Mystery Photograph

We have a number of photographs in our Archive, which we know nothing about, so I thought I would put them on the blog and see if anyone recognises the people in the photograph or even the event, so this is Mystery photograph Number 1. It is obviously a Scout Group, but that's all I can tell you.
PS - Thanks to people who commented on the photo (see below) so we know know this is the 1st Beaconsfield Scout Group, c. 1980s. When I put this post up I wrote that  "apart from the fact that I feel the distinguished looking man in the centre (the one not in uniform) may be Max Oldmeadow, who was the Member for Holt from 1972 to 1975" this is incorrect, he has been identified as John Pearson, who was  President of the Berwick Lions Club who had donated the tents for the Beaconsfield Scout group.

If you have any information about the photograph, then you can leave a comment at the bottom of this post.

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Narre Warren - the early years

The first township of Narree Warren was surveyed in 1860, and is now known as Narre Warren North and the township which developed around the Railway Station became Narre Warren Railway Station and later just Narre Warren. When the large squatting runs were broken up and sold off, farmers moved into the area, some of the earliest being Thomas & Eliza Walton who arrived in 1852 and built Holly Green, where Fountain Gate Shopping Centre is now located. Walton held ploughing competitions, grew tobacco, flax and grapes – he had 2 acres of vineyards and made a ‘good dry wine”. Around 1855 the Mornington Hotel was built on the Walton’s property, you can read more about this, here.

Holly Green, built by the Waltons, was demolished in 1937, by John Lloyd who built Brechin on the site.

In 1853, Daniel & Kathleen Crowley purchased 632 acres around Prospect Hill Road and built their home where the Fountain Gate Primary School is now located. They also had 160 acres, called Granite Hills, due to the Granite outcrop. This was sold to Cornelius Killeen then to Anthony and Mary Kent who arrived around 1875. Other early settlers were John & Daniel Sweeney who arrived around 1860.

Kent's General Store, situated on the north east corner of the Princes Highway and Webb Street. The photograph was taken around 1912.
Image: Oak Trees and Hedges: a pictorial  history of Narre Warren, Narre Warren North and Harkaway

In 1877 the Railway line went through to Bunyip and, by 1879, all the way to Sale, but the seminal event in the development of Narre Warren, was the arrival of Sidney and Ann Webb. Webb is listed as owning “house and land” in the 1876 Rate books and in 1880 they purchased Holly Green. Sidney Webb (1844-1920) was a Newsagent, who founded the Victorian Authorised Newsagents Association. One book says When he retired from business he purchased Holly Green, which would have made him 36 years old. Webb agitated for a Railway Station at Narre Warren, which opened in 1882 and he collected money to purchase land for a road to connect the town to the Station. According to the Shire of Berwick Rate Books, in 1888 and1889 a number of businesses were established in Narre Warren. Albert Raduchel, a blacksmith; Thomas Woodley, a baker; Thomas Stones, a butcher and James Middleton, a storekeeper. They all leased their premised from Sidney Webb. By 1891, Richardson’s, who also had a business in Berwick, had taken over the Butchery. Later on, Alfred and Alice Kent had a General Store. Alfred was the son of Anthony and Mary Kent and Alice was the daughter of Sidney and Ann Webb. These families had a double connection as Ada Kent married Harry Webb. The Webb’s had also married into another prominent local family, the Baileys. William & Fanny Bailey settled in Narre Warren North in 1894 established the first orchard in the area on Bayview Farm. Their son James married Lucy Webb and their eldest son, George had a General store in Narre Warren. George was first listed as a Storekeeper in the Rate Books in 1914 and it was operated by family members until the 1970s.

This photograph also shows Kent's General Store, and Thomas Woodley's bakery. The sign on the fence says "High class pastry cook" and "Hygenic bread factory". Further down the hill is Raduchel's Blacksmiths and also shown are the oak trees planted by Sidney Webb in 1890.
Image: Oak Trees and Hedges: a pictorial  history of Narre Warren, Narre Warren North and Harkaway

Narre Warren further consolidated as a town with when Sidney Webb donated land for the School which opened in 1889 and the Mechanics' Institute which opened in 1891. Sidney Webb’s lasting legacy is the row of oak trees along the Princes Highway which he planted in 1890 and of course, Webb Street.

