75th Anniversary (3: 1941)

 

Day 3: 1941 - The war on the political front saw Jeparit's Robert Menzies resign as Prime Minister. 

 The siege for the Rats of Tobruk began and lasted for most of the year. 

Bomb damage to Ward 10, Tobruk Hospital

Japan entered the war as an Axis power following its surprise attack on Pearl Harbour. 

On the home front, the paper saw many entries concerning locals in the different theatres of battle.

  

   

The original Longerenong College building, which burned down in January 1940. The Agricultural College was established in 1889. >>

Where in the world?

Have just come across this marvellous online list “Victorian BDM Place Name Abbreviations List”

The list is comprised of place name abbreviations used in the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages registry indexes. It is useful for all three versions of the indexes.

The list currently contains 3,215 abbreviations, including abbreviation errors, and is a work in progress. Please be aware that every effort has been made to ensure that place names are correct to the abbreviations. Research has been done with various resources to prove a birth or death in the locality that matches each abbreviation.

Abbreviations are generally representative of a settlement, town or suburb, but can be a shire, county, parish, area, creek, river, gully, forest, hill, mountain, road, hospital, asylum, convent or ship. And includes some interesting examples – ‘A Rat Hosp’ is Ararat Hospital, 'Greg' is Gre Gre South, ‘Astrens St’ is not some obscure street in a Melbourne suburb, but the abbreviation used for the McTavish births at Ashens Station in 1859.

Shed at 'Longerenong' probably built by Donald McTavish c1860

In 1856 Donald & Jane McTavish and their family moved from Hedi (Oxley's Plains near Wangaratta) to Ashens to work as a shepherd and carpenter for Dugald McPherson. They lived at an outstation, in a shepherd’s hut at the northern tip of Taylors (Drung Drung) Lake, then part of the Ashens Run, some 5 miles from the homestead.

A week before Christmas in 1856 Jane gave birth to a frail baby boy - Donald – with the help of the station women. Then in February 1859 Jane gave birth to her 9^th child – Margaret. (McTavish information from “Thy portion”). 

The Garden Shed today

Some abbreviations can represent multiple places (but at least you know the possible options) and there are also multiple abbreviations for a single place from different time periods (there are over 15 derivative abbreviations of Williamstown).
Some places no longer exist or are now known under a different name. They are indicated in the comments if known.
All in all a valuable asset if you're trawling through the BDM registers.

What happened...

Longerenong Homestead, when it was owned by Donna in 2010

"What happened to the camels of the Burke & Wills Expedition?" is the title of an article by Donna Bourke published in the Public Record Office Victoria's 'Provenance' magazine Issue 9.

From the homestead verandah overlooking the gardens, 2010

While she owned Longerenong Homestead, Donna Bourke became intrigued by the story of the camels that survived the expeditions of Burke and Wills, after discovering there was a link to Longerenong and Samuel Wilson.

Copy of Eugene von Guerard sketches of Longerenong c1868

The full article story is available online at the PROV's site and it includes a number of William Strutt's images.
There is more information on the camels during the Expedition at the Burke & Wills research archive and on the camels at Burke & Wills: Have camels will travel
For information on the expedition, check out the State Library of Victoria's Dig page

Cameler Dost Mahomet's grave near Menindee in N.S.W. >>

 Dost was a member of the Expedition's Depot Party, and afterwards stayed at Menindee to care for the sick camels

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.

Dressed to make the film

Now that 'The Dressmaker' film has hit the theatres and the DVD has been released, people are looking to see who and what they recognise (refer to earlier post 'Done and dusted' of filming scenes in the Wimmera). Here is a location guide to film settings, with screen shots from the DVD matched to actual places.

Dungatar looking up the hill to Molly's

Dungatar town exteriors - Mt Rothwell near Little River (room interiors - Docklands Studio)

The approach to Jung

Silo - distant views - Jung, except for the CGI superimposed on Mt Rothwell landscape (close-ups - Docklands Studio) 

 << The real Jung silos beside the Melbourne-Adelaide rail-line.

Below - the silos as in the film with Gyton Grantley (playing Barney McSwiney) sitting on the lid of the steel bin.

Jung silos looking west

 Dance exterior - Sailors Home Hall (interior - Williamstown)

Sailors Home Hall with the Blue Ribbon Rd in front

The Sailors Home Hall & toilet block

Molly's burial - Jerro Cemetery

Mourners at the Jerro Cemetery

The Jerro Cemetery, north of Jung on the Greenhills Road

Wedding church - unknown

Longerenong Homestead

Wedding breakfast - Longerenong Homestead

The marquee on the front lawn at the homestead

Side view of the Longerenong Homestead

Winyerp Theatre exterior - Murtoa (interior - Yarraville)

Murtoa's Mechanics Institute Hall

Football match - Jung Recreation Reserve

The massive gums surrounding Jung Rec Reserve

The pavilions at the Jung Rec Reserve

Train - Victorian Goldfields Railway (Muckleford Station and steam locomotive D3 639)

Leaving Muckleford for Maldon

Done and dusted

Now that location filming has finished for 'The dressmaker' and all the movie stars have left, we can reflect on some of the scenery which will may appear in the finished product.

