Victoria Government Gazette

For those of us interested in local and family history there is a fantastic new on-line resource available. The Victoria Government Gazette and its predecessors have been digitised for the years 1836 to 1997. The Gazette covers all official notifications of Government and Legal activities and was the main way that the Government communicated with the Public.

Family Historians will immediately go to an index or type in a family name in any database, so I naturally typed in one of my family names Weatherhead. I came up with a patent application by my great grandfather Horatio William Weatherhead, a saw miller, for an improved mechanism for operating the throttle or cut off valves of engines from their governors. The notice goes on to say that the Commissioner of Patents, Thomas Prout Webb, accepted the ‘complete specification’ of the patent application, on the 13th day of August, 1890. We knew that Horatio was quite inventive and that this trait has been passed down to his descendents, but I was surprised to discover that he had been granted a patent.

Victorian Government Gazette August 15th, 1890 issue 66, page 3253.

Horatio Weatherhead (1853-1925). Horatio and his six sons arrived in North Tynong in 1909, having previously operated saw mills in Lyonville. He was living in Lyonville when he applied for his patent.

Image: Rouse family collection.

Your ancestor may not have applied for a patent, but there could be a record of their appointment or dismissal from a Government position, they may have been granted a miners right, become insolvent, been granted land, applied to register a trade mark, became a Cemetery Trustee or many other activities.

For local historians you can find out information about your area. I found seven references to Cora Lynn and discovered the town was officially proclaimed on May 31st 1910. I also found a set of rules and regulations governing the use of the Recreation Reserve at Cora Lynn.

Victoria Government Gazette, February 8th 1933, issue 22, p. 632.

Aerial of the Cora Lynn Recreation Reserve, taken August 1960. The football was on and you will see lots of water lying in the surrounding paddocks. The Main Drain is at the front of the picture.

For larger towns, such as Cranbourne, there are over 1500 references in total referring to both the township and the Shire. Much information can be gained from the Gazette concerning the day to day working of a Shire, including land use, staff appointments, by-laws and loan applications.

Victoria Government Gazette, January 3rd 1890, issue 1, p.54.

The Cranbourne Market operated from the 1870s to the 1930s, it was covered by the by-laws published in the Victoria Government Gazette.



The Shire of Cranbourne was formed in 1868 and the Municipal Buildings at Cranbourne were built in 1875. The building housed a Post Office, Court House and Shire Offices.

The Victoria Government Gazette can be found at http://gazette.slv.vic.gov.au/ You can download or save each Gazette as a PDF and print off relevant pages.

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Dandenong High School - 90 years of Education

Dandenong High School is turning 90 this year and celebrations are planned over the weekend of 12th -13th of September, 2009. Various functions will be organised for ex-students and it will be a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and see the new changes that are taking place at the School since its recent amalgamation with Doveton Secondary College and Cleeland Secondary College. Dandenong High School has been attended by many people from the Casey Cardinia area over the past 90 years, so I thought it would be interesting to present a short history of the School.

Dandenong High School, nearing completion (above) and in the 1940s (below).
Both photographs are from the Dandenong & District Historical Society collection.

The Dandenong High School (DHS) was opened on March 10th, 1919. This was later than the usual School opening date due to the outbreak of pneumonic influenza that was prevalent at the end of the First World War. DHS is one of the earliest High Schools in the State. In 1919 the other State High Schools were Melbourne, University, Geelong, Castlemaine, Colac, Mansfield, Warragul, Leongatha, Kyneton, Maryborough, Stawell, Horsham, Bairnsdale, Echuca, Mildura, Ararat, St Arnaud, Essendon, Williamstown, Coburg, Benalla, Hamilton and Kerang.

When the School opened it was in temporary premises with the junior students housed at the Old Fire Station and the senior students at the Temperance Hall and Church of Christ. There were 104 students. The foundation stone of the permanent building was laid on November 21st, 1919 and the School was officially opened in late 1920. In 1920 the DHS enrolment was 150 of which 60 students came from the Berwick, Pakenham, Garfield, Bunyip, Hallam, Lyndhurst, Cranbourne, Koo-Wee-Rup, Carnegie and Murrumbeena areas.

The staff in 1922. The Head Master, Percival Langford, is in the centre at the front.
Photograph from the Dandenong & District Historical Society collection.

