Family history conferencing at home

RootsTech 2022 will be held March 3rd - 5th, 2022.

It is entirely virtual and completely free (though you do need to register) You can join the world's largest family history conference from their website: www.rootstech.org .

RootsTech welcomes millions of people worldwide to learn & to celebrate family at the family history conference and year-long learning platform. With thousands of classes, inspiring speakers, meaningful activities and joyful connections.

All the major family history search are represented, including: FamilySearch, Ancestry, My Heritage, FamilyTreeDNA, Family Tree Maker, Photomyne, TheGenealogist, The Family History Guide Association, National Genealogical Society (US)…

The Schedule starts streaming at 8:00am in Salt Lake City, (2:00 am [Thursday] in Sydney/Melbourne) and continues for the next 72 hours. You can join in at any time and watch what is playing on the main stage, watch one of over 900 class sessions, visit the virtual expo hall, and connect with other attendees, & your Relatives at RootsTech (an online experience that shows if (and how) you are related to other RootsTech attendees). Classes begin at any time that you are ready to begin, it is all about your schedule and individual needs (Sessions are available at the website via streaming – no downloading is available).

To create a personalised schedule - Click the plus button at the bottom of each preview tile for a class session or on the session page to add that class to your playlist. In the top navigation you will see a play button icon where you can access everything you have added to your list.

RootsTech is hosted by the FamilySearch people, and aimed at the American & international audience, but as family history research is about the whole wide world, and with over 1,500 sessions, you can find something of relevance & interest to you. Check out the Innovators Portal for some of the new & emerging tech!

Finding Jane's flowers

It is 155 years since the Duff children - Isaac, Jane, and Frank - were lost in the bush at Nurcoung.
The Library is commemorating the anniversary in a number of ways.

Firstly it has organised a further batch of the 'Lost in the bush' DVD. Copies of this DVD, of the 1970s film, quickly ran out after the 150th celebrations, and these DVDs will be the last produced.

Secondly the Library has produced a booklet "Lost in the bush : day by day" which as the title suggests is a day by day account of what happened on each of the 9 days.

And finally the Library is conducting a special event "Finding Jane;'s flowers : the role of plants in the 'Lost in the bush' story". Locals will show and talk about some of the plants endemic to the area, plants the children would have encountered. The talk will also discuss life and stories of the bush around the Nurcoung district.
"Finding Jane's flowers" will be held at the Goroke Library, 30 Main St Goroke on Thursday 15th August at 2:00pm, and will include afternoon tea. There will be copies of the DVD and booklet available for sale. The event is free and bookings are essential. Go to the library's website and follow the "Finding Jane's flowers" link.

To be sure

With such a large ancestry from the Emerald Isle, researching your Irish family heritage is part of many a family history.
The Genealogical Society of Victoria are conducting "Beginning your Irish family history"
The presenters are Maureen Doyle and Beryl O'Gorman.
Topic covered will include BDMs,census & other substitutes, and land records. 
The session is on Thursday 15th August from 10:30am to 1:00pm, at Level 6, Queen St in Melbourne.
Costs for GSV members: $30, RHSV/CAV/FHC members: $45, Non-members: $60.
Books are essential. Contacts Phone: 9662 4455 Email: gsv@gsv.org.au Website: www.gsv.org.au

'Our Free Library"

Neilson biography by Hugh Anderson & Les Blake

The Minimay Hall Committee is organising John Shaw Neilson commemorative events for the 19^th 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 12^th 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).

Michael's Hell Ship

For more than a century and a half, a grim tale has passed down through Michael Veitch's family: the story of the “Ticonderoga”, a clipper ship that sailed on a calamitous voyage from Liverpool for Victoria in August 1852.Crammed on board in cramped, overcrowded conditions, often without sanitary facilities, fresh water and barely enough food, were 800 poor but hopeful emigrants- mostly Scottish victims of the Clearances and the potato famine. A better life, they believed, awaited them in Australia.

