200th blog post - the first one was on November 5, 2007 - six years ago! How time flies and I still love this blog, it is the best thing I have ever done in my working life and thank you to everyone out there who reads it!  As it is our 200th post I'm going to tell you about small family farms, which were the main stay of the rural economy of this area from around the 1880s to the 1970s and also part of my heritage. The first settlers in the area were the squatters and large (often absentee)  landowners such as the Ruffy Brothers at Cranbourne, The Reverend Hussey Burgh Macartney at Eumemmerring and Sir William Clarke of Berwick. But from the 1850s the big squatting runs were broken up, Government land sales took place and other farmers moved in. Later on these farms were subdivided again (basically 1880s onwards)  and this gave small farmers the opportunity to purchase land - this would be the pattern of settlement for the areas around Cranbourne, Berwick, Hallam and Pakenham.

These are the cows on the Rouse farm at Cora Lynn; typical of the many small dairy farms that once proliferated in the Casey Cardinia region. Photograph taken in the 1930s. 

Image: Rouse family collection.

Government land schemes to break up the large farms such as the Closer Settlement Board and Soldier Settlement subdivisons were also undertaken. Local examples of these were the  Soldier Settlement at Narre Warren North and on the Clarke land at Berwick.  The other big Government land scheme in this region was the draining of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, which began in 1889, with the main works finished in 1893 although various drainage works continued until the 1960s. This land was sub-divided into farms as small as 20 acres (8 hectares). And this is where my family steps into the picture - in 1903 my great grandfather James Rouse, selected 55 acres (22 hectares) on  Murray Road at Cora Lynn. He worked this land with his son, my grandfather, Joseph Rouse. Joe was nine in 1903 when they arrived and I'm not sure if he ever went to school after they arrived, if he did it would only have been for  a few years until he left and worked on the farm. Later on, in 1922,  Joe married my grandmother, Eva Weatherhead. Eva's father Horatio Weatherhead and her brothers had arrived in Tynong North in 1909 and operated saw mills - so they are representative of the many timber workers who operated mills in the hills from the 1880 onwards, but that's another story.  Joe and Eve raised their six children on the farm. Small family farms all relied on the generally unpaid labour of all the family members - my dad and my aunties and uncle all worked on the family farm - feeding the hens, weeding the vegetable garden, feeding the calves, milking the cows, collecting the eggs, ploughing the paddocks, planting crops, fixing machinery - there was a never ending lists of tasks  - often this work was done before they went to school and after they came home.

All small family farms would have had chooks - this is my grandmother, Eva Rouse, and her eldest daughter, Nancy, photograph taken about 1930. It's one of my favourite family photographs.

Image: Rouse family collection. 

The growth of the family farm was encouraged by the establishment of railways in the area as they provided a means to send off produce to market and also provided the families with a means of transport when it was too far to go by bike or horse. In its turn, the growth of the small family farms lead to the establishment of butter and milk factories such as those at Bayles, Lang Lang and Cora Lynn; it encouarged the establishment of schools and the  growth of the towns which serviced the local farming communities. In turn, this meant that there more off-farm employment opportunities for members of family farmers and brought new people into the area.

Most small family farms also had pigs - this is my great aunt, Lucy Rouse, and my aunty Dorothy, taken around 1930.

Image: Rouse family collection. 

There are very few small family farms remaining - the small soldier settler allotments at Narre Warren North, which were about 16 to 25  acres (6 to 10 hectares) are now covered in houses, the Andrews farm at Hallam is long gone replaced by houses and factories. In the 1970s when I was at High School, you would go past operating dairies on nearly every farm; in the same area (Cora Lynn) now,  I could count the dairy farms on one hand. Farms have grown bigger everywhere and  the time has past when a small family farm is viable. Changes in society have also contributed to this - children have more opportunities in employment and education and perhaps aren't as willing to work for nothing on the family farm. However, in this 200th blog post, I am paying tribute to the small family farm that sustained the economy of the Casey Cardinia region from the 1880s to the 1970s.

Finally, even though this may have seemed like fun to my Dad, Frank (aged about 3) and his brother Jim (about 5) by the time they were in their early teens they were ploughing the paddock with horses on their own. That'a my grandfather, Joe Rouse, behind the horse. Photograph taken about 1936.

Image: Rouse family collection. 

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Emerald Lake and Swimming Pool

To celebrate summer I'd thought we would have a look at some great photographs of the Emerald Lake and pool, a popular swimming location for locals since the 1930s. Click here for an engaging history of the lake by Graeme Legge. These photographs are all from the State Library of Victoria collection and are all part of the Rose Series of Postcards. There are no specific dates on the photographs but I presume they are from the 1930s to 1950s.  www.slv.vic.gov.au

The Kiosk across the Lake, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/2550

Springboard and Raft, Swimming Pool Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/148

The Drive, Swimming Pool, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/1531

 Swimming Pool, Country Club, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/639

A Magnificent view of the Lake, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/2970

Spring board and water slide, Swimming Pool, Emerald

State Library of Image H32492/733

The kiosk at lakeside swimming pool, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/3772

Kiosk and parking area, the Lake, Emerald

State Library of Victoria Image H32492/881

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