The First Head Master of DHS was Mr Percival C W Langford. Mr Langford served in the 4th Light Horse Regiment and saw action in France and the Sinai-Palestine campaign. He was invalided out of the Army in September 1916 suffering from Enteric fever (typhoid).He then undertook recruitment work for the Army. Mr Langford served at the School until 1934 when he transferred to Mildura, then to Frankston in 1937 where he worked until his retirement in 1948.

The colours of the school are those of Mr Langford’s Regiment, the 4th Light Horse, and are red and two shades of blue. The School Crest (shown above) was designed by the Art Mistress, Miss D.McKinnon. The motto of the School is Faber, Quisque, Fortunae “Every man is the architect of his own destiny”. In 1920 there were six Houses – Bluegum, Clematis, Orchid, Wattle, Boronia and Waratah though this was soon reduced to four with the loss of Boronia and Waratah. The names and colours of the houses were chosen by Miss Dora Taylor, the senior Mistress.

According to existing school Records the following students are the original 104 students of Dandenong High School. The 55 boys are listed first, followed by the 49 girls.

George ALEXANDER, John ARNOLD, Leopold BAILEY, Charles BLAIN, Theodor BOWMAN, John BRAKEWELL, Colin BREWIS, Charles BUCKLEY, Hugh BUNTINE, Wilfred CARLISLE, Norman CASBOLT, Henry COOPER, Clive FIGGINS, Roy FINK, James GARDNER, Claude GILCHRIST, Leonard GODFREY, John GROGAN, Darrell HARVEY, Robert HAYES, Robert JONES, Arnold KEYS, Charles MCCORD, David MCCORD, Alexander MCINNES, William MCKINNON, Charles MCPHERSON, Austin MEHRENS, Eric MEEKING, Terres MIDDLETON, John ORDISH, Arthur RALSTON, Fred RANDALL, Hector RANDALL, Donald ROBERSON,
John ROBERTSON, William ROWLANDS, William RYAN, Norman SCOTT, Frederick SEARLE, Allan SHANNON, John SHARKIE, Arthur SPETTS, John STAUGHTON, Edward STRACHAN, Edward STUTTERD, Marcus SWANN, Earl TATHAM, John TAYLOR, Frank THARLE, Harvey THARLE, Percy THRELFALL, Norman TRASK, Edgar VIAL, Edward WALKER, George WEETMAN, Mervyn WILLIAMS.

Some of the Foundation students, 1919, with the Head Master, Mr Langford.
Photograph from the Dandenong & District Historical Society collection.

Jean ABBOTT, Gertrude ALLCHIN, Isobel ALLEN, Jessie BOWMAN, Eva BUCKLEY, Evelyn BULLIVANT, Jean BUNTINE, Gladys BURNS, Margaret CAMPBELL, Maude CARLISLE, Ellen CORRIGAN, Maura CROWE, Mernda CURRIE, Lorraine DAY, Marie FACEY, Gladys GILBERTSON, Helene GILL, Nellie GORMAN, Elsie GRANT, Ruby HARRIS, Norah HILL, Jane MCCORD, Jean MCNABB, Jessie MITCHELL, Kath MORPHEY, Elsie MURRAY, Ellwyn NIELSEN, Mabel ORGILL, Lola PEARSON, Sadie PEARSON, Mary QUIGLEY, Chrissie RAVEN, Ethel RAYNER, Maud REEVE, Mabel RICHARDS, Doreen SHARKIE, Olive SHARP, Lillian SIMS, Madge SLATER, Edith SNELL, Norah STRANGE, Tasma STATTERD, Ena THARLE, Louisa THARLE, Mary THOMAS, Dorothy TRASK, Marion WALKER, Dorothy WANGMAN, Gladys WANGMAN, Eva WINN, Frances WOOLARD.

Students from 1919.
Photograph from the Dandenong & District Historical Society collection.

Source : A history of the Dandenong High School, 1919-1968 by K.B.Mitchell. Published by the School in 1968.
The photographs are from the Dandenong & District Historical Society Collection.

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Arcuate ridges and other landforms

If you have ever travelled along Ballarto Road then you may have noticed the sand ridge which follows Hobson’s Road at Rythdale. This is an Arcuate ridge, or a curved ridge or one shaped like a bow. The Rythdale ridge is three kilometres long and up to 100 metres in length.

The Rythdale Arcuate ridge can clearly be seen in this 1980 aerial. Ballarto Road cuts across the centre of the photograph, above the oval trotting track. Hobsons Road runs towards the top of the photograph and the curved object is the arcuate sand ridge. On the left of the photograph are man made drains to carry the water from the Deep Creek and Toomuc Creek to the Bay, part of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp drainage works.

