Bass Coast Post - ESSAYS ON BASS COAST LOCAL HISTORY

Across the waters

8/6/2025

BY Pam Richmond

THE first ferryman to French Island, Les Peterson, was once required to deliver a baby on a trip to the island.

When author Christine Dineen related this story to a roomful of fascinated locals in Corinella recently, Les’s daughter happened to be in the audience and told how she was named after the ferry.

Local history doesn’t get much more immediate than that!

U3A BASS Valley combined with the Corinella District Community Centre to host Christine’s fascinating presentation about French Island’s history, people, flora and fauna.

Crays, muttonfish and gars with tails like pick-axes

7/6/2025

Fishing yarns from the Bunurong Coast

By Rees Quilford

MY UNCLE Foxy once told me a fishing story that made me laugh. It was the 1970s, he was driving the beat-up old Holden ute he had back then. He’d finished milking for the morning, and was heading back into Wonthaggi along Wilsons Road. Back then it wasn’t much more than a goat track. It was dusty and rutted, which meant the radio constantly dropped in and out. Foxy spotted a familiar figure riding his bike up ahead. It was Jimmy Macdonnell, the bloke who lived in the huts on the edge of Foxy’s farm. Jim was making his way slowly along the road. As Foxy slowed down to say g’day, he saw the battered wooden crate lashed to the handlebars.

Catch a few to today, Jim? Yup, got a few.

As he got closer, Foxy realised how good a day it was.

That bloody box was overflowing with Gars Old Jim had caught down at The Wreck. And I’ll tell you what, the things had tails the size of bloody pickaxes! That’s how it was back then.

Foxy finishes telling the story, shakes his head, then starts yuck yuck yucking to himself (as is his way).

Wonthaggi's war

25/3/2025

BASS Coast veterans, family and councillors have paid tribute to local servicemen with the unveiling of a plaque at the Arcade Plaza in Wonthaggi marking the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Waitavolo in New Guinea in March 1945.

The Plaza Arcade was used as a drill hall by a Company of the 14th Battalion, The Prahran Regiment, from 1937 till the end of the Second World War. There were many local enlistments from the Wonthaggi area.

Wonthaggi RSL president Kevin Walsh, who helped to organise the event, said up to 40 battalion members were from the local area.

At the start of the war, the battalion was mobilised and initially sent to guard vital installations near Geelong. On the fall of Timor in early 1942 it was rushed by rail to Geraldton in Western Australia to bolster the defences against a possible Japanese landing.

The battalion was later sent to Darwin to strengthen the defences of the top end. As the threat to Australia receded the battalion was partially demobilised and merged with the 32 Battalion to form the 14/32nd Battalion.

It was as the 14/32nd Battalion that the local enlistments from the Wonthaggi area took part in the amphibious Landing at Jaquinot Bay in New Britain and the successful attack on Bacon Hill for which the battalion was granted the Battle Honour of Waitavolo.

Mr Walsh said the battalion lost 31 killed and 46 wounded throughout the war and most of these casualties occurred during the battle of Waitavolo. The capture of Waitavolo was the last major operation against the Japanese in New Guinea.

The Battle of Waitavolo

Bacon Hill called Mount Sugi by the Japanese was the dominant feature in the south of the Gazelle Peninsula in New Britain near the Tol Plantation.
The Australian 19th Battalion captured some of the surrounding features before the 14/32nd Battalion relieved them and was tasked with capturing Bacon Hill itself.
The battle itself was fought in dense jungle and movement was by a number of at times sniper covered tracks that could only be traversed in single file.
Two Companies took part in the final assault from the South West scrambling up a steep jungle covered ridge under heavy fire.

Australian War Memorial

He said it was difficult to discern how many enlisted in Wonthaggi from the records he could access as they didn't specify place of original enlistment.

“Most were recorded as enlisting in Western Australia when the two battalions were merged.
But I found one wounded soldier who was clearly from Wonthaggi – a McAlpine who listed his place of birth as Wonthaggi.”

Cr Tim O’Brien and Cr Meg Edwards unveiled the plaque honouring the bravery and sacrifice of the soldiers.

“This humble plaque and what it commemorates is part of the Wonthaggi story,” said Cr O’Brien. “It ensures that the bravery and sacrifice of the 58/32 Battalion in the Battle of Waitavolo will not be forgotten.”

