Honour inductee

New hot off the presses, or straight from the website of the Department of the Premier & Cabinet.
Local Wotjobaluk Elder Aunty Nancy Harrison has been inducted to the Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll. Aunty Nancy joins other Wimmera inductees - Lester Marks, Johnny Mullagh and Kevin Coombs.Her great-great-grandfather was King Richard who helped track the lost Duff children.

Aunty Nancy at the launch of the Honour Roll at Horsham, 2015

Aunty Nancy was born in Horsham in 1941 and grew up with her 7 brothers and sisters on the Reserve at Antwerp . The children attended the Antwerp State School, till the family moved to Burrumbeet near Ballarat, when Nancy then attended the Ballarat West High School. She worked in the Ballarat offices of the Royal Insurance Company, then the SEC (State Electricity Commission) in accounting & secretarial roles. In the 1950s joined the Department of Defence with the RAAF then the Army tilll she retired.

In 2003 Nancy returned to her traditional home at Dimboola and became involved in the Native Title negotiations for parts of the Little Desert & Wyperfeld lands, culminating with its recognition in 2005.
In the community Nancy has volunteered her time and talents to school children talking on cultural language, history and heritage. She has been involved in archaeological digs at Ebenezer. Nancy was an Ambassador for the Library during the International Year of Reading in 2012. She also worked on the Possum Skin Cloak Project (the cloak represented stories of the traditional owners, past & present).
 So congratulations Aunty Nancy Harrrison - Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll inductee for 2015. 

<< Aunty Nancy in the possum cloak delivering the Welcome to Country speech at the Library's 'Footprints' display in Dimboola 

Lost in the Bush - Weekend in the Wimmera

On the weekend of 15th-16th August, the Lost in the Bush Weekend in the Wimmera will celebrate the unique collaboration between the early settlers and the three Aboriginal trackers who found the Cooper-Duff children. 

 Visitors are invited to participate in a heritage based pilgrimage following the extensions of the story as it draws people deep into the heart of the Wotjobaluk country.  
Some of the activities include:

A Winter Campfire & Acoustic Night with local musicians and poets entertaining campers & visitors at the Jane Duff Memorial site on Saturday evening  from 6pm (bring your own sausages & marshmallows)  
The inaugural 'McCartney's Ride' re-enactment. A small group of riders are celebrating Peter McCartney's overnight ride to fetch the trackers from Mt Elgin. The riders will reach the Jane Duff Memorial site in time for the Sepia Picnic on Sunday at 12:30pm. 
The Sepia Picnic & Bush Activities involves billy tea ,stew and damper around a campfire in the scrub where the Duff children were lost (period dress is optional) on Sunday from 12:30-3:30pm.  
The Duffholme Museum and replica Duff hut will be open from 10am-4pm on Saturday & Sunday.    

The Horsham & District Historical Society will be open on Saturday 10am-1pm with a visual display of photos & museum pieces, the new 'Horsham's Then & Now' exhibition, and  Lost in the Bush items. 
A Wudjubalug Survival in the Bush experience - Barengi Gadjin Land Council guides will conduct a bush tucker & medicine walk, based on age old traditions, at Mt Arapiles on Saturday 1:30-3:30pm.
Full details and registration forms at the Lost in the Bush website.
 A weekend to truly lose yourself in the beauty and stories of the Wimmera region.

Honour Roll launch

A momentous day for the Library today, with the launch of the 2015 Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll road show in the Horsham Library.

Standing: Emma Kealy (Member for Lowan), Aunty Nancy. Front: Cr Mark Radford (Horsham City Mayor),  Uncle Kevin (holding the Honour Roll book), Minister Natalie Hutchins

 After a Welcome To Country speech by Aunty Nancy Harrison from the Barengi Gadjin Land Council Aboriginal Co-operative, the Hon Natalie Hutchins MP (Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Minister for Local Government and Minister for Industrial Relations), introduced Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll inductee Uncle Kevin Coombs OAM.

Along with Lester Marks Harradine and Johnny Mullagh, Uncle Kevin Coombs OAM is one of three Aboriginal people from the Wimmera region to have been inducted to the Honour Roll. He was inducted in 2012, now one of 64 people to have been honoured.

A Wotjobaluk Elder, Uncle Kevin's ancestors lived on the Ebenezer Mission station at Antwerp. Kevin was born at Swan Hill. He became a champion wheelchair basketballer and Australia's first Aboriginal Paralympian in Rome in 1960. Over the next twenty years he went on to represent Australia at another four Paralympics. He also won gold medals for Australia at the Far Eastern South Pacific Games in 1977 and 1984.

Back: Emma Kealy MP, Aunty Nancy, Cr Leo Tellefson (WRLC Chairman). Front: Cr Mark Radford, Uncle Kevin, Natalie Hutchins MP.

Among his many achievements and honours Kevin has received the medal for the Order of Australia, an Australian Sports Medal, induction to the Basketball Hall of Fame, a Deadly lifetime achievement award and a NAIDOC award. Most recently he was inducted to the Australian Basketball Wall of Fame.

Today he is known across Victoria for his work in Aboriginal health and justice. He is a patron of the Onemda Koori Health Unit at Melbourne University and sits as an Elder on the Broadmeadows Koori Court and the Children's Koori Court.

The Honour Roll book and exhibition will remain on display at the Horsham Library until 11^th June.

Honouring Lester

The 'Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll' is coming to the Horsham Library.
The Honour Roll recognises the many and varied contributions of Aboriginal people to the identity of Victoria.
Another local Honour Roll inductee is Lester Marks Harradine. A Wotjobaluk Elder who lived at Dimboola, Lester was a sportsman, a train driver and a returned serviceman.