There is also an arcuate ridge on which the township of Cardinia is built on. This ridge rises five to eight meters above the surrounding countryside and is partly due to the depression of the adjacent area caused by the compaction of the peat soils after the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp was drained. The Rythdale and the Cardinia Ridges are the remains of the walls of ancient lake beds.

This aerial photograph was also taken in 1980 and shows the town of Cardinia, built on the arcuate ridge. Starting at the bottom of the photograph, is the Cardinia Recreation Reserve. Ballarto Road runs along the right of the Reserve to the top of the picture. The town is bi-sected by Dalmore Road to the left of the picture, and Cardinia Road to the right. The curve of the sand ridge can be clearly seen.

These ridges are considered to be sites of Geographical and Geomorphical statewide significance. You can access a  list of Victorian sites of Geological and Geomorphical significance, here.  These landforms are part of our early history, plus they also give me another opportunity to show you some of our extensive collection of aerial photographs which are kept in our Archive.

The Casey Cardinia region has a landform of International significance, the Western Port Bay Tidal Watershed. This is the area north east of French Island , between the Lang Lang River and Palmer Point. This area is a tidal divide and the dynamics of the tides here effect the tidal flow in the rest of the Bay. The sea floor sediments of the watershed 'are of considerable interest for the data they hold concerning the development of the on-shore Swamplands' due to the fact that they record historic changes in the sea level.

The inter-tidal flats between Lyall Inlet and the Bunyip River are of National significance and are shown here in this 1968 aerial. The South Gippsland Highway bi-sects the photograph from left to right. The first inlet from the left is Lyall Inlet. The farm complex is Harewood house, built for William and Annabella Lyall in the 1860s. The straight channel on the other side of Harewood is Cardinia Creek and the channel on the right is Moody Inlet. If you click on the photograph to enlarge it you will see the Cardinia Creek Boat Club marinas where Moody Inlet crosses the South Gippsland Highway.

On a National level, the inter-tidal flats between Lyall Inlet and the Bunyip River outlet (between Tooradin and Koo-Wee-Rup) are significant as the area shows the impact of the drainage of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp on the adjacent coast land and is a reference point for measuring the rates of coastal change. They are shown in the photograph above.

Of regional significance, is the tidal meanders of Sawtell Inlet at Tooradin as the area is a ‘clear display of of the development of flood tide meanders' and is thus a site to study tidal flow in a narrow inlet.

This 1986 aerial shows the town of Tooradin and the meandering Sawtell Inlet. The other inlet on the right is Evans Inlet. Tooradin's mud flats are also apparent.

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Berwick Quarry and the Wilson family

The Back-to Berwick Quarry Re-union was held on Sunday, March 29th 2009 at Wilson Botanic Park in Berwick. Past quarry workers met to reminisce and there were guided tours of the Wilson Botanic Park. A plaque, commemorating 150 years since quarrying commenced on the site, was unveiled by Les McDonald and Margaret Rossell. Les worked at the Quarry from 1947 to 1967 and Margaret is the President of the Friends of Wilson Botanic Park. Well known Shire of Berwick/City of Casey identity, Neil Lucas, was the M.C. on the day.

View of the Back-to Berwick Quarry from the top of the Amphitheatre.

The quarry was on land owned by the Wilson Brothers, William (1830-1907) and James (1833-1910), who purchased around 630 acres from the Crown in 1854. This land was bounded by the Princes Highway, Lyall Road, Hessel Road in the west to Harkaway in the North. Their sister, Anne (1827-1909) house kept for them. Initially they lived in tents until they built a small one room house, which was later extended and became Quarry Hills. The brothers grew wheat, potatoes and later went into dairying. When William married Euphemia Brisbane in 1859 the land was split diagonally with William’s land fronting the Princes Highway and James’s land facing Harkaway Road. James married Anne Lindsay in 1858 and Anne Wilson married James Buchanan, M.L.C., in 1859.