The Webb Family, taken around 1890.
Image: Oak Trees and Hedges: a pictorial  history of Narre Warren, Narre Warren North and Harkaway

Before we end, Sidney Webb gets a lot of well deserved credit for the development of Narre Warren but in the back ground was his wife Ann Hart. They married in 1866 and she bore him fourteen children from 1866 to 1886. Ann died in 1914, aged 70.

Here is  a list of their children and any information I know about them -

• Sidney - born 1866, married Lilias McKenzie Blackwood in 1893, died 1933. You can read his short obituary from The Argus of October 14, 1933, here.
• Annie Ellen - born 1868, married William Davison Oliver in 1902, died 1955.
• Amelia Mary - born and died 1870
• Howard - born and died 1871
• Alice Isabella - born 1872,  married Alfred Ernest Kent in 1898, died 1951.
• Edith Hannah - born 1873, married Charles James Dellar in 1908. 
• Jessie Maria - born 1874, died 1875.
• Lucy Agnes - born 1877, married James William Bailey in 1903, died 1945.
• Florence Emily - born 1878, never married,  died 1947.
• Henry Liston - born 1880, married Ada Evelyn Kent in 1903, died 1964.
• Robert - born  1881, died 1957.
• Bertha Eliza - born 1883, married Alexander Moran in 1911, died 1958.
• Walter Edwin - born 1885, died 1897.
• Percy John - born 1886, married Muriel Amy Isabel Heywood in 1911. 

The photographs in this post come from the book Oak Trees and Hedges: a pictorial  history of Narre Warren, Narre Warren North and Harkaway. It is published by the Berwick Pakenham Historical Society. They operate a Museum, open on Sundays, from 2.00pm until 4.00pm, in the Old Shire Offices, corner of McGregor Road and Main Street in Pakenham (enter from the Highway service road off James Street)

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Vervale

This is our 100^th blog post and I thought that I would tell you all about Vervale, which is where I grew up. Vervale is a locality surrounded by Cora Lynn, Iona and Garfield on the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp and I feel it must be the least known town in both Casey and Cardinia. The Shire of Berwick Rate Books give us some idea of the development of Vervale. Ratepayers in the area were listed as living in Cora Lynn or Iona until 1916 when some of these same rate payers had Clarke’s Post Office as their address. This had changed to Vervale in 1917. Vervale was first written as Vere Vale. Vervale means “green valley”.

Vervale doesn't have any Churches. Until around 1960 Methodist and Presbyterian Services were held on alternate Sundays at the Cora Lynn Hall, or Presbyterians could attend the Iona Presbyterian Church. Catholics could attend St Josephs Church at Iona and those of the Methodist and Anglican faiths could attend Churches in Garfield. There were no Vervale sporting teams – you had to go to either Cora Lynn or Garfield to play sport.

Vervale Post Office, 1967. ( Image no.B5919/2186). 
 From the collection on the National Archives of Australia website.

What Vervale did have was a General store and Post Office, established in 1907 by J. Kirwan. According to the Shire of Berwick Rate Books it was sold to James & Edith McMannis in 1916. They had the store until the mid to late 1960s. Vervale also had a State School, and although it had three names it was never called Vervale. State School No. 3201 was established in 1894 as Koo-Wee-Rup North School, changed it’s name in 1899 to Bunyip South and changed it’s name again in 1905 to Iona. The School closed December 1993.

However, Vervale does have one claim to fame as it was the first place in Victoria in which asparagus was commercially grown. Thomas Roxburgh, who was a Shipping Agent, planted the first commercial crop of asparagus at his farm Cheriton Park, though locally it was referred to as Roxburgh Park. The earliest reference I can find to this planting is an article in The Argus from May 8, 1912 where it is reported that he had nine acres of asparagus planted. By the 1930’s the major commercial asparagus production area in Victoria was the Koo Wee Rup and Dalmore area. Soon after, this area was to become the largest asparagus producing area in Australia. There was an interview in the Pakenham Gazette of December 8, 1999 with Bill Roxburgh, the grandson of Thomas. In the interview Bill talks about how his grandfather, who owned 300 acres, had planted all different kinds of trees on a five acre section of his land and had built his own park to relax in.

Some of the remaining trees planted by Thomas Roxburgh at Cheriton Park, on the corner of Fallon Road and Simpson Road in Vervale.

