ESSAYS ON BASS COAST LOCAL HISTORY

Dino team return to their happy hunting ground

14/2/2023

Mr Dinosaur Mike Cleeland. right, with trainee dino hunters at Flat Rocks.

THIS week a team of "dino hunters" embark on the first dinosaur dig at Inverloch since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The team of 20, including leading palaeontologists, researchers and volunteers will start excavating sections of the intertidal (foreshore) zone at Flat Rocks near The Caves, south of Inverloch, looking for fossilised bones and evidence of the prehistoric age.

The Caves is a well-known site that harbours precious polar dinosaur fossils dating back 126 million years. It will also become one of the sites in the planned Bass Coast Dinosaurs Trail, to celebrate the area’s fascinating pre-historic heritage.

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No. 5 Brace

14/2/2023

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An inspiration to generations of artists and photographers, the bones of the last remaining brace are a moving reminder of Wonthaggi’s extraordinary mining history.

By Carolyn Landon

WHEN we moved from our farm in the Strzelecki hills to Wonthaggi in 2005 our focus was mainly on the beaches. We would wander from the Channel at Cape Paterson past First and Second Surf beaches towards Harmers Haven, past Wreck Beach where the “biggest whale ever” had been beached and where the rusted ribs left over from the Artisan wreckage lay. It took a bit of time and familiarity for us to discover the path to Williamsons Beach through the scrub followed by the walk to Powlett River, our eyes on the waves and surfers rather than the dunes and nesting birds. Later, with some guidance, we found the path through the bush to Cutlers Beach at the end of Chisholm Road and recognised the middens there spread out over millennia by the Bunurong.

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Just what the doctor ordered

9/11/2022

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Leo O’Connor, dispensary manager from 1953 to 1975. “The Dispensary” turns 100 this month.

IN November 1909, after the Victorian government established the State Coal Mine, and “the children of Eureka”, as Mr Alf Opie, a pioneer past Secretary of the Dispensary called them, set out to establish a welfare system based on co-operation and solidarity.

The Miners Friendly Societies Co-operative Dispensary - better known as The Dispensary" - was an integral part of this system. The Dispensary celebrates its centenary this month.

By the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the Wonthaggi community had a Medical Benefit Fund, a Hospital Benefit Fund based on the principles of democratic co-operation. All the employees of the State Coal Mine had to be members of these funds. The employees paid compulsory levies and in exchange received free medical and hospital treatment.

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Tall tales and the mighty leek

22/9/2022

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Wonthaggi Leek Club committee members S. Eccleston (Treasurer) J. Newton (Secretary) and W. Spurr with trophies for the annual show, c 1934.

By Carol Cox

VOLUNTEERS for the Wonthaggi & District Historical Society spend much of their time at the Museum – the old railway station – archiving the vast collection the Society has acquired over the more than 50 years it has been in existence.

When, a few years ago, they were “beetling away” cataloguing newspapers – mostly Sentinel Times and Powlett Express editions from the past century – they came across interesting news items from the town’s early days. One such is mention of Wonthaggi’s Leek Club, which started in 1927 and ran until World War II.

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Tales from the Underground 3

30/6/2022

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In the third and final part of John Bordignon’s memoir of working life of a coal miner, as told to him by Wonthaggi miners, he relates the accidents, near misses and bloody silly pranks that were part of working life underground.

Rescue workers at the Number 20 shaft after an explosion killed 13 miners in 1937.
Photo: Age archives

DURING the entire operation of the mines, over 58 years, about 80 men were killed – a shocking number, but when compared to coal mining throughout the world, Wonthaggi coal Mine was considered one of the safest. Nevertheless, there were thousands of accidents from cut fingers and toes to rocks coming down on you, and there were some amazing, amazing escapes.

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Tales of the underground

16/6/2022

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Part 2 of John Bordignon’s memoir of the working life of a coal miner, as told to him by Wonthaggi miners, including his own father.

Many of the mines were much shallower - the miners couldn't stand upright.