The trail blazers

21/3/2025

Members of the Wonthaggi Miners Women’s Auxiliary, 1967. Agnes Doig is fourth from the right in the back row. Agnes Chambers is second from the right in the front row. She died two years later, aged 86. Photo: Wonthaggi & District Historical Society

By Catherine Watson

IT WOULD be easy to mistake them for a bunch of ladies who lunch, but you are looking at a group of revolutionaries.

The photo of the Wonthaggi Miners Women’s Auxiliary (WMWA) was taken in 1967, when some of the members were past their prime. But in the preceding 33 years, these women had changed the course of union and social history around Australia.

Big plans for this little shed

31/1/2025

The Cowes Jetty Goods Shed has worn many hats over the years. Now vacant, it awaits its
next transformation.

IF YOU walk down Thompson Avenue and cross the Esplanade, you'll find a charming little yellow shack with green doors and a distinctive red bow roof tucked behind the Cowes Jetty Triangle: the Cowes Jetty Goods Shed.

It’s hard to miss as this humble structure is the first building to greet passengers disembarking from the ferry. It has done so for more than 150 years.

Built in 1873, the Cowes Jetty Goods Shed was once the lifeblood of the island. Back when the sea was Phillip Island’s only link to the mainland, it securely housed goods, materials, and maritime gear—everything from household essentials to supplies for local industries. For the residents, it was indispensable; for mariners, it was a safe haven for their tools and equipment.

Sun, surf … and a dash of history

13/12/2024

Valda Unthank and Hubert Opperman enjoy "the health food of a nation".

By Catherine Watson

Wonthaggi Historical Society’s mini history talks have become an unlikely highlight of summer.

The talks, which started in the summer of 2022, explore the highways and the byways of Wonthaggi’s rich history, not just the big events – the unions, the mine, the social history – but the sports clubs, the characters, the mishaps, the pubs, the myths and legends.

The title says it all. 15 Minutes of History. Every day at 11.30am, someone gives a talk about an aspect of Wonthaggi’s history. Then the audience responds. It is citizen history at its best.

More than 700 people attended last summer’s talks. Faye Quilford, who organises the talks with Irene Williams, says the popularity has grown by word of mouth.

“I think it’s because they’re quirky. Our presenters are passionate about their topic and that makes them eloquent. And it’s short and sharp. Start at 11.30am, finish at noon.”

Avenues of honour

14/11/2024

The seven trees with their memorial cairn are dedicated to the memory of seven young men of Kongwak who lost their lives in service to their country between 1939 and 1945.

By Jillian Durance

ON 11 November, as every year, Kongwak’s school children observed one minute’s silence and laid their poppies at the memorial cairn in this Valley of Peace.

Remembrance Day commemorates the end of the Great War on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day and the eleventh month of 1918.

With so many Australian dead on the battlefields on Gallipoli, France, Belgium and the Middle East, the people at home sought to honour those who had so willingly gone to the front. Thus began the great memorial building movement throughout the nation: statues, cenotaphs, honour rolls, memorial buildings and avenues of honour in particular.

History in the making

15/10/2024

Wonthaggi Historical Society curator Mark Robertson peruses Sir Roy Grounds’ hand-drawn plans for Wonthaggi’s Historical Park.

By Catherine Watson

THERE was to be a visitors centre, a lecture hall and a lookout. Visitors would be transported by train around the old mine site to take in the buildings and artefacts.

Wonthaggi’s historical theme park would be the real deal, “a magnificent state asset”, the architect assured the Wonthaggi Lions club when he unveiled the project. “There is no risk about its success.”

This was no two-bob tout but the famous architect Sir Roy Grounds, then at the height of his fame. He had completed the National Gallery of Victoria and was working on the Melbourne Arts Centre, incorporating Hamer Hall and the theatres.

Yet in 1973 he found time to visit Wonthaggi to map out a 60-acre park on the grounds of the old No 5 mine brace area.

“Wonthaggi’s coal mining theme will be unique and if I did not believe in its success I would not be associated with it as your honorary architect,” the Sentinel Times reports him telling the Lions.

The line to Wonthaggi

13/7/2024

The Red Rattler passes through Kilcunda en route to Melbourne.
The line between Woolamai and Wonthaggi was completed in
just 10 weeks, mostly by men with picks and shovels.
All photos Wonthaggi & District Historical Society.