Dawn in the Wimmera

Here are some of the pics from the film's Facebook page, including this quote - 
"We're bowled over by the warm welcome we've had in the Wimmera! 
Thank you so much to all of the locals out there."
While in the area the crew filmed at Jung - the Rec Reserve - for the story's football match.
Here are  two different moods on the approach to town.

Then of course there was the wedding scene, shot at Longerenong homestead, what a backdrop!

And after the wedding of course the wedding breakfast. Apparently their inspiration for the wedding dessert table came from Mrs Beeton's famous English cookbook (believe some of the old school fundraiser books would have been great sources, or the Green & Gold and PWMU Cookery Book), and their grandmother's secret recipes.They sent reference photos to the Oven Door Bakery in Horsham and  got this in reply.

As well as the Wimmera, other filming was undertaken at the studios in Docklands in Melbourne, and at Mt Rothwell near Little River.

Visitors to Mt Rothwell

It looks authentic - Molly's house from the Dungatar main street.

That is till you add in the film-crew

Now it is a wait for the editing/production process and release of the film in the middle of 2015.

Stately homes too

When I was trawling the Net for information on the Bishop's Palace, I came across a reference to the sale of the historic Ercildoune.
Thomas Livingstone-Learmonth (1783-1869), a strict Presbyterian, was a merchant in Edinburgh, Scotland who made a great deal of money in the service of the British East India Company. Thomas was a merchant in Hobart, Tasmania in 1835 with his four sons John, Thomas Jnr., Somerville and Andrew. Thomas and Somerville were still in their teens when they were sent by their father to Victoria to find suitable sheep farming land. Leaders in the pastoral settlement of the Port Phillip district, they first settled at the head of the Barwon River, Geelong, and then at Buninyong followed by Burrumbeet in 1838. In 1849 Ercildoun was licensed in the names of John, Thomas Junior and Somerville. Erection of the house started in 1840 and additions added until it was finally completed in 1858-59.

The home and gardens from the air

Ercildoun became one of the more famous stately properties in rural Victoria. The Scottish baronial homestead with gabled wings and crow stepped and castellated parapets, was built of granite hewn from the slopes of Mount Ercildoun and handmade bricks from a kiln on the property.

Set on 73 hectares the two-storey homestead comprises nine bedrooms and three bathrooms, and features a ballroom and a library. A self-contained three-bedroom residence in the former maid's quarters is at the rear of the homestead. 22 houses were built on the property for 64 men and their families with its own school and gaol.

The Learmonths were also outstanding gardeners and created a network of paths and cultivated garden beds including oaks, elms, poplars, chestnuts and plane trees in pots brought from Scotland. They were leaders in the use of machinery with threshing and winnowing machines and had a flour mill powered by a water-mill which ground their wheat.

The main door with the 1838 keystone

The Learmonth family history dates back to the 13^th century. Ercildoune has a copy of the tower or keep situated in the Borders region of Scotland to the west of the homestead. They apparently brought back to Ercildoun a stone from this keep and it was inscribed and placed in to the replica built here: ‘Stone from Rhymer’s Tower at Earlston, Scotland, occupied in the 13th century by Thomas the Rhymer’ whose direct line is Mary Livingstone a favourite maid of Mary Queen of Scots and the African explorer.

Thomas eventually married and sadly a daughter died at only a few weeks of age in 1858 and she is buried in the Ercildoun Cemetery that closed for interments in 1895.

In 1873 the Learmonths sold the station to Sir Samuel Wilson on a walk-in walk-out basis. Sir Samuel with his brothers - John and Charles, had bought Longerenong in 1856. He created an irrigation system that became the forerunner of today’s Mallee-Wimmera water gravitation scheme. He established a Sambar deer park on Mount Ercildoune and released chital deer into the Wimmera in the 1860’s from his Longerenong property.

The ballroom with the balcony in the ceiling

The ballroom's balcony

Sir Samuel also added the letter ‘e’ to Ercildoune because he wanted an even number of letters on his gates. The garden was extended to 40 acres and the impressive 1 mile long carriage way planted out with pine trees. He built a 1 acre 10’ high walled garden modelled on similar gardens in England for the cultivation of tender plants and vegetables and built a massive glass curvilinear conservatory that unfortunately is no longer in existence. He may have added the back wing to the homestead, and is believed to have built the Gothic style Manager’s House above the lake. At the height of his residency there were 125 people employed including 13 gardeners.

A section of the walled gardens

Dame Nellie Melba leased Ercildoune in 1907 and had a tennis court built for her use.

Sir Alan Currie bought Ercildoune from the Estate of Sir Samuel in 1920-21., and Lady Currie carried on the property after Major Currie died in 1942, until she too passed away on 1962.

John and Christine Dever from Melbourne purchased the property in 1999, restored it and were looking to sell it for about $4 million in May this year.
(Historical information & photographs from the Ercildoune website)