Image: Heather Arnold

As I said before, Vervale means green valley, which is a bit of a misnomer as, like the rest of the Swamp, if is very flat and prone to flooding. My grandfather, James Rouse, took up 56 acres on Murray Road in Cora Lynn in 1903 and in 1913 also purchased land on the corner of Main Drain Road and Dessent Road, which is now owned by my parents and the following pictures show this property under some of the many floods to hit the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp.

Corner of Main Drain Road and Dessent Road, under flood, in 1937.

Image: Rouse family collection. 

Corner of Main Drain Road and Dessent Road, under flood, in 1958. 

Image: Rouse family collection. 

Corner of Main Drain Road and Dessent Road, under flood, in 1990. The original house in the previous two pictures has been demolished and a new house built plus some potato sheds.

Image: Taken by a Pakenham Gazette photographer.  Rouse family collection. 

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Bills Troughs in Casey Cardinia

You may have seen some Bills Troughs, on your travels throughout Australia and overseas. They were funded from a bequest from the will of George Bills, who died on December 14, 1927. His will left various bequests to friends and employees but the bulk of his Estate was to be made available by his Executors to Societies for the protection of animals, such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) and for the construction of horse troughs for the relief of horses or other ‘dumb animals’. These troughs were to be inscribed with the names of George and his wife Annis.

Who were George and Annis Bills? An article by Tim Gibson, Donated by Annis and George Bills - Australia: their concrete horse trough legacy published in the Gippsland Heritage Journal (see full citation at the bottom of this post) tells us that George was one of fourteen children and was born in Brighton in England on March 11, 1859. The family emigrated to New Zealand in 1869 and moved to Victoria in 1873. In 1880 George, and his brother Henry, commenced a wire working business in Sydney. Other brothers, Richard and Walter, later joined the business. Walter had invented a wire coiler and this led the Company into the manufacture of wire mattresses. The business became known as Bills Brothers. Various of the brothers operated factories in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane at one time. George married Annis Elizabeth Swann (b.1860) on May 18, 1885 at the Brisbane Registry Office. In 1910 the couple went on a trip to England where Annis died. They had no children.

The Bills troughs, for both horses and dogs, in High Street Bunyip. The terracotta roof in the background belongs to the Post Office, which was opened on December 8, 1925

Image: Heather Arnold

George and his brother Henry had been supporters of the Victorian Society for the Protection of Animals as the RSPCA was then called and this devotion to the cause of animal welfare was continued after George’s death, through his Will. His Estate was administered by his sister, Daisy and her husband, William Crook. Tim Gibson, in his article cited above, says that the first troughs were individually designed and constructed, however in the early 1930s Jack Phillips became the contractor and had a standard design of pre-cast concrete, which were manufactured in Auburn Road in Hawthorn. Rocla then took over the manufacture of the troughs around 1937. Also in 1937 the last trough was supplied to a Victorian location and erected in Buckley Street in Essendon. After that, the distribution of the troughs moved to New South Wales and finished at the end of the Second World War. All up, around 700 troughs were donated to towns in Australia, around 400 of those in Victoria and fifty overseas.

Report in The Argus on the last Bills trough erected in Victoria

The Argus November 27, 1937

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11127791

In the Casey Cardinia area the only ones I know of are at Koo-Wee-Rup at the Historical Society in Rossiter Road, and you can see both the horse trough and the dog trough at Tooradin, outside the Fisherman’s Cottage Museum on the Foreshore. The two troughs can also be seen in Bunyip in High Street. There is also one at Akoonah Park in Berwick.

The Koo-Wee-Rup Bills trough at it's relocated position at the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Historical Society. In the background is the Lock-up built in the 1920s, which was originally located at the Police Station in Sybella Avenue and moved to the Historical Society in 1993.

Image: Heather Arnold

I came across an article in the Koo-Wee-Rup Sun of February 2, 1933 and it tells us that the trough in Koo-Wee-Rup was originally erected near the Royal Hotel in Station Street. The same article tell us that troughs have also been erected at Narre Warren, Pakenham, Garfield and Bunyip.
 

Koo-Wee-Rup Sun of February 2, 1933

Image: Heather Arnold

So this raises a number of questions – what happened to the Narre Warren and Pakenham troughs? Where were they originally located? I believe the Garfield one was outside the Iona Hotel in Main Street but where has it gone? Where was the Bunyip trough originally located? The Tooradin trough was apparently outside the Store and Post Office along the South Gippsland highway. I’d love to know if you have any answers to these questions. The Bills troughs are a lovely reminder of a by-gone day, when horses ruled the road and also a practical memorial to George & Annis Bills' community spirit and love of animals.

