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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John Doveton and Margaret Doveton - Part 1

The suburb of Doveton was established in the mid 1950s by the Housing Commission to provide housing for the employees of the 'Big Three' Industrial companies, International Harvestor Company, H.J Heinz and General Motors Holden. The area was originally known as Grassmere or Eumemmerring, however in September 1954 the new suburb was named Doveton after Captain John Doveton. This is an interesting choice given that Captain and Mrs Doveton were only in the area for ten years and there are other families with a much longer or much earlier connection to the area. However it is a pleasant sounding name and is a variation of the name Dufton which means ‘Farmstead where doves are kept’.

Very little is known about the Dovetons, so I thought I would see what I could find out about them, using freely available resources and the best thing is, you can do the same sort of searches to find information on any of your own ancestors. You don't even need to have the Internet on at home, you can use the Internet, free, at any of our Libraries. The only money I spent was on obtaining a copy of John Doveton’s death certificate and a copy of their marriage certificate, but they gave me so much new information it was well worth the money, plus it gave me confirmed or official information.

There is a lot of Family History information on the Internet and some of the information I have come across on the Doveton Family I know is untrue, even from my own basic research on the family. I started my search by checking out the Indexes to the Victorian Birth, Death and Marriage (BDM) records. To obtain certificates you need the Registration numbers and the BDM Indexes give you these. You can access, for free, the Indexes to the BDM records at our Narre Warren, Pakenham and Cranbourne Libraries. For information about purchasing certificates follow this link to the Victorian Department of Justice http://online.justice.vic.gov.au

These are the signatures of John Doveton and Margaret Doveton from their Marriage Certificate. We don't have any photographs of them, so it is the only physical connection we have to them.

The marriage certificate told me that John Doveton married Margaret Elizabeth Doveton on October 8, 1873 at All Saints Church in St Kilda. The certificate also told me that his parents were John Bazett Doveton and Harriet Fenton and that her parents were Francis Crossman Doveton and Margaret Bostock. He was born in Saltford and his occupation was listed as Master Mariner. His father’s occupation was listed as “Clerk in Holy Orders”. Margaret was born in Tasmania and her father is listed as an “Officer in the Army”. On his death certificate I found out that John died, at the age of 61, on April 7, 1904 and that at the time he was living at Atherton Road in Oakleigh. He died of throat and liver cancer and was buried at the Oakleigh Cemetery. Once again it lists his parents and the name of his wife, and also the fact that they had no children. We also find out that he has been in Victoria for ‘25 years’. His age at death also gives us an approximate date of birth of 1843.

The Doveton marriage was announced in The Argus newspaper of Saturday, October 11, 1873, page 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5873415

Now we can have some basic information, we can start working back and I looked at the Ancestry database, available free at all the Casey Cardinia Libraries, and searched for his father, John Bazett Doveton, in the United Kingdom Census Collection. It is a fairly unusual name and I found out that in 1851 the family was living at Burnett and his occupation was Rector of Burnett and that he was 44 and his wife Harriet was 32. There were five children, Catherine (aged 9), our John (aged 8), Bazett (aged 6) Caroline (aged 3) and Ella (aged 1). The household also had a Governess and four servants so it was a fairly comfortable household. John’s birthplace on the Census records is listed as Saltford, so that all ties in with the information on his Death and Marriage certificates. His age in 1851 is listed as 8 years old, which makes his year of birth 1843, which ties in with the date we worked out from his Death Certificate. In the 1861 Census, John Bazette Doveton was still the Rector of Burnett, but we find that there are two more children in the family, Mary Harriet aged 9 and Henry aged only 10 months.

This is from the Oxford University Alumni, 1500-1886, available on the Ancestry database

Ancestry also has an interesting database the Oxford University Alumini 1500-1886. We can find John’s father and grandfather listed as Alumni. John Bazett Doveton is the second son of John Frederick Doveton, of Blagden in Somerset, who obtained a Bachelor of Civil Law in 1804. John Bazett Doveton matriculated in 1825, aged 18, received his Bachelor of Arts in 1831 and his Masters of Arts in 1834. He is also listed as being the Rector of Burnett, Somerset – this ties in with the Census information, plus both the Census and the Alumni information both indicate that John Bazett Doveton was born around 1807. So you can see how we are building up a picture of John’s early life and solid upper middle class family back ground.

I thought I would see what I could find out about his life in Australia by searching the newspapers available through the National Library of Australia's Australian Newspapers Collection. The National Library of Australia (www.nla.gov.au) has digitised major Australian newspapers and they are a wealth of information. I found a notice of John's marriage to Margaret in The Argus of October 11, 1873 (reproduced above). There was a report in The Argus of September 22, 1876 about the new steamship Durham which had just arrived from London after 50 days of sailing. Mr John Doveton is listed as the Second Officer, but he did not sail again with the Durham when she left port, as he had ‘elected to remain in the Colony’. In 1879, John Doveton, as the Chief Officer of the Julia Percy, gave evidence at an Inquiry into a collision between the Julia Percy and the St Joseph. The Argus has various reports, in the Shipping Intelligence column, of Captain Doveton arriving and departing Melbourne as the Captain of the Julia Percy, then the Tamar and then the Southern Cross.