WESTERN Area was a very wet mine, not far from the ocean. The miners could work with water dripping on top of them all day long.

The opposite extreme was Kirrak Area where they had some of the deepest tunnels and they worked in heat about 35° to 40° with 80% humidity. It was murder.

At Kirrak, Dad and his mate, Blueboy, were putting a connection between two main tunnels that they called a ‘cut-through’. It was in an area they called Siberia. There they were working in a cut through about a metre high and the heat was so intense that they were getting hives all over themselves. You could go in there and work for half an hour/three-quarters of an hour and then get out in better air to recuperate for a while before they had to go back in again. The backs of their knees would just split open from all the sweat as they were kneeling while working. They had to take salt tablets while they worked in that section. Well, that’s the way it was.

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In search of Bridget

21/4/2022

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Bridget Wilson pictured with three of her four surviving children and their children. Jenny believes this was taken on Bridget’s 80th birthday when she went to live with The Little Sisters of the Poor.

CAPE Paterson resident Jenny Osler knew little of her great-grandmother, Bridget Wilson, other than that she was Irish and married a Norwegian sailor. All she had was a few family stories and three family photos, taken on Bridget’s 80th birthday.

Her mother had begun the research in pre-computer days. With the help of the Wonthaggi Genealogical Society, Jenny set out to fill in the gaps.

She says her interest in family history research is not in creating a never-ending family tree. but writing the story of her own ancestors within the social and political context of the time.

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The kiosk on the hill

8/4/2022

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Running the Cape Paterson kiosk in the 1960s was no easy task without electricity, a phone line or toilet, but for newlyweds Wazza and Janice Coldebella that was all part of the adventure.

THE foreshore kiosk at Cape Paterson served bathers, campers and Cape residents from the mid-1950s until shortly before it was demolished by the council of the day late in 1966. It was built by Bruno Storti to replace the first kiosk which had also been a popular spot but, sadly, had burnt down several years earlier. Bruno with his wife, Mary, ran the kiosk until the late 1950s when Attilio and Irma Storti, together with Irma’s brother Livio (Wazza) Coldebella took over the business.

It was about then that a beautiful young woman, Janice, one of the Milkins sisters, returned to Wonthaggi after four years of travelling adventures in Europe. She was only 21 years old. She had grown up in Wonthaggi, was an intelligent and precocious student at Wonthaggi Primary School and then the Tech; she was an avid reader, as well as a forward thinker and impatient for life and adventure. She insisted on leaving school after Form 2 [year 8], determined to find a way out of Wonthaggi to travel the world. Through her local doctor, she landed a job in Malvern as an au pair or nanny for the two children – twins – of a university professor on Sabbatical from England.

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Where are the women?

25/3/2022

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Agnes Doig takers her fight for fair pay to the city.

By Christine Grayden.

IT IS undeniable that most written history in Australia has been about men. Much of this history has used male-generated official documents as source material, and been written by men. Since about the 1970s, coinciding with both the women’s liberation movement and a growing interest in the lives of women during the Great Depression, there has been something of an explosion of history dealing with women.

It has taken a while for this trend to filter down to local history writing, including here in Bass Coast. Since Women’s History Month is celebrated in March each year in Australia, the UK and the US, I thought it might be timely to let readers know where they can easily access some most interesting women’s history relating to Bass Coast.

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Deliver us our daily bread

10/3/2022

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The Country Style bakery employed generations of locals.

By David Mitchelmore

I HAVE many fond memories of my time at the Country Style bakery in Wonthaggi in the late `60s.

I was employed casually for a couple of Xmas/Easter periods and my main job was loading and unloading the revolving oven. I was normally paired up with my brother-in-law, Jimmy Burns, who helped me gain the position. His sharing of experience and know-how were a most welcome part of my time there.

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Island of plenty

24/2/2022

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Norm’s grandfather Bill Jenner pictured on one of the back beaches in the late 1940s. There was full and plenty on Phillip Island if you knew where to look for it.