Three months later, a ghost ship struggled into Port Phillip Bay flying the dreaded yellow flag of contagion. On her horrific three-month long nightmare voyage, deadly typhus had erupted, killing a quarter (nearly 200) of Ticonderoga's passengers and leaving many more desperately ill. Sharks, it was said, had followed her passage as the victims were buried at sea. 

The plague-stricken sailing ship struck panic in Melbourne. Forbidden to dock at the gold-boom town, the ship was directed to a lonely beach on the far tip of the Mornington Peninsula, a place now called Ticonderoga Bay. 

The Quarantine Station administrative building

James William Henry Veitch was the ship's assistant surgeon, on his first appointment (and last) at sea. Among the volunteers who helped him tend to the sick and dying was a young woman from the island of Mull, Annie Morrison. What happened between them on that terrible voyage is a testament to human resilience, and to love.

Michael Veitch is their great-great-grandson, and the book “Hell Ship” is his brilliantly researched narrative of one of the biggest stories of its day, now all but forgotten. Broader than his own family's story, it brings to life the hardships and horrors endured by those who came by sea to seek a new life in Australia.

But there’s more...this story was repeatedly told to Michael all his young life by his own father, he has carried it and explored it all these years. 

You can hear the story directly from Michael in a performance at the Horsham Town Hall. Told with pieces of music from the era performed by Michael’s son, there will be the web of four generations of Veitch on stage. This is truly a family story.

Michael captures the human aspects in what is essentially a dark story. Even in a dying ship’s hull there is always some small thing that a wry sense of humour can find to lift us out of the putrid desolation that marks our history.

Michael Veitch’s story of the Ticonderoga delves into our Australian emigrant history, explores the themes of unimaginable courage, of family, and shines the light on a monumental, but almost forgotten, human story. This one, his own.

Upon the arrival of the “Ticonderoga” on the 22nd December 1852, a quarantine station was hastily erected at this site.  Sadly, a cemetery was also immediately required as of the 170 people that died due to Typhus Fever that engulfed the ship, 70 people were to perish upon their arrival to Port Phillip.

Heaton’s Monument marks the location of the original cemetery established at the quarantine station on Point Nepean. The cemetery was relocated inland around 1854, but the neo-Egyptian style sandstone memorial to the Ticonderoga Tragedy and to all those who endured the lengthy passage in migrant transport ships to Australia remains. 

George Heaton was the Supervisor responsible for building much of the Quarantine Station. It is believed that he built the monument at great expense to himself, in memory of the migrants who died.

DATE: 8th September 2018

TIME: 8pm

VENUE: Horsham Town Hall Theatre

DURATION: 70 minutes (no interval)

PRICE: $40 – Adult, $35 – Concession, $30 - 2018 Member, $25 - 2018 Member Concession.

Contact the Box Office on (03) 5382 9555.

Planes, Trains and Fuel Tanks

The Wimmera Branch of the National Trust is organising a special bus tour as part of the Australian Heritage Festival.

Serviceton Railway Station

Visit and tour the historic Serviceton Railway Station, the Nhill Airfield and Wolseley Fuel Tanks by coach from Horsham.

The Wimmera Branch will host a special coach trip leaving the Horsham Library car park to travel to Nhill, Wolseley, Mundulla and Serviceton. Representatives from each stop-over will meet and greet the visitors.

At the Nhill Aviation Heritage Centre. The Centre has a Avro Anson, Link Trainer and Tiger Moth, and is fundraising for a Wirraway. See the current restoration projects while partaking of a refreshing morning tea.

Water tower, Sericeton

Crossing the border into South Australia, view the Wolseley Fuel Tanks which were camouflaged as farm buildings. In WWII fuel storage depots were erected at various inland sites considered secure from attack by sea-borne aircraft. At Wolseley two standard 120,000 gallon storage tanks and one 40,000 gallon ethyl mixing tank were erected & camouflaged to look like farm buildings with broom bush and straw.

Take in lunch at the historic 1884 Mundulla Hotel for their seasonal menu (at additional cost), or BYO picnic hamper in the park opposite the hotel.