The basalt quarry at Berwick opened in 1859 when William Wilson gave contractors the right to remove stone. However the quarry expanded after 1874, with the building of the Gippsland railway line to Sale as it provided ballast for the line. Once the line was completed in 1877 William’s son, William Jnr (1860-1936) (pictured right) saw an opportunity to carry on the quarry, so he leased the quarry from his father and quarried stone for road making. William Jnr would drive one loaded dray carrying approximately two cubic yards or 2½ Imperial tons and lead another horse and loaded dray when he delivered the stone to local Councils. He established two crushing plants driven by a Marshall Steam engine. A spur line to the Berwick Railway Station was established in 1890.The rail trucks could convey ten cubic yards of rock and the railway allowed the product to be conveyed anywhere in Gippsland for the re-ballasting of the railway lines and road building. The quarry closed at the end of the First World War and the plant and the railway line was sold to a Cranbourne sand company. The Berwick Shire occasionally obtained stone from the quarry and had installed a small crushing plant for this purpose. In the late 1930s the quarry was leased by George and Ted Daniel. The Daniel brothers had been working a quarry at Lysterfield and when they took over at Berwick they installed a diesel powered crusher plant with a weekly output of 500 cubic yards of crushed rock. Daniel Brothers supplied the Shires of Berwick and Cranbourne. Due to various factors, by the late 1940s more capital was required and the quarry was sold to Bayview Quarries. Roy Ross, the owner of Bayview, installed an electric plant which crushed up to 1,000 cubic yards per day. In 1966, Bayview sold its interests to Boral, who operated the quarry under the company Albion Reid P/L.

During all this time the quarry itself was owned by members of the Wilson family and when it closed in 1978 the owner, George Wilson (1918-2003) and his wife Fay, (nee Duff) donated the 50 acre quarry site to the residents of Berwick for use a public park. The park was to be named Wilson Park in memory of George’s father, also called George (1867-1943) and his grandfather, James. Other land was purchased by the Council from the Andrews family who were descendents of William Jnr and his wife, who was also his first cousin, Annie Buchanan.

Aerial of the Berwick Quarry, before the development of the Wilson Botanic Park.

Work on the Park commenced in 1988, and the City of Berwick aimed to beautify the landscape, provide a place for relaxation and recreation and to create a botanic park with a collection of plants for botanic study. The final plan included an inner and outer trail loop one which focussed on the lakes and the other on the magnificent views, with all the trails being accessible to unassisted wheelchair users. After much work the one hundred acre (40 hectare) Park was officially opened on July 26th, 1992, by the Governor General Bill Hayden. Other features in the Park include a children's playground, a lookout tower, bird hide and Amphitheatre. There is an active Friends group, the Friends of Wilson Botanic Park, who support the Park in many ways - from staffing the visitors centre, fund raising, acting as tour guides, undertaking planting , watering, weeding and other plant handling activities. The Friends were also responsible for the organisation of the Back-to Berwick Quarry Reunion.

Anniversary Lake, Wilson Botanic Park.

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Cranbourne Golf Club

A 1980 aerial photograph of the Cranbourne Golf Club, surrounded by farms. The diagonal road on the bottom left is the South Gippsland Highway and the road which borders the Club at the bottom is Huon Park Road. 

Many Golf Clubs around the world had a policy (either written or unwritten) of not accepting Jewish members, and in response to this discrimination Jews formed their own golf clubs – the Potters Bar Club was established in London in 1924 and in the same year Elm Ridge Gold Club was established in Montreal. Jewish golfers in Australia also faced this same discrimination and eventually decided to form their own Club. The first meeting to establish a Melbourne based Club was held in late 1950. Syd Kaufman, called together about 30 of his friends for a meeting and the participants were very enthusiastic about forming a Club. A committee was formed at a meeting held in June 1951 with the priority being to find some suitable land. Land was looked at in Frankston and other ‘sand belt’ areas and it was eventually decided to purchase 230 acres (around 93 hectares) from E.W. Francis, on the South Gippsland Highway, bordering Huon Park Road, at Cranbourne.

1950s publicity for the Golf Club - taken from What’s Golf : the first fifty years of the Cranbourne Golf Club by Les Kausman (full details below)

It was hoped to name the Golf Club Monash, after Major General Sir John Monash, however the Jewish Gold Club in Sydney, which opened in 1950, was already named in honour of Monash, so it became the Cranbourne Country Club. The £50,000 pounds needed to fund the Golf Course was raised by offering 250 memberships at £200 pounds per member. This was eventually raised in spite of the fact that the Foundation membership was restricted to those of the Jewish faith and that many supporters could not afford £200 pounds, which is the equivalent today of over $6,000. Many of the early supporters were not golf players themselves but subscribed so that an opportunity was provided for Jews to play golf if they wanted. In the end there were 249 Foundation members. The first Committee of the Cranbourne Golf Club was elected in May 1953 and the Ground was opened officially in May 1954.

