Free Copy In This Edition: Page Page John Pascoe Fawkner 2 Milo 20 “Wipe Off 5” 4 The Flight Recorder 22 Where Is Duck Ponds? 5 The Periodic Table 24 The National Hotel 6 Station Peak 25 Civilisation Has Improved!... 7 Judy Garland 26 The Delicate Ladybird 8 Recipe—Chicken Stir-fry 28 George Seth Coppin 10 Word Search— Countries 29 The Argyle Diamond Mine 12 Shipwrecked! The Sydney Cove 30 The Sphinx 14 150 Years Ago 31 Grauman’s Chinese Theatre 16 Then… & Now 32 Egyptian Hieroglyphics 18 John Pascoe Fawkner became one of the early found- ing fathers of the city of Melbourne. He was born on October 20, 1792 in London, the son of John Snr and Hannah Fawkner, a metal refiner. His father was convicted of receiving stolen goods and in 1801 was sentenced to fourteen years transportation. With his mother and younger sister, Elizabeth, John accompa- nied his father to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), arriving in 1803. By 1806 the family held a 50-acre (20 ha) land grant some seven miles (11 km) from Hobart Town. John, as a young man worked as a shepherd boy, often living alone for weeks at a time in a sod hut. The family prospered. When Governor Lachlan Macquarie visited the island in 1811, John was granted 50 acres (20 ha) adjoining his father's farm. The year 1814 was a turning point in Fawkner's career. Now 21 years of age, John became a baker in Hobart Town. Among his associates were several convicts and with them he devised a plan to escape Van Diemen's Land—but was caught in the act. The Van Diemen's Land Gazette, (May 21, 1814), listed John Fawkner as aiding and abetting the escape of seven prisoners. Fawkner was tried before three magistrates and sentenced to 500 lashes and three years labour. Fawkner was later sent to Newcastle by Lieutenant- Governor Thomas Davey as one who had been 'committing some atrocious Robberies and Depredations'. After he was freed in 1816 Fawkner returned to Hobart and took up baking again. He also sold liquor (without the benefit of licence) and carried firewood and sawn timber. Although he claimed to have made £1000 within 17 months of his return to Tasmania, he soon began another period of personal and financial difficulty. Throughout his life he went from boom to bust a number of times. Moving north to Launceston he was fined for selling under-weight loaves of bread and using illegal weights. In his middle years he was spoken of as 'half-froth, half-venom', and in many ways was not a very pleasant character. On December 5, 1822 Fawkner married Eliza Cobb. The Melbourne suburbs of Although he claimed in later years that he had Fawkner and Pascoe Vale are chosen his wife from an immigrant ship, Eliza named after this early settler. actually arrived late in 1818, aged 17, as a convict whose crime was stealing a baby. In 1824 he built a two-storied brick house of thirteen rooms at a total cost of £2500 and attempted to open this as an hotel. A licence was refused on the first application, as his wife was still a Crown prisoner, but it was granted a few months later. It was not long before the Cornwall Hotel, as he named his premises, enabled Fawkner to improve his financial position and clear his debts once again. He engaged in a strenuous programme of self-education and to his many activities he added that of 'bush lawyer' 2 appearing in the lower courts for a minimum fee of 6s (about 5c). He also managed a horticultural nursery and conducted a coach service between Launceston and Longford. In 1828 he started the Launceston Advertiser, acting as editor for two years, Fawkner became interested in the reports from the southern coast of the mainland made by sealers, whalers, and bark cutters. In April 1835 he sought a vessel to take an expedition to Western Port. Although a 55-ton schooner was acquired and renamed En- terprise, several contracted voyages had to be completed before it changed hands. The day Rebecca, hired by John Batman, anchored off Indented Head, Fawkner was bound over to appear at the next General Sessions for having assaulted William Bransgrove, and was thus prevented from leaving the colony for two months. The Enterprise left without him. Those on the ship became among the first to settle upon the Yarra River at the town to be named Melbourne. Fawkner himself landed at Hobson's Bay in October 1835 and at once began to lay the foundations of a fortune that grew to £20,000 in his first four years on the mainland. In January 1838 he added to his trade of hotel-keeping that of newspaper proprietor. His Melbourne Advertiser was handwritten on four pages of