Back in Victoria, tour the once-grand 1887 Serviceton Railway Station. Built on the border between Victoria and South Australia, Serviceton served as both the changeover point for the different railway gauges and Customs Control between states until Federation in 1901.

Serivceton Railway Station Yards, T. Payne

Serviceton, close to the Victoria-South Australia border, was the changeover point for locomotives and crews on the broad-gauge system until through-running was introduced between Melbourne and Adelaide. Thus a variety of motive-power and rolling stock from both state-systems could be expected there at any one time. In more recent years this line has been converted to standard-gauge; most of the facilities seen in this photograph are but a memory and trains no longer stop there.  Taken on 2 December 1967 by Ted Payne (from “Closed station - Lost Locations Victoria part 2” Train Hobby Publications).

This amazing photograph shows the station at a time of transformation - steam is still going strong, but there’s a rail-motor backed up to the water tower which has since been dismantled, and a diesel locomotive. Curious items are the 2 M.A.S.H.-looking ambulances and the caravan parked beside the grain shed. Things that have disappeared are, the water tower on the left, the All Saints Anglican Church and the cattle loading yards, and all the siding track.

Refreshment Room, Serviceton

Enjoy afternoon tea in the Station Refreshment Room before returning home.

This is a rare opportunity to see some special locations and learn from their stories.

Details: The tour is on Sunday 6^th May, 2018. Parking available in Library Carpark, where the bus departs from.

Arrive at the Library 8:15 for a 8:30am departure. The toilet-equipped bus will be returning at approximately 6:00pm.

Cost is $75:00 per person. Pre-booking is required, contact tintacarwimmera@outlook.com or by phoning 03 5382 0681.

Hamilton descendants

Via its Facebook page 'Pioneering Days Western Victoria', the call has gone out to all the Hamilton descendants of J.C. Hamilton and his brother Tom Hamilton. The invitation is extended to all residents of the Western District, including the Bringalbert and Ozenkadnook sites. 

Lake Bringalbert

There will be a reprint of J.C. Hamilton's book ("Pioneering days of Western Victoria"), with added feature of Tom's association with the Aboriginal Cricket Team of 1868 including his inclusion into the Australian Stockman's Hall of Fame.

J.C. (Joseph Charles) Hamilton was born in Ormiston in Scotland on 11th April 1836. He and his family arrived in Melbourne in 1841, and with J.C.'s uncle Thomas Gibson established Bringalbert and Ozenkadnook pastoral properties. J.C. died at Apsley in 1927, not long after publication of his manuscript "Pioneering days in Western Victoria : a narrative of early station life".
The Group is looking for any direct descendants of J.C.'s younger brother - Thomas Gibson Hamilton was born at Kilmore in May 1844, and died in 1875. His headstone in the Melbourne Central Cemetery reads. "Late of the Bringalbert Station near Apsley who died on the 2nd April 1875. Aged 30 years. His death certificate states he died from Peritonitis after suffering a fever for 3 weeks. He had a son Thomas Gibson Hamilton II was born posthumously in August 1875 and died in 1953. Tom Jnr's mother was Mary Grace Cross (1855-1934).
An earlier series of posts  'Overland' detail Thomas Gibson Hamilton's overland trek to Darwin as told by his nephew.

The flat practice ground in front of the Bringalbert woolshed

The book launch will take place in Edenhope on the shores of Lake Wallace where Tom bought his Aboriginal team from Bringalbert Station to practice with the Edenhope Cricket Club in 1865/1866.

Solving the Wonnangatta mystery

The Wonnangatta murders occurred in late 1917 and in 1918, in the remote Wonnangatta Valley in the High Country in Victoria. The victims were manager of the Wonnangatta station property Jim Barclay, and John Bamford, a cook and general hand on Wonnangatta. While Barclay was a well-respected and much liked bushman, Bamford was regarded with suspicion, and was known to be easily roused into violent tempers. The case has never been solved, but many stories abound.