Though he was born in Bordertown, his family had a long association with the Ebenezer Mission Station at Antwerp. Lester was only 8 months old when brought to Dimboola in 1920 to be raised by his aunt. He attended school at Dimboola and Lillimur, and was aged 13 when he left to work on the commercial vegetable gardens that lined the Wimmera River during the Depression.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Lester enlisted with the 19th Machine Gun Regiment and was transferred to Darwin. He was there when the Japanese bombed the town in 1942. By the end of the war he was stationed at Tarakan in Borneo. After the war Lester became  member of the R.S.L. and was actively involved through Legacy with supporting local war widows. Lester married Leila in 1958 and they had 4 children, he was employed by Victorian Railways where he got his driver's certificate in 1951 and worked until retirement in 1980. Lester died in 2010.

Lester was heavily involved in sport with the Dimboola Football Club, Wimmera Football League, Dimboola Bowling Club, and fire brigade competitions.
A keen cyclist he would ride from, Dimboola to Lillimur to visit family (a 175km round trip).
 In 2010 the Wimmera Football League granted Lester 'Legend' status, he had played for Dimboola in the 40s, 50s and 60s, including 2 senior premierships in 1946 and 1959, as well as a number of Reserves premierships in the 1960s. The Lester Marks Harradine Medal is awarded to the best & fairest in the Indigenous Recognition round.

In his later years, Lester shared the stories and the culture of his ancestors with talks to school children, tours of Ebenezer. and donations to the Dimboola Historical Society. He played a key role in the recognition of native title in the Wimmera. Lester was induced into the Honour Roll posthumously in 2012.

The Aboriginal Honour Roll will be launched in the Horsham Library on 4th June at 11am, and will be on display in the Library until the 11th.

Starring Mullagh

The 'Victorian Aboriginal Honour Roll' is coming to the Horsham Library.
The Honour Roll recognises the many and varied contributions of Aboriginal people to the identity of Victoria.
One of the first Honour Roll inductees was a Wotjobaluk man - Johnny Mullagh (Unaarrimin), his athletic feats made him one of Australia's first international cricketing stars.
Johnny Mullagh was born in 1841 on Mullagh Pastoral Station (between present day Wombelano and Harrow). He worked on both Mullagh and Pine Hills stations as a shearer and as a groom. But it was as a member of the all-Aboriginal Cricket team for which he has been remembered.

A station cricket match at Mt Talbot

Station owners and workers played cricket against neighbouring stations. Thomas Hamilton of Bringalbert started teaching the rudiments of cricket to the Aborigines on the Station in 1864, likewise Edgars on Pine Hills. The Haymans of Lake Wallace formed a cricket club including Aboriginals. In 1865, station cricket was so popular a match was organised between the Europeans and Aborigines. Played near the Bringalbert woolshed, the Aboriginals out scored the Europeans.

Johnny Mullagh and other station Aborigines formed an All-Aboriginal team, coached in Edenhope by Thomas Wentworth Wills (of Australian football fame, the Wills family held Lexington, La Rose & Mokepille stations) and managed by William Hayman.
Englishman Charles Lawrence organised a tour of England for the team in 1868. Led by Mullagh, who batted, bowled and kept wicket, they beat English teams of vastly more experience. 
The team also provided displays of traditional skills - boomerang & spear throwing, and shield parrying. They also successfully participated in ball throwing and running backwards events.
 
A photograph of Johnny Mullagh, the original hung in the Harrow Hall for many years until it was burnt down in the 1970s.
 

Mullagh's headstone, Harrow Cemetery

When the team returned to Australia, Mullagh played for the Victorian state side, and the Melbourne Cricket Club for a season, before returning to play for Harrow until his death in 1891. His bat and stumps were buried with him on the crest of the Harrow Cemetery hill.
Rising above racial taunts, Mullagh deliberately hit a catch rather than play in the face of discrimination. He is still remembered in Harrow with a stone memorial, the annual cricket match, and the Cricket Centre named after him.

The Aboriginal Honour Roll will be launched in the Horsham Library on 4th June at 11am, and will be on display in the Library until the 11th.

Living in the Treasury

The scullery

In this the third and final posting regarding the Old Treasuy building, we look at the Maynard family who actually lived in the building from 1916 to 1928, and the National Archives/Public Records Office Victoria who provide a number of displays in the building which is free to visit from 10am to 4pm on Wednesdays and Sundays.

LUX wood stove

 Maynard was the building's superintendent/caretaker, in charge of security and maintenance. His wife Emma prepared the Governor's morning & afternoon teas. John, Emma and their 8 children grew up in the Treasury. They lived downstairs in 5 rooms, which within the bluestone walls is cool in summer, but cold in winter (and believe me & in spring too). After the official business was conducted the children had the run of the building, however they were isolated from other families living alone on the top of the hill.

The Public Records Office has a number of permanent displays in different rooms - Indigenous Victorians - early interactions with the government, including the Peppers at Ebenezer; Early Melbourne - settlement by Batman & Fawkner, and the Burke & Wills expedition; Ned Kelly - original documents, extracts from "The story of the Kelly Gang" film and the Kelly family tree; Crime & criminals - gangsters Squizzy Taylor, and female prisoner mug shots;   Victorians at work & on holiday - posters and photographs from the 1930-1950s; Victorian buildings - a range of architectural plans of public buildings; and Victorian democracy -how the gold miners helped shape Victoria's government.

Strutt sketch of the Expedition on the march