Stories About St. Albans: Celebrating 125 Years
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STORIES ABOUT ST. ALBANS: CELEBRATING 125 YEARS Edited by Joseph Ribarow Revised Edition 1 ISBN 978-0-9874353-4-7 Published by Community Research and Management Services 5 Harding Street Ascot Vale Victoria 3032 First published in 2012 Revised and reprinted in 2018 Copyright © 2012, 2018 Joseph Ribarow and individual authors as indicated. This work is copyright and may not be reproduced or transmitted by any process without the permission of the Copyright holders except as permitted under the Copyright Act. Disclaimer The views expressed in the document are those of the individual authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Copyright holders. The historical information in the document is presented in good faith, but the authors and Copyright holders do not guarantee the accuracy of the information nor accept any legal responsibility from any errors in the document or for any consequences arising from them. Sponsored by Country Cartographics Country Cartographics provides custom map artwork for books, brochures, prints and tourism use, and interactive or animated flash maps for webpages. Information: www.ccarto.com.au Email: [email protected] Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people for their contributions: Marion Dodd (1927-2006) was the last of the immediate descendents of the McAuley family that selected land from the Overnewton Estate more than a century ago. It was a privilege to talk with her. Isabelle Davidson (1917-2009) came to Sunshine in 1921 and later moved interstate before returning to Keilor and St Albans. She was one of the few women in the first Redex around Australia car trial. Thanks also to Zane Davidson for details of the family background. Fred Barlow (1920-2008) was the iconic St Albans milkman of the fifties and Jeff Barlow has documented his father’s life during the depression and the war. Your work is much appreciated, Jeff. John Stevens (1923-2005) was also from a pioneer family and had clear perceptions how hard work and perseverance can eventually bring success to family ventures. A family of leadership. John Perrett’s family took over the general store in 1923 and became central in local folklore for unstinting service to the community. Thank you John for your contribution. Jimmy and Rae Knowles have been generous with their knowledge and their photographs. True quiet achievers. Brenda Payne, Gudrun Goddard, Bronwyn Frazer and Sandra Beaver provided information and photos about that quintessentially St Albans superstore, Self Bros & Goddard. Mary Smith (1920-2015) shared her knowledge of local people and history through her recollections and unpublished notes. A real treasure. Photographs: Jimmy and Rae Knowles, Gavin Aitken, John Perrett, Zane Davidson, Jeff Barlow, Gudrun Goddard, Brenda Payne, Karen Bugeja, Alie Missen, Peter Nowatschenko, Yvonne Correlje. St Albans Auction image: State Library Victoria, Batten & Percy collection. The photograph on the front cover is of the marriage of Lewis George Self and Marion Grace Trudgen at Footscray, 1911 © Brenda Payne. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Page 1 The most significant phase in the settlement of St Albans occurred in the early 1900s when the Closer Settlement Board subdivided Overnewton Estate into blocks of 200 to 300 acres and offered these for selection. Marion McAuley Page 3 Ours was a mixed farm. Dad raised cattle; they’d milk some, and raise calves, of course. So we had cows, pigs, sheep, and chooks. We also had some ducks, geese and turkeys. Of course we had horses. Two horses were used for carting water, and you needed four horses for pulling the big binder when the oaten hay was being cut. John Stevens Page 13 The headaches and the heartaches at the turn of the century from 1890 to 1910, which was lots of unimproved land in abundance but no takers, became the base for migrant development, particularly in St Albans, to the joy of all concerned. Self and Goddard Page 22 Everything is linked because one story leads to another and each story links to another family. The families that Gudrun talks about are the families that we always met too. I consider her mum and dad as family, and it’s the same with other people that I know. Everyone who worked at the shop we considered them as our family. Jimmy Knowles Page 31 We were very lucky to grow up in St Albans when there were all the open paddocks around us with the cows, the sheep and the rabbits. When it was raining we used to run around in the gutters and the paddocks but we never seemed to get sick so all the open air must have been good for us. Isabelle Davidson Page 39 After I got married I spent about 26 years living in other states before we came back to Victoria. I was in Queensland, then in Taree in New South Wales, and finally at Mt Gambier in South Australia, before coming to live in Keilor and work in St Albans. John Perrett Page 49 St Albans was so small that you knew everyone, and if by chance you met someone new and had forgotten their name you would just ask the next person you saw along the street and they would know. Fred Barlow Page 57 My workmate told me about this block of land he’d bought for £50. I said that sounds fair enough to me, and I went out and had a look at the land and then bought a block. I then took the wife out to see the block and she nearly fainted. 3 INTRODUCTION fourth class grazing property. In that register the property is recorded as comprising 12,880 acres. This year, 2012, is the one-hundred-and- The best of the land, which has been retained, is twenty-fifth anniversary of the naming of St nearest to Keilor, around Mr. Taylor’s homestead. The 10,000 acres the Government Albans as a district. The name was adopted after has purchased is further out on the plain. … the local railway station was commissioned and What the prospective selectors complain about is opened in February 1887. This important that the stones preclude the land being used for transport development should have created anything but grazing, and that grazing land is no more opportunities for people to settle in the use to them, because under the act the area, but initially had little direct impact because maximum is £1500 worth per settler. They are of the financial downturn of the 1890s, to which informed that the price will not be less than £6 land speculation, such as that occurring in the per acre, and that means only 250 acres each. district at the time, may have contributed. One sheep to the acre yields about 4/- per acre for wool growing, and they urge that the gross The most significant phase in the settlement returns from 250 acres carrying sheep will not of St Albans occurred in the early 1900s when pay for land at £6 per acre. As to dairying, that is the Closer Settlement Board subdivided the impossible without cultivation of fodder for the Overnewton Estate into blocks of 200 to 300 cows, and on this plain, which is described as the acres and offered these for selection. This bleakest and coldest country they ever visited, it attracted the new “pioneer” families such as the will take as much food to simply maintain the McAuleys, Boyds, Andersons, Stevens, animal heat of the cows as it takes in sheltered Colemans, Griffiths, McRaes, King and others, districts to keep them altogether in first class milk to acquire land along Taylors Road and in the production condition. As to the question of the stony character of the property, the writer, as the western part of St Albans through to Sydenham. result of a very careful examination of the whole It was a time of optimism for some, that dream estate, is forced to admit that about one-third of of independence for which many people the 10,000 acres is of the quarry class of struggled. Some succeeded and others barely rockiness, another third too stony for ploughing, survived because of the small lots and poor and the balance free enough from stones to get a quality of the land. plot for cultivation amongst it in spots. An independent observer who visited the The soil in itself, though not very attractive Overnewton Estate at the time, the “special looking, could be got to grow fair crops of hay correspondent” for The Age, 26 July 1905, had with the help of about 50 or 60 lb. of super per acre. That is, assuming a plough could be got this to say: into it. The soil is a reddish brown loam thinly “Overnewton, one of the latest purchases by the overlying a clayey subsoil, resembling land Closer Settlement Board, is a property of 10,000 further along in the Melton district, from which acres, situated on the Keilor Plains. There is good hay crops are obtained. The Melton land, some confusion to the name. Some call it however, is in most parts altogether, and in other Arundel, but it is not Arundel. That is the name of parts comparatively free from stones. A farmer a very valuable small farming property formerly met in the Melton direction was asked how would owned my Mr. Robert McDougal, the famous he work a 250-acre block on the Overnewton breeder of Shorthorn cattle. It is stated that the Estate. Government has also purchased Arundel. If so, Well, he said, I wouldn’t attempt cultivation, that should be an ideal property for closer because there is no end to the stones.