By Carolyn Landon

SEVERAL weeks ago, Larry and I were on our way to Melbourne and found ourselves, even before we got out of Wonthaggi, behind a long line of slow-moving cars. Road works! We decided to turn off the highway and take the Loch Road, which eventually, if you know the way, turns off towards the Gurdies and soon enough puts us back on the road past Grantville, leaving us relaxed and clear-headed as we drive on to the city.

As the passenger in the car, I was able to survey the gorgeous meandering road, the valleys and steep slopes of the green hills and of clumps of tea tree and tall gums, all the time keeping an eye out for the occasional wombat or wallaby. We turned left off the Loch Road onto the Grantville-Glen Alvie road and then right towards the store at Kernot which marked the left turn onto Stewart Road that took us across the Bass Valley towards the Gurdies.

For Rex and Freddy

8/7/2024

A future prime minister, a dean of medicine with a dark secret and a brutal superintendent all play a role in "The Killings at Newhaven" but, for all the intrigue, author Joe Fairhurst never forgot that at its heart are two frightened young boys who died horrible deaths.

Bass Coast Post: How did you first hear about the killings at the Newhaven Boys Home?

Joe Fairhurst: Whilst directing a play at St Paul’s in the 1990s, I felt what was like a lightning bolt through my body, as if a ghost passed through me. A local said, ‘Oh, that must be Timmy’. That was the name given to the ghost of St Paul's by the locals.

Looking into the history of St Paul’s, I found a connection to the Seaside Garden Home for Boys. That connection was the superintendent William Baye and the untimely death of Rex Simpson at the home. I saw a story worth pursuing. After discovering a manslaughter charge was dropped, I had to know why the injustice occurred.

While I was researching, a relative of Freddy Smith contacted me and that opened up an enormous can of worms that expanded the research as now I had the death of two boys to bring to light, as well as the circumstances leading up to their death.

The Killings at Newhaven was published in April 2024 and is available on Amazon.

Life of the party

14/6/2024

They worked hard in Wonthaggi’s early days and they partied just as hard.

By Carolyn Landon

BEFORE the “talkies” made their impact on social traditions at the several cinemas in Wonthaggi, young people got together at dances. Peruse the Powlett Express or the Sentinel – and even the Criterion – from 1909 until the mid-1930s and the columns are littered with advertising for dances at halls scattered round the district. Among the halls, there seemed to be a roster so there was at least one dance being held somewhere every week and, more importantly, so that the different bands – or orchestras, if you were lucky – were available to play.

Chicory and the Island

14/5/2024

Robert Cleeland and Barry Toovey working at a Phillip Island chicory kiln, 1961. Photo: Laurie Dixon

By Pamela Rothfield

THE root vegetable chicory is synonymous with Phillip Island, with the first crops being grown on the island as far back as 1869. It is said that the famous botanist Dr Ferdinand von Mueller, who established Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Garden, advised a number of the early settlers on Phillip Island to avoid planting crops such as wheat and barley and instead grow crops of either chicory or mustard – which would be either too bitter or too hot for the destructive pests such as caterpillars.

Many took his advice and chicory, which was used as a substitute for coffee or as an addition to coffee essence, became the staple crop of the island for about 100 years.

These precious things

16/4/2024

Arthur Constable's tenor horn ... it’s not just the objects in the Wonthaggi Museum that intrigue
but the stories that come with them

By Mark Robertson

THE Wonthaggi & District Historical Society is fortunate to be gifted a wide variety of objects to add to its extensive and diverse collection held in the Railway Station Museum. All the donations are interesting, especially if there is a story or provenance available to go with them.

Things that come to us have usually been once beloved or valued or are reminders of painful but important memories that have perhaps been forgotten Often, when they find their way to the museum, they are in less than pristine condition. They have possibly been left in cupboards and drawers or away in attics or corners of sheds waiting to be re-discovered after decades of neglect have masked their value.

The wreck of the Speke

11/3/2024

By Pam Rothfield

IT was 22 February 1906, a wild Thursday afternoon and the 3,000-ton steel sailing ship, The Speke, was bound for Geelong to load a cargo of wheat after having completed her voyage from Peru to Sydney Heads.

The Speke was the second largest triple masted full-rigged vessel afloat, only being beaten by her sister ship The Ditton by an inch or two.

She had passed the Wilson Promontory and now faced the full force of the gale, battling the mountainous seas of Bass Strait and in the words of the first mate Mr Cooke, they were “as high as the topgallant mast”.