foolscap for nine months until a press and type arrived from Tasmania, and it was then printed weekly until suppressed because Fawkner had no licence. In February 1839, with a licence, he began the Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser; this later became a daily, and he ran it in conjunction with a bookselling and stationery business. In 1839 Fawkner also added to his already considerable land holdings a 780-acre (316 ha) property he named ‘Pascoe Vale’. Again Fawkner’s business interests began suffering huge losses. In March 1845 he was declared insolvent. However, within a year he had not only paid his debts in full but had £1000 to his bank credit. As a man of property and influence, Fawkner took an active and leading part in the political and social struggles of the time. From 1851 onward Fawkner held political office for eighteen years, until his death. With advancing years Fawkner's health declined but he continued to attend every govern- ment session, always wearing a velvet smoking cap and wrapped in an old-fashioned cloak. He had grown to be regarded as an institution, and became more conservative in his views. Asthma made his voice weak and husky, and he admitted at the end that age and infirmity weighed heavily upon him, but while there was work to be done, he wanted to share in it. Though cantankerous and dogmatic, he was also considered an honest, selfless patriot. His last words to parliament declared his faith: 'I believe the Colony requires new blood, and that, unless we get more working men here, the work of improvement must stand still, if it does not retrograde'. Fawkner died aged 76, on September 4, 1869 at his home in Smith Street, Collingwood, the grand old man of contemporary Victoria. The Enterprise—Fawkner’s ship 3 One of the biggest killers on our roads is excessive speed. Too many of our drivers, especially young men feel ―they can handle it,‖ and ―speed restrictions are for unskilled drivers—not me.‖ Sadly thousands of drivers have to live with the memory of the fact that their over-confidence has killed another human. The attitude that ―I am invincible,‖ and ―it won’t happen to me‖ has been around for a long time, as the following newspaper excerpt shows. As you read it, ask yourself—‖How long is it going to take me to learn the Speeding Kills!‖ WERRIBEE, Monday.—In the police court today, before Mr. D.W. O’Grady, P.M., and Mr. F. Cunningham, J.P., Thomas Peter Manifold, grazier, of Camperdown, was charged with having driven a car in a dangerous manner on the Melbourne-Geelong road on March 2. Constable Bently, of the police motor patrol, said: “I travelled behind Manifold’s car on March 2 for a distance of four and a half miles [7km]. Races were being held at Geelong on that day, and traffic on the road was heavy. At one stage my speedometer registered 52 miles an hour [84kmh], then 54 miles an hour [87kmh], and touched 60 miles an hour [97kmh], several cars were passed. When Manifold stopped in response to my order, he said that he might have been doing 50 miles an hour [81kmh].” Manifold, who pleaded not guilty, said: “I was travelling at a thoroughly safe speed. My car, which has a speed of 70 miles an hour [113kmh], is fitted with good brakes on the four wheels. I could have pulled up in two cars’ lengths. My speed on March 2 might have been 50 miles an hour[80kmh], but the maximum could not have been more than 58 miles [93kmh].” Mr. O’Grady said that he was satisfied that defendant was travelling at a dangerous speed. Manifold was fined £10, and his driving licence suspended for three months. The Argus Tuesday, May 3, 1927 4 When the area we now know to be Lara was first settled in the 1840’s, it was referred to by many different names, Kennedy’s Creek, Hovell’s Creek, Cheddar, Swindon and Lara Lake. But the most commonly used and preferred name was Duck Ponds due to the Duck Ponds Creek running through the town that was inhabited by a large number of fowl. Notice in the Argus, February 18, 1858 When the railway station opened in 1856 it was known as Ducks Ponds, leading to the Duck Ponds Post Office opening on March 1, 1858. The school which was built in 1855 and known as Station Peak School was also renamed Duck Ponds School in 1862 when the common school system was introduced. In 1872 the Colonial Government decided to change the town’s name to Hovell’s Creek (after the explorer, William Hovell.) The Post Office and Railway Station changed to the new name, but 2 years later Notice in the Argus, March 24, 1875 the town changed name to Lara, for reasons described below.