One of the issues from the beginning was whether the Club should be a ‘Jewish Golf Club’ or a ‘Golf Club for Jews’, however the Annual General Meeting of 1956 established the principal that the Club would be a Club where there is no discrimination and would be a Club for everyone.

The full story of the establishment of the Cranbourne Golf Club, which wasn’t all smooth sailing as this blog post may suggest, can be found in the book What’s Golf : the first fifty years of theCranbourne Golf Club by Les Kausman (published by Allen & Unwin, 2003).  The book has some interesting photographs and a full list of the Foundation members.

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Proving Ground at Lang Lang

For many people, their only knowledge of Lang Lang is that it is the home of the General Motors-Holden Proving Ground. The Proving Ground was opened in 1957 to carry out automotive testing and development. A vehicle safety laboratory also operates on the site, though the employees probably look a bit different from these two men shown in a 1960 advertisement.

Advertisement from Port of Melbourne Quarterly, July-September, 1960. Page 32.

Before the Proving Ground was opened, the cars were tested on the open roads. However due to increased traffic, the need for various surfaces for the testing and the need for security to test prototype vehicles, GMH saw the advantage of a private testing facility. They looked for land within a 50 mile (80km) radius of the city which was both flat and hilly and found suitable land just out of Lang Lang. The 2,167 acres (877 hectares) was purchased in 1955. From 1957, the Proving Ground has tested every Holden from the FC model onwards.

According to the Lang Lang town community website, since operations began in 1957, Holden test drivers and engineers have clocked up over 111 million kilometres in evaluating prototype, pre-production and current production vehicles on the Proving Ground's varied road system. A total of 454 cars have made the one-way, 100 metre journey into its concrete crash barrier.

Advertisement from Port of Melbourne Quarterly, January-March, 1966. Page 10. If you are unsure what they do at a Proving Ground, click on this image to enlarge it, and it will tell you.

The Proving Ground has a circular, banked high-speed track, a network of ride and handling roads, rough tracks, a twist course, a "rattle and squeak" track, dust road, test hills, a skid pad as well as mud and water baths. These roads and tracks take up only a small part of the land. The majority of the site is still natural bushland and is a fauna and flora habitat, with over 53 bird species recorded and 140 plant species.

Advertisement from Port of Melbourne Quarterly April-June 1966. Page 40, showing an aerial view of the Complex.

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Vision and Realisation : a centenary history of State Education in Victoria

I have written before about some of my favourite local history resources, and Vision and Realisation : a centenary of State Education in Victoria (full details at the bottom) is right up there at the top of my list. It is a three volume history of State education in Victoria and consists of over 4,100 pages. It includes a history of education in the colony of Victoria from the denominational schools onwards, a history of secondary schooling, technical schooling and teacher education. The most interesting part for family and local historians is a short description of each state school established before 1973. Many of these schools no longer exist, but were created to fill a need at the time. For instance there may have been an influx of children due to gold mining or timber milling or a soldier settlement sub-division so a school was established as a result and when the mine or mill closed the school also closed.

What sort of information can we find in Vision and Realisation? Pictured below is Tynong North School No.4464. This school was opened on June 8th 1930, but the residents had been petitioning the Education Department for a school since 1922. The School building had come from the Nar Nar Goon North School, No 2914, which had a new building erected in 1929. The first Head Teacher was Samuel Bromberger, who served there until 1938. The School closed in December 1951 and the pupils and building were transferred to Pakenham Consolidated School.

Tynong North State School. Courtesey of Bruce Weatherhead.

Our other photograph (shown below) is of the Koo-Wee-Rup North School, No.3198. This school, at Five Mile, started life in 1894 as the Koo-Wee-Rup South School, with Head Teacher, Peter Norris. The original building came from the San Remo School. The name of the school was later changed to Koo-Wee-Rup North. The school was closed in November 1959 and the children travelled by bus to Pakenham Consolidated School.

Koo-Wee-Rup North State School, 1927.
From the collection of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Historical Society.

These two examples show the type of information you can gain from Vision and Realisation. Some entries are just a small paragraph and some run for over a page. The three volume sets is out of print, but I have seen it on secondhand book sites for around $150.00

Vision and Realisation : a centenary history of State Education in Victoria, edited by L.J. Blake. Published by the Education Department of Victoria, 1973.

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