This blog provides information, stories, links and events relating to and promoting the history of the Wimmera district.
Any additional information, via Comments, is welcomed.



Wednesday 26 September 2012

Heritage on our home turf

A great new innovation is Vic Heritage’s iphone app.
Showcasing data from the Victorian Heritage database, it provides a definitive history of over 2,200 important significant and unusual places in Melbourne and regional Victoria.
It accesses a fully searchable online database containing information about Victorian Heritage Places and Precincts, including statements of significance, physical descriptions, historical information, builder, architectural style, photographs and a google-style map. You can choose to search via the normal search term, or much more fun is to search by places ‘nearby’ – you might think you know your local area, but may be surprised by what is included. It displays as either a List with thumbnail photos, or as a Map with the locations as pins.
.
The classroom from the south

I was surprised to see “Pavilon Classroom - Natimuk” on the list. I had heard of the canvas sided schools, but was unaware one was at Natimuk (so was an ex-Natimuk teacher too).
The Natimuk Pavilion Classroom was constructed by the Victorian Public Works Department in 1914 as an open air classroom for school children at Natimuk Primary School. It consisted of a rectangular timber structure 20’ x 30’ with a gabled roof. 
The canvas side of the classroom
The room was intended to accommodate 48 children in dual seater desks. Three sides of the classroom are boarded with weatherboards to the height of three feet; above that height, adjustable canvas shutters were fitted right to the roofline. The back wall, on which the blackboard was mounted, was boarded from floor to ceiling. The room was built on sleeper plates for easy removal.
The remains of the canvas still adhere to the window frames
44 of these classrooms were constructed for Victorian schools between 1911 and 1914, but after World War I, the Education Department discontinued their construction. They were unpopular with teachers in winter weather. However they were used for additional accommodation in schools for many years.
Natimuk Primary School moved from Main Street to a site in Jory Street in 1961. The pavilion classroom was relocated by the Education Department to the Australian House Museum at Deakin University in 1988, because it was under threat. The building was returned to Natimuk in 2002 and is now located in the grounds of the present Natimuk Primary School in Jory Street.
Windows to the north, and canvas on the east
Open air classrooms were designed to provide a healthy environment for delicate children, and resulted from the hygiene movement in education at the beginning of the 20th century. It was hoped that improvements in lighting and ventilation aimed at improving the child’s physical conditions would lead to better educational and health outcomes. The open air classroom reflected the preoccupation with the benefits of light and fresh air for the health and education of young children.
The ventilator near the ceiling could be slid closed, the one on the previous photo is closed
Medical opinion of the time favoured fresh air and a bracing environment for all, derived from the ideas behind the open air sanatoriums used for the treatment of tuberculosis patients. The spread of tuberculosis, known as the 'white plague’ was a constant concern, it was responsible for one death in nine in Victoria in 1902, and in 1904 was declared a notifiable disease.
This classroom is architecturally significant, as the only surviving, relatively intact and rare example of an open air classroom.


Thursday 6 September 2012

Family via letters

Archival records can help people connect with their histories, trace the experiences of ancestors and learn about the times and places in which they lived.
Footprints: The journey of Lucy and Percy Pepper reveals the story of Lucy and Percy Pepper and their family. The book reveals through letters and correspondence how they were affected by laws and government policies that defined who was ‘Aboriginal’ and who was not. It chronicles their struggle to keep their extended family together, fight for Australia in World War I, make  good on a soldier settlement block in Gippsland, and survive ill health and poverty.
Lucy with her children - Gwendoline, Phillip, Alice, Sarah, Lena & Sam
This extraordinary story of the fight is told through correspondence between Percy and Lucy Pepper, government officials and Aboriginal administrators. The letters now form a part of the collections of the National Archives of Australia and Public Record Office Victoria, they were gathered together by Simon Flagg when he worked for PROV.
Through telling the story of the Peppers, the book  illustrates many of the issues that Aboriginal families faced in early twentieth-century Victoria.
This is an ebook in epub format and requires a compatible ebook reader application on a portable device (such as iPad, other tablet computer, Kindle or Kobo), or on a laptop or desktop PC, and is available for $9.95 from the Public Records Office
Don't wish to buy the book, just borrow it? then place a Hold on "Footprints"

Percy Pepper was the son of Nathaniel and Louise Pepper. Nathaniel had grown up on the Ebenezer Mission Station at Antwerp, before moving to the Ramahyuck Mission Station in Gippsland.

The headstone of Nathaniel's brother Phillip at Ebenezer