Time at the Tech

16/2/2024

Wonthaggi Technical School, 1963

By Bruce Phillips

I ONLY lived in Wonthaggi for a total of 18 years but they were years that had a profound effect on me. My parents – Jack and Agnes Phillips – had a grocery at 72 McBride Avenue where South Gippsland Photographic now is. My first recollection of the “Tech” was standing outside our shop and looking up at an imposing brick monolith. Miss (Win) Baker’s music room was located in that building – right on the corner of Watt Street and McBride. In the warmer weather the songs would drift out of that room and down McBride Avenue.

The master muralist

9/12/2023

Dennis Leversha’s experience as a stage scenery painter stood him in good stead when he began painting the extraordinary murals that tell Wonthaggi’s history.

By Carolyn Landon

IN 2006 after renovation of the Wonthaggi Railway Station was painstakingly completed over several years, the Wonthaggi Historical Society was finally able to return to permanently inhabit where it had been located since the 1980s. It was then that Irene Williams enlisted Dennis Leversha along with his wife, Bev, to help her (and many other dedicated WHS members) organise the displays for the new museum.

When I first joined the Historical Society in that same year – 2006 – and began writing the PLOD Essays once a month, I witnessed the energy put in by the Levershas in arranging displays and also in figuring out ways to take the displays on tours.

The toast of Phillip Island

16/11/2023

By Pam Rothfield

THE beautiful Isle of Wight hotel was a most imposing sight to greet the arriving passengers at the front door of Cowes from as early as 1870. It was known as being the premier accommodation house on the Island for many years.

This essay was first published on the Phillip Island and District Historical Society website.

Starting life as a two-bedroom wattle and daub cottage, the stately hotel was built around the original structure, developing into what was described at the time as one of the most comfortable hotels in Victoria. From its confines, the sounds of revelry often punctured the evening quiet.

Described in the press in 1889, as a “picturesque Swiss-looking house with its peaked gables and galleries and verandas”, the original Isle of Wight hotel was the toast of Phillip Island.

From Caridà to Wonthaggi

10/10/2023

SAM (Sebastian) Gatto is well known for his works about the rich history of Wonthaggi, including books about the hospital and local contribution in the two world wars.

His latest book is a lot more personal. A Sort of History of Me, My Family… And a Cow Named Gina tells the story of the Gatto family’s migration in 1951 from the village of Caridà, in the south of Italy, to the coal town of Wonthaggi. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of eight-year-old Sam, who, as the eldest child, is invested with great responsibilities to help his parents and siblings along the journey.

A Sort of History was shortlisted for the 2022 Victorian Community History Awards.

The homing instinct

22/9/2023

This story was first published in The Current community newspaper in September 2004. Cherry McFree died in 2018, aged 93.

A lifelong Phillip Islander, Cherry McFee didn’t like to go too far from the sea. Photo: Gill Heal

By Gill Heal

CHERRY McFee remembers being a little scared of her grandfather, hot tempered William Thomas McFee, ironmonger and importer. But then, he had a reason to be cross. He'd lost most of his fortune in the 1890s Depression.

William Thomas - there's been a William going back through eight generations - had bought land in Rhyll and built a holiday house there. When the crash occurred he sold up the family home in Auburn and took up farming in Rhyll.

And this is where young Cherry McFee grew up, going to school in the Mechanics Hall which her grandfather helped to establish.

Hanley's Dairy

11/8/2023

Photo courtesy of Altona Historical Society

By Carolyn Landon

LAST summer the Wonthaggi Historical Society held a series of “15-Minute Talks,” which usually lasted for half an hour and only ended when the mine whistle blew everyone out of their seats and rendered the speaker silent. The talks were well attended and always interesting.

One of the most thorough and meticulously prepared talks, that could have kept the audience spell-bound for another hour were it not for the mine whistle, was given by Peter Hanley. It was based on the recollections Peter (the second born of seven children) and his mother had of Hanley’s Dairy, which operated on McKenzie Street from 1960 until 1983 and was owned and managed by Peter’s parents, Chick and Sadie Hanley. (While Peter and his mother were comparing memories of the family business and the people they worked with, they sometimes had to correct one another and had to admit that others might have different recollections. Nevertheless, the detail is wonderful.)

Their story takes us back to a time when milk was delivered daily to households and businesses by horse and cart. The sound of yesteryear that many of us still remember is the clip-clop of the draught horses pulling milk wagons through quiet streets before dawn, accompanied by the jangle of bottles in their crates and the sound of running footsteps made by the milky as he ran past the bedrooms of those just waking to drop off his delivery on the back verandas of the kitchens and retrieve empty bottles which were noisily placed in crates on the wagon while the faithful horse kept going slowly through the streets it knew by heart.