By Norm Jenner

Following the great Depression of the early 1930s, there was little money around for luxuries such as bought food. On the Island, the farming community, especially, continued to live much as their ancestors had, on what they could grow themselves and on animals, birds and fish that they could capture. Among the favourite delicacies were the mutton bird (stormy petrel or shearwater) and their eggs.

The mutton birds breed in shallow burrows dug into the coastal dunes around the southern side of the island. Unlike the penguin, which is a permanent resident, the mutton bird migrates to warmer northern waters each autumn and returns with the mutton bird gales that usually start on November 4.

The mutton bird always returns to the same mate and the same burrow each year. There is hell to pay if something else is in there, such as a snake or rabbit. The birds look harmless enough but they have a savage hooked beak that can chop pieces out of your hand if you are not quick in retracting it. Last year’s chicks have to find an abandoned burrow to start their breeding life or scratch out a new one.

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Kings of the road

10/2/2022

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Wonthaggi’s own Hefty Stuart was right up there with ‘Oppy’ in Australian cycling lore.

By Carolyn Landon

THIS SUNDAY, Monday and Tuesday fans of cycling will gather in Bass Coast for three legs of the 2022 Tour of Gippsland, featuring some of Australia’s top riders.

It’s a welcome return of elite cycling to a shire with a proud cycling history beginning as early as 1910, when the Powlett Express reported “Movement is afoot to establish a Wonthaggi Cycling Club.”

Soon afterwards, weekly handicap races took place on Saturday afternoons starting from the Union Theatre. In 1926, the July 7 Melbourne Sporting Globe reported that Bruce Small had arranged the “Malvern Star”, an annual open race from Wonthaggi to Melbourne, a distance of 86 miles.

Mr Small had intended to stage his race along the Dandenong Road from Oakleigh through Gippsland, but “strong inducements were held out to him to make Wonthaggi the starting point, as cycling is booming in the mining district.”

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Stories of us

27/1/2022

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Andrea Cleland: Interviews with farmers, hoteliers, a developer, an artist and a newspaper editor provide a fascinating insight into Phillip Island’s rich history.

By Dr Andrea Cleland

A PASSION for recording people’s stories and a deep love of Phillip Island led to my working on a major oral history project for the Phillip Island and District Historical Society. It’s been a rewarding experience as a local oral historian to record memories of the deep connections and experiences of local islanders.

The project, which we are now wrapping up, kicked off in December 2020 soon after the second lockdown impacted our tourism dependent community. In and out of lockdowns (including supporting my child learning from home) I interviewed nine Phillip Islanders around the themes of farming, tourism, business, lifestyle and migration on Phillip Island over the past 60 years.

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A hive of activity

3/12/2021

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Wonthaggi Railway Station, 1969 with the Goods Shed to the right. Photo: Peter Wright

By Jack Moyle

OUR family started a carrying business in Wonthaggi in 1924. I left school at 14 in 1949 and came to work in the family business.

Back when I started, virtually everything came to Wonthaggi by train and left by train, which made the railway station the commercial and social centre of the town. It was, therefore, the focus of the carrying business. There were two passenger trains and a goods train every day. The different trains came in on different tracks: cargo trains pulled in at the Goods Shed where the crane could lift heavy cargo off the open trucks, and the passenger train came in beside the station platform. Everything came that way: shop goods, feed, machinery.

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The final insult

18/11/2021

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The backyard dunny - modelled here by Raymond Tyrrell - was a feature of life in many country towns until fairly recently.

By John Coldebella

ALMOST 50 years ago, work commenced on Wonthaggi's sewerage system. Up till that time, most toilets in the town were located on the back lane boundary of house blocks. Human waste fell into a circular bitumen coated galvanised metal can 35cm in height and 36 cm in diameter, giving it the approximate equivalent volume of about 36 litres, or four laundry buckets.

Collected once a week, this created some logistical problems for large families, which were numerous in those days. This may have contributed to the practice of urinating on lemon trees in order to preserve the can's capacity for solid waste.

