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Free Copy May 2015 In This Edition: Page Page Early Geelong Football Club 2 Machu Picchu 22 Lethbridge 3 How is Snow Formed? 23 The Lethbridge Truck System 4 Brazil—Fast Facts 24 The Koala 7 Turkish Coffee 25 Eastern Geelong Cemetery 8 James Henry Ashton 26 Augustus Alt 10 Recipe—BBQ Side Dishes 28 Darwin 12 Word Search—Shipwrecks 29 The Advertising Surgeon 14 Aust. Artists: Sydney Nolan 30 Corio-The Early Days Part 17 16 150 Years Ago 31 The Statue of Zeus 18 Then… & Now 32 Shakespeare 20 A newspaper clip from 150 years ago: “The annual meeting of the [Geelong Football Club] was held last evening at the Argyle Hotel. J. Middlemiss, Esq., occupied the chair, and nearly twenty members were present… The Geelong Football Club team c.1860 - a fearsome It was decided that practice should be sight for all opposition teams, even with that ball held on Tuesday, Thursday, and for which looks more like Mum’s plum pudding. general practice, Saturday, the same as heretofore. The secretary stated that he had received a letter from Melbourne stating that they would be happy to play Geelong for a ten guinea trophy, the same being the gift of the Geelong Club, who, as is well known, refused to receive ten guineas towards their expenses in going to Melbourne to play a grand match on the cricket ground, the match to take place on the Queen’s Birthday*... It was resolved that umpires be appointed in every match played. The opening match will be played on Saturday next, sides to be chosen on the ground, and the game to commence at two o’clock. The secretary was authorised to have the ground cleared of any rubbish^… It was decided that at every match the members representing the Geelong Club should appear in uniform—which is a scarlet shirt and red, white, and blue cap. After a vote of thanks to the chairman, the meeting terminated.” (Geelong Advertiser Wednesday May 3, 1865 p.2 ) * Queen Victoria’s birthday was celebrated with a public holiday each year on her real birth date—May 24th, regardless of which day of the week it fell. In 1865 her 46th birthday fell on a Wednesday. While Queen Elizabeth II was born on April 21, today her birthday is always celebrated in Australia on the 2nd Monday in June. ^ The “ground” was simply the paddock behind the Argyle Hotel (now called Irish Murphy’s) on Aberdeen Street, between Latrobe Terrace and Pakington Street. 2 Lethbridge The township of Lethbridge is located on the Midland Highway, approximately 31km northwest of Geelong. While travelling from Geelong to Ballarat drivers are expected to lower their speed to 80km/h for about 2km as they pass through the town, but there is little to see from the main highway. This belies the amazing history of the once bustling town! The original site of Lethbridge was known as 'Muddy Water Holes,' and was used as a watering point for travellers on their way from the port at Geelong to the goldfields at Ballarat. The tracks made by their horse-drawn wagons carved the route for the present Midland Highway. The township was renamed Lethbridge in 1854 and 2 formal grids of streets were laid out on each side of the highway to entice more settlers into the area. And within 5 years the area was swarming Lethbridge General Store– Opposite the with up to 2,000 inhabitants, creating a tent city Railway Station in Russell Street. as far as the eye could see! Why? The Lethbridge area has relatively poor soil, and only a small water supply. But in the mid-1850s a rare deposit of a very high-quality basalt, called bluestone, was discovered there. Before the mass production of clay bricks heralded a worldwide change in construction material, stone was the favoured building material for quality work, and Lethbridge was located on a slab of hard bluestone 7m deep, resting upon clay, and nearly flawless in quality. While bluestone was also quarried around Melbourne at Clifton Hill, Brunswick and Coburg, that stone was of inferior quality compared with stone from Lethbridge—and the town was conveniently located directly between Geelong and Ballarat, making it the perfect source for stone required to construct the new railway line between the 2 towns. By 1860, four separate areas around town were being quarried, employing stonemasons, quarrymen, and stone-breakers. However, once the railway was completed in 1862, demand for Lethbridge bluestone waned. While many prominent buildings in Melbourne are built from Lethbridge bluestone, as well as St Mary of the Angels Catholic Basilica in Geelong, gradually the quality material went out of favour. Today, Lethbridge has a population of The railway still passes beside the main about 950, most who commute to Geelong for quarry area at Lethbridge. Only the chimney work. The quarries closed nearly 80 years ago, stack for the boiler house remains. and little remains of the once bustling township. 