Site History of Shire of Eltham Memorial Park/Kangaroo Ground War Memorial Park Dr Peter Mills 26 June 2020

Site history of Shire of Eltham Memorial Park/Kangaroo Ground War Memorial Park Dr Peter Mills 26 June 2020 Wurundjeri occupation of Kangaroo Ground at the point of invasion The area now known as Kangaroo Ground is part of the lands of the Wurundjeri. There is little written evidence of Wurundjeri land management in this area at the time of invasion. However, with a tide of recent studies emphasising the ubiquity of pre-contact Aboriginal management of Australian landscapes by fire, one can now reasonably interpolate that the Wurundjeri managed their environment by fire, including in the area of Kangaroo Ground. The Kangaroo Ground may be the clearest instance of an Aboriginal-made landscape in the Nillumbik area. Grammage observes that there are many ‘kangaroo grounds’ around Australia, which were typically created by Aboriginal manipulation with fire and which were identified in subsequent settler place names. He proposes that Aboriginal people kept certain areas of very productive open country as breeding places for animals or plants, where hunting was only allowed every few years, or in parts of the area each year (Gammage, 2011, pp.284–7). Mick Woiwod found that on the 1847 survey plans of William Weston Howe, the Manna Gums (Eucalyptus viminalis) which dominated the black soil area of the Kangaroo Ground were shown at half the density of the tree cover in the surrounding Stringybark forests. Woiwod concluded that “the general openness of the Kangaroo Ground and the speed with which it fell to the plough seems explicable only within the concept of Aboriginal firestick farming” (Woiwod, 2011, p.57; Woiwod, 1995, pp.30-31). In 1874 a travelling reporter for the Leader observed that the name Kangaroo Ground was said to have arisen “from the extraordinary richness of the location with kangaroo grass before it was settled upon, and even now, if ploughed land is left unsowed, it grows in profusion” (Leader, 20 June 1874). Written evidence of other aspects of Wurundjeri occupation of the Kangaroo Ground area is scant. Ellender found evidence that the Wurundjeri moved between the lowlands and the hills and that Aboriginal people used water holes on the north-east slopes of Kangaroo Ground. Ellender also observed, however, that the majority of early accounts of Aboriginal life in the district were focused around their occupation of land bordering the water bodies (Ellender 1994, pp.12 & 14). Invasion and dispossession European occupation of Aboriginal lands in the Port Phillip District by pastoralists began in the mid-1830s. Broome describes the invasion of the pastoral lands of Port Phillip as “one of the fastest land occupations in the history of empires” (Broome 2005, p.54). The take-up of squatting runs was accompanied by a variety of impacts which drove Aboriginal people off their lands. The infrastructure supporting the Aboriginal food supply such as huts and eel and fish traps and channels was often destroyed by the squatters. Game was driven off by men and dogs and waterholes and plant foods such as yam-daisies were damaged by overgrazing. With the resulting food shortages, Aboriginal people had little option but to kill stock for food. Killing of stock was also a form of economic warfare against the intruders (Boyce 2012, p.171; Broome 2005, p.77). These patterns can reasonably be interpolated to have applied to the impact of the invasion of the Nillumbik area, and Kangaroo Ground in particular. The killing of stock on the Victoria frontier typically resulted in violent reprisals by the squatters. Richard Broome estimates that about 1000 Aboriginal people were directly killed on the Victorian frontier overall, with around 80 white deaths (Broome 2005, p.81). Wilkinson found some evidence of such tensions in the eastern part of the Eltham district with armed bands of Aboriginal men threatening solitary shepherds and homesteads (Wilkinson 1969 p.84 in Ellender 1994, p.13) But he also found no evidence of major loss of lie or serious injury among whites or blacks in the Eltham district during the frontier period (Wilkinson 1969, p.77 in Ellender 1994, p.13). The Protectorate of Aborigines which was set up in 1839 did little to slow the process of dispossession (Boyce 2012, p.177). A reserve was set up on the Yarra River to the south of Kangaroo Ground, including part of Section 7 Parish of Nillumbik, but it was abolished in ca1859. Section 7 had become part of the Glengloy Farmers Common before 1863. The influx of population in the gold-rushes only accelerated these processes, and Ellender concludes that “the 1850s saw the steady decline in the Aboriginal population in the [Eltham] district” (Ellender 1994:14; Woiwod 2011, p.49; Eltham and Glengloy United Town and Farmers Common