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Local collections make a splash

7/10/2021

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Portrait of Robert Smith, Gordon Binsted, 1955
Robert Smith Collection, Bass Coast Shire.

By Christine Grayden

WHAT a fantastic night for Bass Coast museums at the Australian Museums and Galleries Association Victorian branch 2021 awards this week.

The Churchill Island cataloguing team was Highly Commended in the small staff Victorian Collections category. This was a great team effort between curators, other Phillip Island Nature Parks staff and volunteers to get so many extra images and associated quality entries from the Churchill Island collection onto this publicly accessible online cataloguing program.

This was followed by Bass Coast Shire Council being Highly Commended in the new ‘gallery’ Victorian collections award category for all their wonderful work getting much of the Robert Smith Art Collection catalogued and online.

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Researching one war in the time of another

26/8/2021

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Phillip Island soldier Hugh Grigg leading an ammunition camel train, one of the gems uncovered during local research to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII.

By Christine Grayden

IN EARLY 2020, Covid 19 hit the world and placed us all on a war footing, fighting against a near-invisible viral enemy with any means at our disposal. Lockdown closed businesses and attractions everywhere, including the Phillip Island District Historical Society’s museum. The building housing the museum, library and meeting room was earmarked for demolition, to be replaced with a new community facility including a new museum by 2022. Unfortunately, the museum was not able to reopen before the big sorting and packing up had to proceed.

In the midst of this, the society received a grant from the Victorian Government to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two. This enabled us to contract a local audio/video editor, Simon Eddy, with whom we have worked on other projects, to work with me as project co-ordinator and documentary producer. Other volunteers such as committee members were also involved doing some of the research and phoning around during lockdowns. We aimed to produce two documentaries about WWII Phillip Island veterans and Phillip Island during the war.

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Alternative energies

12/8/2021

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Lionel Wilson, second from left, with other
State Coal Mine employees

By Mark Robertson

THIS article was inspired by a recent donation of "treasures" from the shed of Lionel Wilson. Thanks to Lionel’s family and especially his daughter, Jennifer Paproth, for donating an incredible treasure trove collection from both Lionel and Greta’s much prized collections.

The Wonthaggi Historical Society is truly grateful to be able to ensure the objects are retained for generations to come.

Lionel was a State Coal Mine electrician and later established a private electrical contracting business in Wonthaggi.

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King of the roads

14/7/2021

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Richard Kemp recalls the glory days of the Lang Lang Proving Ground, when a day at work might include dodging roos, racing with ‘Brockie’ or seeing the greatest collection of pristine Holdens.

By Richard Kemp

My involvement with the Lang Lang Proving Ground was early and long. My father Maurice Kemp got the job of chief security officer as a promotion from Holden's Fishermans Bend plant. In early 1957 I went with him in his friend’s car and we did a tour of what had been started of the test track. I was 12 at the time.

The circular track had not been built except for the concrete underpass and it stood like a monolith in a lake of water. We could not see much of the area as the little Hillman could not handle the mud.

In September 1957 we moved from Hurstbridge to a 21-acre bush block at The Gurdies and Dad started work at the PG under, as I remember, Charlie Paterson. My dad always spoke highly of Charlie and had great respect for him. He was a tall man, and impressive. He did not take rubbish and commanded respect from everybody.

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The joy of the toy

1/7/2021

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The sight of an old tin toy can spark a wave of nostalgia in even the crustiest old timer.

By Mark Robertson

There is one thing that we humans all have in common – we were all once children, and the most exciting part of childhood, apart from lollies, was toys.

Whether it was the anticipation of what was under the Christmas tree, the trip to the shops after months of pocket money saving, or visiting a schoolmate to play with their bedroom trove of toys, it is no wonder that the sight of any old toy sparks a wave of nostalgia in even the crustiest old timer.

Here at the Wonthaggi Museum we do not have many toys, but we were recently gifted an old tin toy from Mary Mabin. It is a pressed tin clockwork monkey riding a donkey.