Wonnangatta Valley

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wonnangatta murders, Horsham Branch are running a Criminal Investigation session on 10th January 2018

Each participant will receive a copy of one of the five published books relating to Wonnangatta and the murders, and their own “Wonnangatta Casebook”. They then need to read the story, and formulate their theory or theories. Then write up their thoughts in their casebook, thinking about any relevant -

* Clues

* Suspects

* A timeline

* Motives

* Facts

To test their hypothesis, all participants will meet with other contributors in a round table discussion on 10th January at 18:00 hours (6pm) in the Squad Room at Horsham Library.

Places are limited. Bookings are essential and must be made in person at the library to collect your books.

Family history on the land

 
State Library of Victoria is hosting its 14th annual Family History Feast during the National Family History Month. 

Enjoy free information sessions on a range of subjects based on this year’s theme, and learn how Victorian government agencies can help family historians. 

This year’s program is of special interest to country people, as it is on researching maps and land records.

The Program begins at 9.30am when the doors open

10–10.05am
Welcome
Kate Torney, Chief Executive Officer, State Library Victoria

10.05–11am
Exploring Koorie history and genealogy
John Patten, Manager Bunjilaka Aboriginal Cultural Centre, Museums Victoria

11–11.45am
Overview of Public Record Office Victoria land records
Charlie Farrugia, Senior Collections Advisor, Public Record Office Victoria  

11.45am–12.05pm
Care and preservation of your family history collection
Conservation staff, State Library Victoria

12.05–1pm
Break

1–1.45pm
Farmland and manor houses to air fields and hospitals: military property acquisition during WWII
Terrie Page, Assistant Director Access and Communication, Victorian State Office, National Archives of Australia 

1.45–2.15pm
From cattle yards to war workers: the plan collection of Bendigo Regional Archives Centre
Dr Michele Matthews, Archives Officer, Bendigo Regional Archives Centre

2.15–3pm
Family history on the map
Sarah Ryan, Coordinator Map Collection, State Library Victoria

3–4pm
2017 Don Grant Memorial Lecture – Families and land: land settlement and the role of families, Victoria 1870–1940
Dr Charles Fahey, Convener History Program, Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University
Introduced by Jan Parker, President, Victorian Association of Family History Organisations (VAFHO)

Enjoy free information sessions on a range of subjects based on this year’s theme, and learn how Victorian government agencies can help family historians.

Family history feast is on Monday 21st August 2017 from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Entry is via Door 3 of the State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston St, Melbourne.

The sessions are free, but bookings are essential. You can book online, Phone: 03 8664 7099 or Email: inquiries@slv.vic.gov.au

Great celebrations

Great Western are set to celebrate a grand date, as the school celebrates its 150th anniversary.
Great Western Primary School opened as a Common School in February 1867 in a new single-room brick building with a shingle roof on Lot 4, Section 7 of the town. 

80 pupils were crammed on long benches in the Common School

In 1872, the Education Act (1872) was introduced and Common Schools were re-titled State Schools, and Great Western became Great Western State School No. 860. The Act provided for free, compulsory and secular education for all Victorian children to 15 years. 

 A new single-room wooden school building fronting Stephenson Street was built, and opened in May 1881. 

The Church of England purchased the Common School building in 1883, and used it as a church, library, Sunday school and church hall. 
 An Infant room was added in 1923. At the centenary celebrations in August 1967 a pond, wall feature & obelisk were constructed on the south corner. In 1977 a 2 classroom unit was transported onto the site.
The celebrations commence on the 13th October, with a Dinner on 14th, and a parade of vehicles through the ages - from horse-drawn carts to vintage cars.
The School 150th Committee are looking to attract former students and teachers to the weekend and have started a Facebook page 

Finding Families

The State Library of Victoria is conducting another of their “Finding Families” workshops. 

The State Library offers a wealth of expertise and information for experienced family historians and those just starting out on the journey, including newspapers, databases, letters, diaries and manuscripts, maps, passenger lists and electoral rolls. You'll find all the inspiration and resources you need to research your family's past.

