Victoria sent about 90,000 men and women to serve overseas in the First World War, about 70,000 of whom survived to return home. As the war continued, the issue of repatriating returning soldiers became increasingly urgent. As well as providing War pensions and other financial assistance, State governments of the time set up ‘settlement’ schemes to support returning soldiers with work. These schemes involved subdividing large rural estates into smaller farming blocks and leasing them back to discharged service-people. In Victoria around 11,000 farms were created.
The Public Record Office Victoria have digitised selected documents from Victorian Government files kept on returned World War One soldiers who were approved to lease a block of farming land in Victoria. They are presented online as “Battle to farm : World War One Soldier Settlement records in Victoria”. These government records will help family and
Australian history researchers understand the individual experience of a soldier settler, as well as the historical context of the Victorian Soldier Settlement Scheme.
There are also 6 "Soldiers' Stories" with photos and video, in addition to the paper files.
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| William & Rebecca |
One of these is William Edward Bradshaw, who was born at Clarendon near Ballarat on 5th June 1888. In his teen he worked as a telegram boy in Ballarat.
William married Rebecca Ralston on 21st April 1917. Their children were Edward, Shirley, Evelyn, Alfred, Dorothy (died at birth), William (died at 6 months), and William.
William enlisted with the Australian infantry in 1917 and fought in the battle of the Somme in France from 1917 until 1918. A qualified engineer before the war, he was recruited to work as a signaller or ‘sapper’ on the battlefields. Signallers were required to be proficient in morse-code signalling on flag, lamp and heliograph, as well as in
map reading (note the flag patch on his right forearm).
William had ambitions to be a farmer on his return to Australia and leased a soldier settler block at Wallaloo on the Avon Plains near St Arnaud in 1920.
Things didn’t go as planned, despite working on a pretty good block he sold his lease. On a good year he harvested 930 bags of wheat and 800 bags of oats. Working two teams of
eight horses left him physically incapacitated, and as a sufferer of acute neuritis by 1924 he had to abandon the land, and sell in November 1924.
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| The farmhouse at Wallaloo |
William might have held onto the farm if he could have afforded to hire labour during his recovery. The costs and the poor timing of this farming scheme meant many farmers couldn’t make it work. The government’s large-scale purchase of land had inflated prices, which inflated the repayments on the leases soldier settlers signed. As the war ended the world-wide supply of agricultural goods and labour increased and therefore the value of the soldier’s investment in land and stock started to fall. Soldier settlers frequently became deeply in debt to stores and suppliers as well as to the government. William’s wheat, which in 1919 would have sold for 7.5 shillings, by 1929 was selling for 3.17 shillings. As the Great Depression set in, the value of all agricultural capital acquired by soldier-settlers was greatly diminished, and was often worth less than half its purchase value in 1929.
William’s story is one of thousands of cases whereby the blocks were transferred to other leaseholders due to either ill health or poor financial returns.
William died of pneumonia in Queensland on 7th August 1935.
William’s story is just one from the PROV site.
You can access the individual records of thousands of World War One returned soldiers who leased farming land across Victoria between 1919 and 1935. Enter a settler’s name in the search box or search by geographic location through the digital map, to zoom to parts of
Victoria and click on a name to access their digitised official settlement record files.
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| The Bradshaws on the verandah |