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Dark days for Wonthaggi

4/6/2021

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THE use of Wonthaggi Town Hall as a vaccination hub has reminded local historians of the time when it served as a hospital during the so-called Spanish influenza epidemic. For some reason, Wonthaggi was one of the hardest hit small towns in the country.

On March 27, 1919, the Yass Courier reported:

INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC
The virulence of the influenza plague when it gets a footing has been exemplified
at Wonthaggi, a small town in Victoria, where a large number of cases have occurred. A report from there on Saturday last was as follows: The death toll from influenza has
reached 19. Three deaths occurred on Friday morning. A patient in the hospital gave birth it a child which died on Friday, and the mother is in a serious condition.

Australian Story featured nurse Elizabeth Beard’s account of working in the makeshift hospital in the Wonthaggi Town Hall during the deadly influenza pandemic of 1919.

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All that can be desired

5/5/2021

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Map courtesy of State Library of Victoria, republished on the Grantville History website. a project of Bass Valley U3A.

SEASIDE villas, a coffee palace, a shipping port, a railway line and agricultural show grounds … life in Grantville on the Sea was dandy. And all for £2 10s down.

Grantville on the Sea

The situation of this land is all that can be desired, having large Frontages to Main Government Roads, which will ultimately prove invaluable Business Sites, whilst the Inner Allotments are unrivalled for Residential purposes.

The land overlooks the ever-charming and magnificent
WESTERNPORT BAY.

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Vale Cam Walker

22/4/2021

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Cam Walker played a vital role in a close-knit community.

By Marion Walker

A LINK with Bass Coast history has been broken with the death of Cam Walker, the fourth generation of a family that settled in Glen Alvie in 1883. In fact, Cam’s great-grandmother actually named Glen Alvie, though the family moved to Almurta in 1909.

More than 360 people attended Cam’s funeral at Bass on April 17 to show their respect and love for a man who had played a vital role in this close-knit community for many decades.
John Campbell (Cam) Walker was born on April 18 1945 at Wonthaggi Hospital. He was the son of David and Rebecca Walker of Almurta and grew up on the family farm, “Montrose”.

He and his three older sisters rode their horses to the Kernot State School. The school had only one room and one teacher for about 30 kids. Cam did all the things kids did in those days: built billy carts, went ferreting for rabbits, fished for eels, raced the other kids on his horse.

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Tales of Tent Town

7/4/2021

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Author Christine Bell with Sam and Claire Gatto, members of
the Wonthaggi Historical Society.

By Catherine Watson

WHEN children’s author Christine Bell visited the State Coal Mine museum in Wonthaggi in 2008 she was, like many visitors, in search of her family history.

At the museum shop that day she bought two replicas of the mining token of her great-grandfather, John McConochie. Later she strolled the streets of Wonthaggi and called into the museum,at the old railway station, where she found a treasure trove of newspapers, maps and artefacts. Volunteers were happy to help her fill in the gaps in her knowledge of her great-grandparents’ immigration journey that brought them to Wonthaggi in 1910.

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'There was a storm in me'

11/3/2021

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There was nothing in Agnes Doig’s middle class family background to indicate that she would become a champion of the poor and downtrodden and a legend of Wonthaggi. Photo: Melbourne University collection

By Carolyn Landon

WHEN you look at a picture of Agnes Doig from the Melbourne University Archive, she looks like your next-door neighbour – bright, energetic, kind – but take another look and you can see something else, something strong and clear-eyed.

“I had a storm in me,” she said when describing herself as a speaker at political meetings in Korumburra at first, then Wonthaggi, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra. The storm was caused by a strong sense of social justice that drove her to political activism. Although she came to it late, she defined herself as a true believer, a Communist through and through.

“Strangely enough,” she said, “I had a middle class, religious background.”

She was born Agnes Smith, in 1908 in Shotts, Scotland, a coal mining town of about 40,000. Her father was a mining contractor, which meant he was in charge of the construction and maintenance of the colliery.

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