Carisbrook Lions Club Tilly Aston Project

Our Aim: The Carisbrook Lions Club anticipate to erect a rotunda structure near the memorial cairn to Tilly Aston. This structure will house information boards on Tilly Aston’s life and achievements. Information boards will educate visitors to the site and give pride in this great woman. The building and surrounding sensory garden will be in keeping with visual impairment and this will all bring focus to the memorial cairn. Community Benefits: This district of central has contributed to Australian history in many ways but it seems Tilly Aston has slipped through a crack in history. For the community this project will bring into being: Input from the Carisbrook School children as well as community participation. Visits from day care centres. The memorial centre will bring Tilly to the fore and bring pride to the locals as well as nation wide knowledge of our blind pioneer of history. As a tourist attraction the Tilly Aston Centre will create more interest in our locality, and this will, in turn establish assets. And assets generate jobs.

Mainenance of the site: The Carisbrook Lions Club will permanently maintain the site/structure, and keep it suitably clean and uncluttered.

The project will include outside seating, pathways and information boards/signage (10 information boards are needed-info compiled by local historian Alex Stoneman). A sensory garden area including the Tilly Aston Rose will be installed as well as necessary handrails and/or ramp – the Maryborough Garden Club will come on board to plant out the garden area with the children of Carisbrook Primary School.

**Central Goldfields Shire have approved of the Carisbrook Lions Tilly Aston Memorial project. **Vic Roads have approved subject to ‘working on roadside application’ and the ‘entrance’ coming from the service road. Eg no parking on main road.

A project that will educate all Australians about a great (currently forgotten) pioneer of Australian history.

The Tilly Aston Memorial project is endorsed by the MDHS RITCH Community Development, Victorian Women’s Trust and the Horticultural Therapy Association of Vic.

For more information contact Susan Censi – ph 54641212 [email protected]

Carisbrook Lions Club Tilly Aston Project C/o Susan Censi 14 Short Street, Carisbrook 3464

Tilly Aston (born Carisbrook 1873 – died Windsor 1947) Mentioned in timeline - Achievements & contribution to Australia & overseas: Also evidence of exceptional ability: Major national/international awards/medals: Evidence of achievement through employment/qualifications: Noteworthy in their field: *1882 Tilly was accepted for study at the Victorian Asylum and the School for the Blind *1889 Tilly Aston became the first blind person in Australia to Matriculate and attend University (University of ). *1894 Tilly Aston instigated the formation of the Braille Writers Association of Victoria and Lending Library. *In 1897 following representations in which Miss Aston was a driving force, the railways agreed to carry Braille books at half the normal rate. In 1899 this was extended to free cartage. *1907 Tilly made a submission for the Pension for incapacitated Blind. Granted in 1910. *1909 Tilly campaigned for the right of blind people to vote at State Elections. * She established the Association for the Advancement of the Blind. Abbreviated in 1960 to the Association for the Blind, its branches covering Victoria. The organization is now known as Vision Australia. The benefits of its achievements would flow to blind people throughout Australia. Indirectly its influence would impact on the lives and affairs of blind people world-wide. *1913 Tilly Aston was accepted as the head of the Education Department’s School for the Blind. * She was awarded a Commonwealth grant in 1935 & twice received the King's Medal For Distinguished Citizenship. *During WW2, Tilly gathered together other blind people, and formed a group knitting garments for the Australian soldiers overseas. * In November, 1947, the Melbourne Sun News Pictorial, in reporting the death of Miss Tilly Aston said: " she was one of the best known blind persons in the world." * For many years she was Editor of and chief contributor to A Book of Opals, a Braille magazine for Chinese mission schools. * Tilly Aston Published a total of 9 books. Maiden Verses (1901), The Woolinappers (1905), The Straight Goer (serialized in Spectator from 1908), Singable Songs (1924), Songs of Light (1935), Gold from Old Diggings (serialized in Bendigo Advertiser from August 1937), Old Timer (1938), The Inner Garden (1940), Memoirs of Tilly Aston (1946) Known Internationally – Acknowledged by others: One of her books of poems, 'Songs of Light' received a good press in England. She received a letter from Queen Mary's secretary. Prominent English author & critic Douglas Sladen wrote: "the most brilliant blind woman in the world, who in the seven years of childhood during which sight was vouched to her learned of mankind what others learned in a lifetime. She knows nature and human nature as well as if she saw them with her own eyes and has a most delightful way of expressing her opinions to those who see with their eyes. She is a beautiful poet and a faithful writer of stories".

