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 10 October 2018

'Our Free Library"

Neilson biography by Hugh Anderson & Les Blake
The Minimay Hall Committee is organising John Shaw Neilson commemorative events for the 19th October. There will be poetry readings by school children and members of the John Shaw Neilson Society, and an official dinner in the Soldiers Memorial Hall, with the unveiling of a Neilson portrait by Ron Penrose.
John Shaw Neilson was born on 22 February 1872 at Penola, South Australia, eldest son of Scottish-born John Neilson bush-worker and selector, and his wife Margaret, née McKinnon. Known as Jock, he attended the local school for less than two years and as a small child worked as a farm labourer for his father.
The Neilson's cottage originally at Penola, now re-constructed at Nhill

In 1881 John Neilson senior and his half-brother Dave Shaw joined the South Australian farmers making the long trek by wagon over the border to take up selections under the Victorian Land Act and were each allotted 320 acres north of Lake Minimay.
In the first year on their Minimay selection, the Neilsons cleared 6 acres and ploughed, sowed and harvested by hand, but after deducting the money owed to the storekeeper found they had made £7 from the crop. Impoverished and bankrupt, they were forced to seek station work to exist, and only devoted their spare time to the selection where the family lived in a crude mud-plastered house for eight years. Neilson Senior asked for extensions to pay the annual rent year after year, until in 1888 the storekeeper foreclosed.
The John Shaw Neilson monument at Dow Well

By June 1889 they had shifted to Dow Well, a few miles west of Nhill. Although he did his share of clearing and working the land, Neilson found time to wander the swamps and woodlands as a keen observer of nature, gathering eggs and listening to birdsongs, foraging for mushrooms, and tracking wild bees, and for some months went to school at Dow Well/Tarranginnie East State School in 1885-86, leaving when he turned 14.
Neilson and his father generally worked as farm-hands, timber-cutters, or roadmaking workers for the Lowan Shire council, but were also staunch unionists when shearing. Both belonged to the local literary society, and both won prizes for verse in the Australian Natives' Association competitions in 1893. Neilson Senior was a published bush poet, who appears to have started writing verse when he was about 30, and contributed to local newspapers and Adelaide Punch. He won another prize for verse in 1897, but achieved his widest popularity in outback shearing sheds with a song, 'Waiting for the Rain'. Although he lacked 'the outstanding poetical genius of his son', he was a writer of some achievement in the face of a lifelong bitter struggle for existence and little schooling; his verse was issued in book form, The Men of the Fifties, in 1938.
John Shaw Neilson wrote the poem 'Our fee library' about the Nhill Library.
Frank Shann, editor of the Nhill Mail, printed verse by Neilson for some years. Most was conventional and undistinguished. The family moved into Nhill in mid-1893, still deep in poverty and existing on municipal contracts and farm work, but by May 1895 they were on the road again travelling north to take up a scrub-covered Mallee selection near Lake Tyrrell, which had to be rolled and burned and grubbed before ploughing and sowing.
With poor health from heavy labouring work and failing eyesight Neilson moved to Melbourne, where he was employed by the CRB (Country Roads Board) in 1928.
John Shaw Neilson died on 12th May 1942 in Melbourne.

The Minimay Hall Committee is encouraging former school students to attend the celebrations. For more information and/or to book contact members: Geoff Carracher (53866261), Jenny Chenhall (0416264113) or Dick Smith (53866241).

Wednesday 3 October 2018

Jenkin's Library

Re-posting this, as I've just come across this photograph of Jenkin's store c1960 (thanks to the book "Road Board to Restructure : the history of the Shire of Wimmera").

 It started innocently enough with:
"I have been given this book - wonder if you know anything about the Jenkin's  library".
So off to search Trove, with this result:

JENKIN'S 
Music Shop, Fancy Goods and Gifts 
Parents who sincerely desire to give their young folks a good start in life will see that they have the opportunity of learning to play some kind of musical instrument, for there is no more glorious form of artistic expression than music. Those who desire a thoroughly reliable instrument, at a reasonable price, should visit Jenkin's Music and Gift Store in Firebrace Street, Horsham. 
Mrs. R. A. Jenkin and her two sons are the principals of this establishment, which was founded by her husband, Mr. R. A. Jenkin many years ago. and it is to their credit that this thriving business is still one of the most popular shops in Horsham. Mrs. Jenkin assumed control of the business on the death of her husband last year. 
As Allan's agent in Horsham, Jenkin's stock a wide range of instruments including pianos, piano accordeons, accordeons, ukeleles, mouth organs, etc. All the latest sheet music is received by this establishment soon after it is released. An extensive range of gramophone records is always kept up to date by these dealers. This establishment also carries a wide range of crockery, glassware, fancy goods, toys, Semco linens and cottons, fashion books, knitting books, Weigels dress-making patterns, etc. 
Kiddies toys including teddy bears, dolls, and motor cars are also stocked. A feature of this store, with its modern plate glass windows, is its multitude of artistic and beautiful articles suit-able for gifts, including delicate china and beautiful cut glassware. 
The Jenkin's site (under the old Shire Office Buildings facade), now Specsavers
Another important feature of this concern is the circulating library which they conduct. All books by the best known authors are included in this section, including dramas, thrillers, Western and love novels. A large number of new books, many suit-able for gifts, are included. In addition to the circulating library, Mrs. Jenkins also controls the "Readwell" circulating, library, giving a variety of new books every month. It is most worthy of mention that in addition to her husband having served in the last war, Mrs Jenkin is herself a re-turned nursing sister, having served the A.A.N.S. abroad with the last expeditionary force.

This was from 'The Horsham Times', Tuesday 9 July 1940, page 7, and even more importantly the article was from a larger piece "Who's Who In Business". This is now a snapshot of the businesses operating in Horsham in 1940 - an advertorial with a potted history of the business and its people.

Noske's flour mill
The newspaper piece was part of a "Business As Usual" campaign of Horsham business people's determination to maintain service despite upsets due to war and whatever difficulties lie ahead. In these pages something is told of the business people and the service they render. These commercial houses and industrial organisations, on whom you depend for good value and economy, are your agents in the markets of the world. What it now represents is a raft of information on mostly vanished companies and trades, with virtually all these family businesses no longer trading or sold out to other concerns in a generational shift.

Other businesses listed were: R.A. Ludbrook - chemist ; L. Hutchesson & Son - funeral directors ; Noske Brothers - flour mills ; Thomas Young & Co. - auctioneers, stock & station agents, Ford garage ; Roy Findlay - furniture salesman, upholsterer ; Boyds - general drapers ; Bevan's - grocer ; Weight's Timber Yards - builder's supplies, timber ; A. Wynne & Son - duco, iron, fuel, farmers requisites ; R. McMullin - chemists ; Bolton's RACV Garage ; Horsham Butter Factory - dairy products ; Rockman's - ladies' wear specialists ; D. Ellis - baker & pastry cook ; Shepherds - general drapers ; A.F. Weight & Sons - funeral directors ; Peacock's Pharmacy ; M. Robertson - Super Elliott agent (cycles) ; Hotel Locarno - R.E. Charles proprietor ; E.F. Gerlach - hardware, timber & building contractors ; Henry Smartt Trading Co. - (transport) ; F. Cincotta - lounge, milk bar, fruit & confectionery ; Hardinge Brothers - electrical ; A. Taranto - fruit & vegetables ; Dalgety & Co. - (stock & station agents) ; Carine Brothers & Duncan - fibrous plaster manufacturers & plasterers ; Newton & Miller - general carriers, grain & produce merchants.
Wynne's Corner, site of the Wynne's building in 1937 (now Trev's)