Start to build your family tree in this helpful workshop – learn the principles of family history, access research resources and tour the Family History collection, and it is recommended for beginners.

The workshop will be held at the State Library, 328 Swanston Street in Melbourne, (on the corner with La Trobe Street) on 23rd May 2017, 10:30am–12:30pm (meet in the Library’s front foyer)

The event is free, but bookings are required, and can be made online at Finding families

Phone: 03 8664 7099

Email: inquiries@slv.vic.gov.au

War Heritage Roadshow

Australia's experience of war, especially in the First and Second World Wars, helped shape our sense of ourselves as a nation and as a community with a distinctive ethos and way of life. To provide opportunities for future generations to understand, investigate and value these experiences, we must ensure that significant material relating to Australia's war heritage is preserved, not just in official national and state institutions, but also in personal, family and community collections.

Department of Premier and Cabinet - Veterans Branch and the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation will deliver a series of free workshops for the public across Victoria. The workshops will bring Australia's leading experts in preservation for a two-day line-up of free workshops and information sessions.
Details are available at the website. 
Bookings are essential.
Further event days may be scheduled, but currently the dates and locations are:

• PROV/Victorian Archives Centre, 99 Shiel St, North Melbourne on Friday 31st March and Saturday 1st April

• Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard St North, Ballarat on Wednesday 26th and Thursday 27th April

• St Paul's Anglican Cathedral, 8 Myers St, Bendigo on Friday 28th and Saturday 29th April

The first day is dedicated to Consultations from 10am to 4pm, with bookings for free 20 minute individual sessions with one of the experts.

The memorabilia (no weapons or munitions, for advice on these bring a photo only) brought in to these sessions will be photographed, as a documentary record of the workshops. Observer tickets are also available.

The war heritage roadshow team will also deliver information sessions on how to research your family's military history and a series of conservation demonstrations:Metals cleaning, Disaster preparedness and recovery for the home, Archival framing, Dry cleaning of paper memorabilia, Packing & transport of framed works, and Padded supports for textiles.

The second day is Activity Day

Talk: Caring for wartime memorabilia

Demonstration & information sessions: Brush vacuuming & insect checking of textiles/uniforms, Cleaning & care of framed works, Removing photographs from magnetic albums, Archival storage of paper memorabilia, Mould cleaning of paper memorabilia, Cleaning & care of framed works, Packing & transport of framed works, Removing photographs from magnetic albums, Cleaning of metals, and Researching family military history.

All sessions will run for approximately 15 minutes.

Enquiries Email: warheritageroadshow@gmail.com

The 'School Bus' Tour

As part of the National Trust’s Heritage Festival, a hosted bus tour of some of the rural and town school sites surrounding Horsham will be conducted. The tour will visit a number of marked and unmarked school sites, and some abandoned school buildings. Narrative on the tour will include the history of various schools and stories of the districts. 

The 'School Bus' Tour will be conducted on Sunday 30th April 2017, from 1pm to 5pm.

The cost is $25:00 per person. Numbers are limited to the bus capacity, so bookings are essential. To book either visit the Horsham Library, or phone 5382 5707 or for library members registered with Proscribe – go to proscribe.net./subscriber/login.php.

The meeting place is at the bus in the Mibus Centre Carpark, 26-28 McLachlan Street, Horsham. Free parking available at the Mibus Centre Carpark.

Attendees will encounter some steps and uneven surfaces. Refreshments will be available enroute. More details at the National Trust site.

Other National Trust Heritage Festival events include ‘Sir Samuel Speaks’ a Mother’s Day high-tea at Longerenong Homestead.

W.O.F. 2017

This year's 'Women on Farms Gathering' is again in the region, and will be held at Harrow in the West Wimmera Shire.
The event will run for 3 days - Friday 24th to Sunday 26th March, with a variety of events, workshops, bus tours, and entertainment.

Details are on the  West Wimmera Women on Farms Gathering 2017 website, with a program list and registration form.