File 4734, Item 69, Unit 39, VPRS 242, PROV). Squatting runs incorporating Garden Hill James Bruce Donaldson held the Kangaroo Ground run from 1840 (Billis & Kenyon, p.201). Partners James Brown and Samuel Draper held the Kangaroo Ground run from 1844-1849 (Billis & Kenyon, p.36) Brown and Draper had a fenced off cultivation area on a northern ridgeline of the hill later known as Garden Hill, centred around 750m to the north of the summit. Their paddock was detailed on Howe’s 1848 plan, where it was shown spread over the junction of the four allotments of Section 2 Parish of Nillumbik (Fig.1). It is possible that the name Garden Hill derived from the presence of this cultivated area on its flanks. Brown and Draper dissolved their partnership in 1848 (Melbourne Daily News, 14 December 1848:3). Reminiscences published in the local paper in 1887 suggested that the name of the hill had been acquired “from primeval settlers or pioneers having planted vegetables” (EO&S&EBR, 11 November 1887:2). This was an exception to the general rule of early pastoralists not engaging in agriculture (Kellaway 1992, p.218). Agricultural settlement on freehold Fig.1: Detail of 1848 Parish of Nillumbik plan showing summit of Garden Hill and the location of Brown and Draper’s cultivation paddock and huts (Plan of Subdivided Sections in and Adjoining the Parish of Nillumbik, Surveyed by Wm. Weston Howe, 18 April 1848, Sydney N5). Surveys and Crown land sales In the 1840s government surveys of the Parish of Nillumbik were extended into Kangaroo Ground where the land was fertile, while other areas of the parish remained unsurveyed. A number of Scottish farming families purchased land at Kangaroo Ground at early Crown land sales and commenced clearing and cultivation of the land (Kellaway 1992, pp.216-18). In early 1848 surveyor Weston Howe surveyed sections of the “Upper Kangaroo Grounds”, which were then occupied by squatters as a sheep run (Port Phillip Gazette and Settler’s Journal, 27 November 1847:2). The summit of Garden Hill was located on the southeast corner of Allotment 4 Section 2 Parish of Nillumbik. The Thomsons then Mess brothers at ‘Garden Hill’ (now Setel Downs) Allotment 4 Section 2 Parish of Nillumbik Note that at various times farms on both Allotments 4 and 3 of Section 2 were referred to as ‘Garden Hill Farm/Estate’. Allotment 4 Section 2 was purchased at the Crown land sales in December 1848 by George Kirk (Geelong Advertiser, 16 December 1848:1). He also purchased Allotment 1 Section 2 in 1849 (Argus, 22 February 1850:1). Kirk was a Melbourne butcher, tanner and land speculator who never lived at Kangaroo Ground (Woiwod 1994, p.58). The first land purchase by Scottish immigrants Alexander and Jane Thomson and family in the Kangaroo Ground was Allotment 2 Section 2, Parish of Nillumbik, 156 acres, in the name of their eldest son John in 1848. They soon also leased Kirk’s land, Allotments 1 and 4 of Section 2 (containing the summit of Garden Hill), and also acquired another 78 acres to the west (Allotment 4 Section 3). Alexander and Jane’s homestead was ‘Hill Grove’. Second son James was established at ‘Garden Hill’, the southern part of Allotment 4 Section 2 (Nillumbik Parish Plan; Woiwod 1994 p.59). At some point, probably before 1863, they purchased ‘Garden Hill’. An 1863 plan shows Allotment 4 divided into north and south halves (Eltham and Glengloy United Town and Farmers Common File 4734, Item 69, Unit 39, VPRS 242, PROV). After James Thomson died in 1891 his three Kangaroo Ground properties were offered for sale (EO&S&EBR, 15 May 1891:2; 29 May 1891:2). ‘Garden Hill’, 78 acres, was sold to James Mess, farmer of Kangaroo Ground (Argus, 11 June 1891:10). James Mess and Jane Stevenson had first taken up two 20-acre lots, Allotments 5 and 6 Section 20 Parish of Nillumbik (adjacent to the east of Allotments 2 and 4 Section 2), under the Land Act 1865, to which they gained freehold in 1869. James had also selected 138 acres Allotment 8 Section 2, to which he gained freehold in 1887 (Nillumbik Parish Plan Sheet 2; Woiwod 1994, p.101). James Mess still owned ‘Garden Hill’ when he died in 1901 (EO&S&EBR, 21 June 1901:2). The property was then run by his sons until c1947 (CT V7081 F118). Leo Edward Gleeson became the owner of 76 acres, the southern part of Allotment 4, in 1947. Florence and Rupert Foster became the owners in 1954, and Alice and Herbert Tompkins became the owners in 1956. They renamed the property ‘Setel Downs’ (CT V7081 F744; Age, 14 October 1957:11). The Harkness family at ‘Garden Hill Farm/Estate’ Allotment 3 Section 2 Parish of Nillumbik Note: The Memorial Park is not on this land but is immediately adjacent to its southwest corner, and the current access road is located on a small triangle of land and another strip of land which were once part of this allotment.

Load more