 

The Tooradin trough, located outside the Fishermans Cottage Museum on the Foreshore.

Image: Heather Arnold

The article I referred to from the Gippsland Heritage Journal is Donated by Annis & George Bills - Australia : their concrete horse trough legacy by Tim Gibson. Published in Gippsland Heritage Journal No.20, September 1996.

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Narre Warren and Fountain Gate Estate

In the last post we looked at some of the early housing sub-divisions in Narre Warren, and in the aerial photographs we saw Brechin, which was located on the site of the current Fountain Gate Shopping Centre . Brechin was built in 1937 for John Lloyd (1906-1984). His uncle, Charles Duplan Lloyd (1863-1937) had purchased the Holly Green property in 1924, from the Webb Family, and had moved his Glen Iris jersey cattle stud from Glen Iris to Holly Green. When John inherited the property he changed the name to Brechin.

A contemporary report on Brechin. Our Archive has an original of the article, but unfortunatley, there is no indication which paper if was from.

John Lloyd was one of the foundation members of the Narre Warren Fire Brigade and a member of other Narre Warren organizations such as the Hall Committee, Progress Association and he was also involved in many other Community organisations. The Brechin house was described as being of 'American Californian mission architecture'. It was demolished around 1990, though parts of the garden, including some of the magnificent trees you can see in the photograph below, still remain. The garden is on Brechin Drive, off Overland Drive in Narre Warren.

An aerial of Brechin, taken in the 1980s. Below is a close-up of the lavender hedge leading to what looks like a sun dial or bird bath.

The Fountain Gate housing estate, in Narre Warren, was developed by Isador Magid in the mid 1960s. He employed Robin Boyd to create the Estate on Radburn principles, which involved separating pedestrians and vehicles by providing short cul-de-sac entries and internal spines of open space. Prominent architects were also employed to design Protoype houses. The Fountain Estate is bounded by Tinks Road, Sweet Gum Avenue, Prospect Hill Road and Dawn Avenue and is listed in the City of Casey Heritage Scheme as being of local significance and possibly State significance and an innovative and imaginative housing development. Some individual houses also have Heritage listing. The fountain at the entrance to the Estate, was designed by Robin Boyd, and also has Heritage Listing.

This is a close-up of the January 1972 aerial, which was in the last blog post, showing the Fountain Gate Estate. Below is the map of the Fountain Gate Estate precinct which has Heritage listing.

This map and much of the information on the Fountain Gate Estate comes from the City of Berwick Heritage Conservation Study, 1993, prepared by Context Pty Ltd.

Isador Magid and his Overland Construction Corporation donated land to the City of Berwick for their Municipal Offices and for park land, and also built the Fountain Gate Shopping Centre. This was very innovative at the time, as it was a new planning concept to combine housing with a Civic Centre and a major shopping centre. Fountain Gate Shopping Centre was opened on March 11, 1980 by the Governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Winneke, which makes it thirty years old.

Narre Warren News , Issue 2, Volume 8 1980.

This is the report from the Narre Warren News, the community newsletter, from Issue 2, Volume 8 1980. Fountain Gate Shopping Centre obviously did have 'the attractions and competitive shopping' to succeed as it has expanded on a number of occasions since opening.

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Narre Warren - the growth of a suburb

Narre Warren's origins as a country town have now been largely obscured by housing developments and suburbanisation, so I was interested to come across these land sale advertisements in the Pakenham Gazette. They are from 1959. We have the Pakenham Gazette and it's predecessor, the Berwick Shire News, from 1909 to 1965 on DVD at Cranbourne, Emerald, Narre Warren and Pakenham Libraries.

Pakenham Gazette, December 11 1959 page 9

Pakenham Gazette, October 2 1959, page 7

An aerial view of Narre Warren taken December 1963 (click on image to enlarge it)

We have a great collection of aerial photographs in the Archive, and this one is of Narre Warren. The oval is the old Narre Warren Recreation Reserve, on the corner of the Princes Highway and Narre Warren North Road. If we follow the Princes Highway, towards the top left of the photo we come to the future site of the Fountain Gate Shopping Centre. The house surrounded by trees is Brechin, which was built on the site of Holly Green, formerly owned by Sidney Webb. There will be more about Brechin in the next blog post. You can see Webb Street, crossing the Princes Highway and intersecting with Narre Warren North Road. South of the highway (on the west side of Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road) is the start of the subdivision which includes Western Way, Meadow Wood Walk and Valley Fair Drive. On the other side of Narre Warren-Cranbourne Road you can see the sub-division which includes Stewart Avenue, Moran Street and Sweeney Drive.