3 In 1854 the Victorian Government approved plans to build a railway connecting the town of Geelong with the gold fields at Ballarat. While a direct line between Melbourne and Ballarat was more desirable, rough terrain made it a lengthy and difficult proposition, compared with the relatively gentle landscape between Geelong and Ballarat. Although easier, it would still include what was considered the greatest engineering feat in the Southern Hemisphere up to that time—the Railway Viaduct Bridge near Batesford on the outskirts of Geelong. The contract for construction of the railway was eventually given to Evans, Merry & Co, who tendered a figure of £1,310,797.* The company planned to use the bluestone found at Lethbridge as its main construction material for all bridges, culverts, stations, and support buildings. Massive stone-crushing machines, driven by steam engines were imported from England and installed at the quarry to provide all the ballast stone which supported the rails. The company also advertised extensively throughout Australia and England, seeking skilled masons, stone-cutters, quarrymen, as well as labourers. When work started on the railway on July 3, 1858 many of the early workers were convicts. Hundreds of workers were soon sweating through their days labour at the quarry to the sounds of anvils, hammers, the letting off of steam, and the occasional blasting at the quarry face. Using only what we today would consider to be primitive tools, Lethbridge Railway Station, a beautiful master craftsman cut, chiselled and honed some of example of the fine stonework crafted the most exquisite work out of the very hard stones. by the early tradesmen. But not all was well among the workers. While the highly-skilled stonemasons had formed their own sort of union, and were earning 16 shillings ($1.60) per day for only 8 hours work, the other workers earned between 7s. 6d.—15s. (75c—$1.50) for a 10 hour work day, depending on how hard they worked. The masons got paid every fortnight, while everybody else got paid once a month. And then things got even worse for the employees, when Evans, Merry & Co established a ‘truck system’ in conjunction with local trader, W.H. Dyson. [See box “What is a Truck System? on the opposite page.] With hundreds of failed gold miners seeking employment, Evans, Merry & Co could hire and fire employees at will. Thus, the ‘truck system’ was ruthlessly enforced. If any workers were found not to be purchasing from Dyson’s they were ‘encouraged’ to support the system. For example, at the end of the work day each * Today, equivalent to approximately $60 million. The project was eventually completed for only £1,044,000, £267,000 less than the estimated cost 5 years earlier. 4 worker had his stones inspected and measured. The Measuring Clerk would ask the men if they purchased items from Dyson’s store. If they answered in the negative the work presented usually failed to pass the Clerk’s measuring ruler, meaning they would not be paid. However, a visit to Dyson’s store to purchase a few items always seemed to remedy this anomaly. In addition, most workers were paid, not as individuals, but as work gangs. On pay day at the end of the month the gang received a lump sum for all work completed by the gang, less Dyson’s share. They then had to calculate within the gang how much each had spent at Dyson’s, who had worked the hardest, and thus, how much each got paid out of the gang’s total wages. Cries for workers to be paid as individuals rather than part of a work gang were snubbed by the bosses. On another occasion, one worker had money deducted from his wages for goods allegedly obtained at Dyson’s store, but he had not purchased anything there for the previous month. He went to the store to check the records but was refused What is a Truck System? A ‘truck system’ is an arrangement in which employees are paid in commodities or some currency substitute (such as vouchers or token coins) rather than with standard money. The word truck came into the English language within this context, from the French troquer, meaning to "exchange" or "barter." The practice limits the ability of employees to choose how to spend their earnings— generally to the benefit of the employer. For example, at Lethbridge between 1858-60 the company building the railway, Evans, Merry & Co, struck a deal with store-owner, W. H. Dyson to provide foodstuffs and other goods to all workers at the quarry.