The Hobart Mercury, Monday, 8 May 1882, page 2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9009163

A report in the Hobart Mercury of May 8, 1882 (reproduced above) said Southern Cross, under Doveton, run ashore on the Vansittart Shoals between Babel Island and Cape Barren in Bass Strait. Captain Doveton was suspended from the Command, pending an enquiry. Another report in the May 23, 1882 said that Captain Doveton had resigned. After this, the only reports I could find about Captain Doveton involved him supervising work at the Wright, Orr & Co. floating Dry Dock and later at Dukes Graving Dock.

We now know something about John Doveton’s family life and his working life – and the next step is to find out about his connection to the area which eventually bore his name. The Library has the Shire of Cranbourne Rate Books from 1863 and the Shire of Berwick Rate Books from 1875 on CD-Rom. You can use these at Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Pakenham branches. The first listing for Captain Doveton was in the 1893-94 Shire of Berwick Rate books. He owned a house and 2½ acres at Lot 53 in Grassmere. The following year he had another 2½ acres at Lot 56, so five acres in all. From 1900 it was leased out and was sold on August 21 1903 to Robert Skinner. Even though Captain Doveton was listed as the ratepayer, according to a copy of the Title we have in the Archive, the property was actually purchased in Margaret's name. The house, which is now demolished was located around Gumbuya Close, off Doveton Avenue. In our Archive we also have a copy of an article from the South Bourke and Mornington Journal of April 10, 1896 which says that Captain Doveton had erected a 70 foot high flag pole in front of his ‘cosy residence’ where, on Sunday and high holidays, a 10 foot flag was flown.

This is from the Australian Electoral Rolls, 1903-1954, available on Ancestry database.

One other source of information we can use are the Australian Electoral Rolls on Ancestry database. The 1903 roll, for the Division of Kooyong, lists John and Margaret Doveton living at Ferntree Gully Road in Oakleigh and his occupation is listed as Poultry Farmer (see above). The death notice in The Argus on April 9, 1904 says that he died at “Burnett’, Atherton Road in Oakleigh, his property obviously being named after his childhood home. (see below)

The Argus, Saturday, April 9, 1904, page 9.
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10313673

By using all these freely available sources we have built up a picture of Doveton’s life. In the next post we will look at Margaret Doveton's life and discover a connection to Royalty!

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Lang Lang Guardian

The Lang Lang & District Historical Society has reproduced the entire Lang Lang Guardian on DVD. The DVD covers the years February 1902 until December 1918. According to the local history, Protector's Plains : history of Lang Lang Primary School No.2899 & District, 1888-1988 the Guardian was shifted to Koo-Wee-Rup in 1918, and became the Koo-Wee-Rup Sun. The Guardian provides a wealth of information on early Lang Lang and surrounding towns such as Yannathan and Yallock. It was really a one-stop paper which could provide the local farmer and his family with all the information they needed. For a start, it had International News, for instance the edition of May 3, 1902 has a report on the health of Queen Wilhelmina of Holland and a report on the cost of the Auckland Town Hall.

Lang Lang Guardian, May 3 1902. Click on all the images to enlarge them.

Naturally, there is also plenty of local news and always of interest are the advertisements. There are many advertisements from Melbourne and Dandenong Companies offering their services to the locals as well as advertisements from local firms, such as Ernest Cougle's store, where all the necessaries of a household could be purchased. Ernest Cougle had taken over the store in 1907 from John Donaldson, who had purchased the store in 1903 from the original owners, the Priestley family. They had arrived in Lang Lang in 1898.

This advertisement for Ernest Cougle 's store was in October 11, 1911 edition.

Local News covered sporting groups, Churches, Community Groups such as the Red Cross. Farmers could get reports from the Dandenong Market, information on farming issues such as how to improve the dairy herd and Poultry Notes. During the First World War, there were articles on locals who had joined up, plus fund raising efforts. In the item below, it mentions the death of Private Frank Keighery. Edward Keighery, a boot maker, and his wife Annie, had arrived in Lang Lang in 1903 with their four children, Christopher (b.1889), Frank (b.1894) Sheila (b.1899), and Ned (b.1901). Frank had enlisted on March 20, 1915, and embarked aboard HMAT Euripides on May 10, 1915. He was killed in action on September 11, 1915 at Brown's Dip, near Lone Pine on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

This section of local news is taken from the Lang Lang Guardian of October 27, 1915.

Finally there were articles of interest to women. The Guardian had Health information, a weekly serial and Fashion notes, so even though you lived in the country, there was no need to be unfashionable. This article, below, from 1907 caught my attention. This elegant Ladies Fichu Bodice could be made from Butterick Pattern 9618, which came in six sizes. The pattern could be purchased for 10 shillings from M.Thorp & Co in Collins Street.

Lang Lang Guardian, May 8, 1907. A Fichu is a woman's shawl, or piece of lace, worn around the neck or shoulders.

You can purchase a copy of this DVD from the Lang Lang &District Historical Society, P.O Box 8, Lang Lang, 3984 for $30.00 plus postage. They also have an interesting website at http://www.langlang.net/historical.html

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