We are lucky enough to have original copies of the Community newsletter, Narre Warren News, in our Archive. We have the second issue (the banner is reproduced above) from October 1971 and various issues to 1980. They include local events , news from Community Groups such the Progress Association, Sporting Clubs, Fire Brigade and Kindergarten. Each issue also included some history of the area and Council news.


One of the most interesting features of these Newsletters is the 'New Residents' column. It certainly harks back to a time when privacy wasn't an issue and when, even though Narre Warren was expanding, it still had a small town community feel. This list comes from Issue 3, Volume 1, 1971. You could probably identify some of the houses these residents moved into from the 1972 aerial below. I wonder if any of these people still live at the same address?

An aerial view of Narre Warren taken January 1972 (click on image to enlarge it)

You will see there are many more houses in the sub-division which includes Western Way, Meadow Wood Walk and Valley Fair Drive, though given the Estate was established in 1963, there are not as many houses as I would have expected. On the north of the Princes Highway is the start of the Fountain Gate Estate, and there will be more on this in the next blog post.

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John Doveton and Margaret Doveton - Part 2

In our last post we looked at the life of Captain John Doveton and in this post we will see what we can find out about his wife, Margaret. She was born a Doveton and married a Doveton and I feel that this means that the suburb of Doveton was really named for her as well as her husband. As we found out in the last post, I knew Margaret's parents names from her marriage certificate, i.e Francis Crossman Doveton and Margaret Bostock. I also knew she was born in Tasmania. The Tasmanian Indexes to Births, Deaths and Marriage (BDM), on CD-Rom, are available to use at Narre Warre, Cranbourne and Pakenham Libraries. A quick search revealed her parents married in 1842, that Margaret was born in Hobart in 1844 and that her sister, Rachel Emily, was born Campbell Town in 1846. That was all I could find, so I ‘googled’ Francis Crossman Doveton and according to some information on the Ballarat & District Genealogical Society website http://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/ Francis Crossman Doveton was the first Gold Commissioner at Ballarat, but I will tell you more about that later.

Now I knew that the family had moved to Victoria I looked up the Victorian Indexes to the BDMs and found that the next two children, Annie (born 1848) and Francis (1850) were born at Port Fairy and the last child John (1852) was born near Warrnambool. Margaret Bostock, had been born in 1824 in Tasmania and died in Victoria in 1853. After her death, Francis Crossman Doveton married Mary Ann Snell in 1855 and had eight other children. So already we have found out some personal information about our Margaret, including the sad fact that her own mother died when she was nine.

Francis Crossman Doveton had come to Australia with the 51st Regiment of Foot (2nd Yorkshire, West Riding Regiment). The Regiment arrived in 1838 and served in Tasmania and Western Australia and then left for Bengal in 1846, but Doveton remained in Australia. This same information is mentioned in the report of his death in The Argus of July 15, 1905. As Francis Doveton Crossman had a Government position in Victoria, I checked the Victorian Government Gazette, where all official appointments are announced, and found his first appointment as Commissioner of Crown Lands (reproduced below).

Victorian Government Gazette, Wednesday, August 27, 1851, page 312.

The Victorian Government Gazettes have been digitised from 1836 to 1997 and can be searched on the State Library of Victoria website, www.slv.vic.gov
According to the Victorian Government Gazette other appointments followed, amongst which were - in 1852 he was appointed a Magistrate of the Colony of Victoria, in 1855 Chairman of the Local Court of the District of Hepburn and in 1858 he was appointed a Warden of the Gold Fields, then a Chinese Protector and in 1860 he was appointed as a Coroner, acting at Daylesford. From The Argus I found out that in 1866 he was declared Insolvent in the Supreme Court, due to ‘want of employment and having accepted accommodation bills for others’. His liabilities were £2,233 pounds and his assets £206.