Daily routine
Running a business such as Hanley’s Dairy in the `60s and `70s, before the horse-and-cart days were overtaken by motorised milk trucks, was complex and relied on honest workers dedicated to the smooth running of a stressful daily routine that could easily come undone. It required workers willing to rise at 4am and set to work without delay loading carts from the cool room with milk (bottled or bulk) and cream (bottled), harnessing horses in their stables, leading them to their milk carts and hitching them up; then commencing home deliveries in the pre-dawn to be completed by 8am, when they would return to the dairy and unload and clean the milk carts, all before washing and cleaning and releasing the horses into their turn-out paddocks.

Various other tasks also had to be completed (some of which were the responsibility of the Hanley children before and after school). These included bringing coal from the backyard coal stack to the kitchen; cleaning the stables, the washroom, and milk carts and trucks; sweeping the landing and loading bay; stabling horses in the late afternoon; delivering late orders; and myriad household jobs. Most importantly, they had to make sure the cool room was ready later in the day for Arthur’s Dairy milk truck from Frankston to deliver the next day’s supply of milk and take away the rinsed and stacked crates of empty bottles, which would be sterilised and re-filled at Arthur’s.

Our whale turns 100

19/7/2023

Hundreds of sightseers made the long trek out to Wreck Beach to see the dead whale, July 1923. Photos: Wonthaggi & District Historical Society

By Catherine Watson

OF ALL the objects in the Wonthaggi Museum, this is Mark Robertson’s favourite: a vertebra from the 74ft whale that washed up at Wreck beach, now Harmers Haven, 100 years ago (July 4th, 1923, to be exact) after heavy winter gales.

The centenary of the whale’s beaching was marked this month in typical Wonthaggi style. The Wonthaggi Hotel, AKA Taberners Hotel or The Whalebones, tied ribbons to the iconic whale jawbones at the front entrance. And on Thursday, members of the Wonthaggi Historical Society gathered for a supper of fish and chips and some good old-fashioned yarning about our whale.

Historic hospital plans return to Wonthaggi

23/6/2023

By Brad Lester

Architectural plans for the first permanent Wonthaggi Hospital dating from 1913 have been returned home after a surprise find at a church sale in regional Victoria.

The meticulous hand-drawn plans were found at the Clunes Presbytery Open Garden Garage Sale by a connection of Wonthaggi historian Sam Gatto.

Our neighbours

15/6/2023

No 6, left, and No 2 Graham Street, Wonthaggi, 1950s. Janet Akers lived in No 2 after her marrige then moved to No 6. This was the outskirts of Wonthaggi at the time.

By Janet Akers

WHEN I was married we first lived in No. 2 Graham Street Wonthaggi. There were no neighbours next door on the left side. The railway line connecting the Kirrak mine with the Wonthaggi Railway Station ran behind our house and crossed the road to Inverloch to our left. Next door to our right was No. 6 where my mother-in-law and two sisters-in-law, Pearl and Thelma, lived.

Tall tales and true from island’s past

17/5/2023

By Eleanor McKay

HAVE you ever wondered why the main street of Cowes is called Thompson Avenue, or just when motorsport became part of Phillip Island's culture?

The answers to these questions and more can be found in Once upon an island, a collection of 39 stories that chart the history of Phillip Island from 1868.

The stories were originally conceived and published by the Phillip Island and San Remo Advertiser in 2018 as part of the celebrations to mark 150 years of European settlement.

Unveiling the stories of Wonthaggi

9/5/2023

Members of the Wonthaggi Historical Society, councillors and council staff gathered for the unveiling.

THE local significance and tragic history of the No. 20 coal mine shaft site, where 17 miners died, is now memorialised with new signage and in a podcast series documenting the heritage of Wonthaggi.

Bass Coast Shire Council and the Wonthaggi and District Historical Society partnered with Storytowns, a group of travel-loving adventurers who record interviews with regional personalities to produce interactive geo-located podcast tours, to create a series about Wonthaggi.

The Storytowns Wonthaggi History Tour features seven stories about local icons, including the No. 20 Shaft on Bass Highway where 17 men lost their lives in two separate explosions on February 20, 1931 and February 15 1937.