Once again the Library will be conducting three workshops - 
'Place-names of the Wimmera': explore the history of the Wimmera and Southern Mallee region at 'Place-names of the Wimmera', a presentation showing how explorers and surveyors named specific places – localities & towns, parishes & counties, and lakes & streams, hills & mountains across the region. It includes Aboriginal and historic etymology of some of the place names.
'Delve into your Family History : using electronic tools': learn how libraries can assist in researching local & family history using online resources such as TROVE, Find My Past, Ancestry, and PROV.
'Country Schools': a photographic journey around the Wimmera,showcasing the many and varied schools which have existed over the years.These schools also represented centres of communities often serving as churches, halls, polling booths and dance venues. Many of the now vanished schools were small one-teacher rural schools which existed for short periods of time opening, moving and closing as school-age populations waxed and waned with farming fortunes.

The presentations will be held in the Harrow Library at the Harrow Hall.
To book go to the registration page of the WOF website (registrations close on 3rd March). 

Historians and digital

Are you doing anything important on 16th November?
How about attending -
'Bread & stones: historians using & preserving digital sources'

This Making Public Histories seminar brings together experts to discuss how the prevalence of electronic sources of information is changing the ways that historians work.

Presentations and discussion will explore the subject of discovering and using electronic data, and preserving it for further use.

The session will be chaired by PROV's Owen O'Neil, and the Speakers are:

Michael Jones from the University of Melbourne and Museum Victoria

Sarah Slade of the State Library of Victoria

Daniel Wilksch from Public Record Office Victoria

This seminar is part of the ongoing Making Public Histories series exploring public history within the framework of topical issues in Australia. It is a joint initiative between State Library Victoria, the History Council of Victoria and Monash University.

'Bread & stones' is on 6pm - 7:30 pm Wednesday 16th November, in the Village Roadshow Theatrette room at the State Library in Melbourne.
The event is free, but bookings are essential. You can register/book online
For more details phone: 03 8664 7099 or email: inquiries@slv.vic.gov.au

Soldiering on the land

A PROV “Soldier On” exhibition will be at Horsham Library from Monday October 17th until Friday 25th November, and then at St. Arnaud Library from Tuesday 29th November 7 until Friday 16th December.

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 ambitious and controversial schemes involved subdividing large rural estates into smaller parcels of land for family farming blocks and leasing them back to discharged service-people. In Victoria around 11,000 farms were created. Each potential settler was required to be certified as qualified to apply, and if successful to remain in residence on that land for 5 years. In this way remote rural areas set aside for such settlement were guaranteed a population expansion for a number of years

Erecting a standard soldier settler home (SLV)

The First World War Soldier Settlement Scheme had been administered by the Lands Department and culminated with the majority of farmers walking off the land and ultimately a Royal Commission. The Soldier Settlement Commission (later called The Rural Finance Commission) began in 1945 to oversee the WW2 Soldier Settlement Scheme.

Oliver Telfer's (ex-22nd Battalion Gallipoli veteran) first house, Lascelles, 1922 (Vic. Museum)

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. 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.

An Exhibition Launch with a talk from the Exhibition Curator Kate Luciano of the Public Record Office Victoria, will take place at Horsham Library on Monday October 17th at 6.30pm. Bookings are essential via visiting the library or phoning 5382 5707.

Rup on film at Rup

The film ‘The Farmer’s Cinematheque’ will have a special one-off screening at the Rupanyup Memorial Hall at 2pm on Sunday 9^th October.

‘The Farmer’s Cinematheque’ tells a story that comes from Rupanyup, although it could equally be a story from many other country towns. For more details on the history of the film see this previous post.

There’s a poetic resonance to this event, as the late John Teasdale, creator of most of the archival celluloid interpreted within the film, served many years as the projectionist for the Memorial Hall, in between his farming and his filmmaking. (The Memorial Hall makes a few appearances within the film.)

For information on the film, including a 2 minute teaser, please follow the link.

Admission to the Rupanyup screening costs $5  and includes afternoon tea.

A DVD version of ‘The Farmer’s Cinematheque’ will be launched at the screening, and copies will be available to purchase.