The Argus, Monday, November 17, 1941, page 6. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8217085

As we found out in the first post, we know when Margaret was married (1873) and we know that she purchased the property at Doveton in her own name in December 1894. We also know that by 1900 the property was leased and they were living in Oakleigh. According to the Australian Electoral Rolls on Ancestry database, in 1909 Margaret was still at Atherton Road in Oakleigh, but in 1914 she had moved to Malvern East. In 1924, she was at Everdon, Rose Street in Surrey Hills and was still there in 1937. In 1941 she was living in Mordialloc. I looked up The Argus newspaper on the National Library of Australia's Australian Newspapers website and came across the interesting article, reproduced above, from the November 17, 1941 edition. Some of the same information was recorded in her Obituary in The Argus of December 16, 1941. The Obituary is reproduced below. The Obituary mentions she was buried at the St Kilda Cemetery, not Oakleigh, where her husband was buried.

The Argus, Tuesday, December 16 1941, page 3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article822687

We know that John and Margaret were cousins, but I wanted to know how they were related. There are numerous Doveton Family histories on the Internet and one site lists the children of John Frederick Doveton and Elizabeth Crossman. The children include a John Bazett Doveton (born 1807) and a Frederick Crossman Doveton (born 1817). But, ever suspicious of ‘unofficial information’ on the Internet I wanted to confirm this with other sources. Now, in the last post we know the Captain John Doveton’s father was John Bazette Doveton. We know that John Bazette Doveton was born around 1807 and from the Oxford University Alumni 1500-1886 database on Ancestry, we know that his father was John Frederick Doveton, so that fits. We also know, from the Victorian Indexes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages that Francis Crossman Doveton was 87 when he died in 1905, which makes him born around 1817 and that his parents are listed as Frederick Doveton and Elizabeth Crossman. Francis is also listed as a past pupil of the King’s School at Bruton (a facimile copy of the School Register 1826 to 1890 has been digitized by Google Books) and his father is listed as the Reverend John Frederick Doveton. This gives us a few other sources which confirm that John Bazett Doveton and Francis Crossman Doveton are brothers, being sons of John Francis Doveton, and therefore John and Margaret are first cousins.

Two more interesting facts about the Doveton family. They have a connection to Everdon Hall in Little Everdon. It is a Grade 2 Listed building built around 1820 for General Doveton and interestingly, Everdon was also the name Margaret Doveton gave to her house in Rose Street in Surrey Hills. Secondly, the article on the Ballarat & District Genealogical Society website on Francis Crossman Doveton (full details at the bottom) states that Elizabeth Crossman, John and Margaret’s grandmother, is said to be a direct descendant of King Edward 1 (1239-1307) and his wife Eleanor of Castille (1241-1290). They married in 1254 and had sixteen children, with only six living to adulthood. The Royal couple were on a trip to Lincoln when Eleanor fell ill and died. A memorial cross was erected at every place where the entourage stopped, when her body was being transported back to London. These crosses are known as the Eleanor Crosses. Eleanor was buried in Westminister Abbey. If your family has been in the United Kingdom for many generations it is apparently more common than you would expect to be related to a member of the Royal Family, albeit very distantly, as is the case with John and Margaret Doveton, so the Royal connection is quite plausible. Anyway, it is a very romantic story and I really like the Royal connection to Doveton.

The effigy of Eleanor of Castille (1241-1290) at Westminister Abbey. Eleanor is said to be an ancestor of both John Doveton and Margaret Doveton.

All the sources I have used to find out this information on John and Margaret Doveton are freely available, with the exception of the Death and Marriage Certificates which I purchased. You can access the United Kingdom Census collection, the Australian Electoral Rolls and the Oxford University Alumni on Ancestry database, available at all our Libraries. The Victorian Government Gazette is accessed through the State Library of Victoria website. The old newspapers, the Australian Newspapers Project, can be accessed on the National Library of Australia website. You can use the Internet at all our Libraries and it is free with fast down-load times. The Indexes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages, from all the States of Australia, are available at Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Pakenham Libraries, as are the old Shire of Berwick and Shire of Cranbourne Rate Records. This means, you could well find out some of the same sort of information on one of your Ancestors as I have discovered on the Dovetons. In finishing, I can safely conclude that Captain John Doveton and Margaret Elizabeth Doveton were first cousins, as their fathers were brothers, in which case Margaret should have as much status as the ‘namesake’ of the suburb of Doveton as her husband.

*Francis Doveton, First Gold Commissioner at Ballarat by Thelma Birrell. http://www.ballaratgenealogy.org.au/art/doveton.htm

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