Helen Keller, with whom Miss Aston had been in correspondence for many years, wrote on receiving Songs of Light: "I trust you will accept my grateful thanks for the joy you have given me. It is a joy like the exquisite fragrance of the petal shower falling upon the child's hair in your poem. I cannot realise that darkness encompasses you about as a nest when your songs sparkle through my fingers in dots of light. Indeed there are many lines in which my heart beats a sympathetic chime with your own". Source: NO SIGHT - GREAT VISION, A Centenary History of the Association for the Blind. BY J. W. Wilson AM. 1995.

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*Occupations:Autobiographer/memoirist, community worker, magazine/journal editor, poet, schoolteacher, short story writer, songwriter.

*Listed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol 7 1891-1939

References: Complete History of Australia. Summit Books. Paul Hamlyn P/L 1974. Australian Women Fact file Memoirs of Tilly Aston. The Hawthorn Press. 1966. Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 7 1891-1939 Elder, Bruce Ed. The A to Z of Who is Who in Australia's history Child and Associates 1987

Websites with Tilly Aston Information: http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070123b.htm?hilite=tilly%3Baston Australian Dictionary of Biography http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=1523 Vision Australia http://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE2062b.htm Australian Women’s Register http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/2338427 National Library of Australia http://www.cv.vic.gov.au/organisations/4439/vision-australia-foundation-tilly-aston-heritage-collection/ Culture Victoria

Tilly Aston also features in: Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives: Victorian Women’s Trust 2001. Adelaide, Debra (1988) Australian Women Writers: A Bibliographic Guide, London, Pandora

Current community interest: *Newspaper articles about Tilly Aston are seen regularly in the Carisbrook Mercury and the Maryborough Advertiser is due to place a story. *Tilly Aston stories read regularly on Vision Australia Radio Station, Bendigo. (3BPH, 88.7). *Recent Tilly Aston Exhibition by the Midlands Historical Society in the foyer of the Maryborough Information Centre, Cnr Nolan & Alma Streets, Maryborough

Evidence in honour of Tilly Aston’s achievements: *The electorate of Aston is named in her memory. *The Tilly Aston Bell is in King's Domain Gardens, Melbourne *Memorial Cairn to Tilly Aston in Carisbrook – erected by the schoolchildren of Carisbrook and the Midlands Historical Society 1970. *Bust of Tilly Aston. *Vision Australia regard Tilly Aston as playing a significant role in their history & a venerated pioneer for the blind. * A street in the Canberra suburb of Oxley is named after Tilly Aston *(Proposed Tilly Aston Memorial Centre to be placed near the cairn, by the Carisbrook Lions Club.)

**There is no duplication/overlap of the proposed Carisbrook Lions Tilly Aston Memorial project **Tilly Aston’s grand niece Ros Barkla currently has the task of making family arrangements due to a relative passing away, but you can be assured that a letter of support from Ros will be forthcoming if required. 2

Memorial cairn to Tilly Aston in Simson St (Pyrenees Hwy) Carisbrook. Erected by the children of Carisbrook State School and the Midlands Historical Society 1970. This was to honour 75th anniversary of the founding of the Association For the Blind. On Sunday, October 25, 1970 a simple ceremony attended by 400 people took place at the side of the Pyrenees Highway, Carisbrook. Mr E. Ault, a grandnephew unveiled the plaque.

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