DRAFT – Sept 2013 Mount Alexander Shire Council Local Community Planning Project Community Profile Chewton 3451 INTRODUCTION Mount Alexander Shire Council has been funded over three years, until May 2014, through the State Government’s Department of Planning and Community Development, to undertake the Mount Alexander Shire Local Community Planning Project (LCPP). The project aims to support local community engagement across the Shire to enable communities to articulate their needs and aspirations through the development of local community-based Action Plans. 1 DRAFT – Sept 2013 In September 2011, Council announced that Chewton would be one of three townships to participate in the next round of planning. This document has been formulated to provide some background information about Chewton and a starting point for discussion. ABOUT MOUNT ALEXANDER SHIRE The original inhabitants of the Mount Alexander area were the Jaara Jaara Aboriginal people. European settlement dates from the late 1830s, with land used mainly for pastoral purposes, particularly sheep grazing. European settler population was minimal until the 1850s where it was spurred by gold mining from 1851, the construction of the railway line, which was opened in 1852, and the establishment of several townships. Rapid growth took place into the late 1800s before declining as gold supplies waned and mines were closed. Relatively stable between the 1950’s and the 1980’s, the population increased from about 12,700 in 1981 to 16,600 in 2006. The official resident population for the Shire as of the 30 June 2011 is 17,8031. Mount Alexander Shire (MAS, the Shire) forms part of the Loddon Mallee Region (the Region), which encompasses ten municipalities and covers nearly 59,000km2 in size, or approximately 26 percent of the land area of the State of Victoria. The Shire is approximately 1,530km2 in size and comprises several small towns and communities of national historic and environmental significance. The population of the Shire is quite centralised, with just over half of the Shire’s population living in Castlemaine and the immediate surrounds, including the townships of Chewton, Campbells Creek and Barkers Creek. Other primary townships include Newstead, Maldon, Taradale and Harcourt. Formed in 1995 from the merger of the City of Castlemaine, Shire of Newstead, most of the Shire of Maldon and Shire of Metcalfe, Mount Alexander is divided into five wards: Calder Ward, Castlemaine Ward, Coliban Ward, Loddon Ward and Tarrengower Ward. Castlemaine Ward has three councillors while the other wards are represented by one councillor each. 1 Estimated Resident Population – Mount Alexander Shire, Australian Bureau of Statistics, 30th June 2012 2 DRAFT – Sept 2013 Figure One: Map of Mount Alexander Shire Figure Two: Map of Chewton (Mount Alexander Shire Boundary) 3 DRAFT – Sept 2013 Figure Three: Map of Chewton (ABS 2011 Census State-Suburb Boundary) 4 DRAFT – Sept 2013 ABOUT CHEWTON Chewton is located 5 Km east of Castlemaine. The Pyrenees Highway runs through the middle of Chewton, following the old bullock track and the path through the original cottage settlements of the gold times. The localities of Moonlight Flat, Golden Point and Chewton Bushlands bound the north, Faraday and Elphinstone buffet the east, Fryerstown to the south, and Wesley Hill and Castlemaine bounds the west. Chewton is named after Lord Chewton. HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT Prior to European settlement, the Chewton area was inhabited by the Jaara Jaara people of the Dja Dja Wurrung language group, part of the Kulin nation. The first European in the area was the explorer Major Thomas Mitchell in 1836-37. Not long after, a sheep station was established by William Campbell, which incorporated the current town site. Settlement of the area dates from the late 1830s, with land used mainly for grazing. The township of Chewton was established in the early 1850s, spurred by the gold rush. Rapid growth took place from the 1850s into the late 1800s. From the late 1800s the population began to decline as gold supplies waned and mines were closed. The population has been relatively stable since the early 1990s, a result of some new dwellings being added to the area, but a decline in the average number of persons living in each dwelling. Ruins of the Garfield Water Wheel The first news of gold in the Forest Creek area (Chewton) appeared in The Argus newspaper, as a letter to the editor written by three shepherds, in about September 1951, a trickle of fortune seekers came to try their luck. When reports of their incredible success reached Melbourne the trickle turned to a flood and by the end of November 1851 the population of the Forest Creek diggings was around 15,000 and by mid December it was approaching 25,000. 5 DRAFT – Sept 2013 On the 15th December 1851 a protest meeting was held by the gold diggers in the area and was given the name Monster Meeting because of the number of diggers attending, estimated somewhere between 12,000 to 20,000, according to various reports. The diggers were protesting about the doubling of the cost of the license to dig from 30 shillings to 3 pounds per month, a cynical rouse by the colonial government of the time to try to keep the colony’s cheap labour in the cities from fleeing to the gold diggings to seek their fortune. The Government surrendered its plans to increase the cost of the license, as a response to the vociferousness of the protest at the Monster Meeting, taking the heat out of the situation. Chewton Post Office opened on 8 September 1857. A Forrest Creek Post Office had opened in 1852, which was replaced by Castlemaine in 1854. The Red Hill Hotel, constructed in 1854 is still standing today. By the 1860s the alluvial gold had been exhausted and efforts turned to underground shafts in search of gold bearing quartz reefs. Underground mining saw the immigration of Welsh and Cornish miners and some mines were very successful. The Wattle Gully mine founded in 1876 is still operating today. As gold mining wound down, the population declined to 1,212 in 1891 and 454 in 1933. While close to Castlemaine the town maintains a distinct identity. Several historical buildings and sites, including the Chewton Town Hall (constructed in 1858) and the Post office (constructed in 1879) are now owned by the Chewton Domain Society, a community group established in 1996 to manage the properties and the park adjoining the Town Hall. The society also produces a monthly community newsletter. For several years, Chewton was host to a folk music festival over the Australia Day long weekend, but in 2007, the festival relocated to nearby Newstead. DEMOGRAPHICS The recent release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2011 census shows Chewton’s population is 1,317, with 402 (83.4% ) occupied local households and 80 (16.6%) unoccupied at the time of the census. The Census collection area seems to take in a larger area than the boundary of the Chewton township. The main township of Chewton has an estimated population of 311. Mount Alexander Shire has quite a different age profile than the Victorian average. Chewton’s age profile is also fairly unique within the Shire with somewhat more adults in the 20 to 64 age group (72.3% for Chewton, 56.9% in MAS and 60.8% for Victoria), pointing to a generally younger population in comparison to the rest of the Shire. The profile in Chewton for those aged over 65 is markedly lower than both the State average and the Shire (12.8% for Chewton, 20.9% for MAS and 14.1% for Victoria). The median age of Chewton residents is 41. 6 DRAFT – Sept 2013 There is a notable variation in the distribution of gender of residents in Chewton, with nearly two thirds of the population being male, an interesting phenomena considering its gold diggings history, where men would have vastly outnumbered women. Of the 1,317 people in Chewton 63.6% were male and 36.4% were female, Victorian (49.2% male, 50.8% female) and Shire (49.5% male and 50.5% female) averages are far more evenly distributed. Within the Shire, Chewton exhibits a reasonably diverse community make-up with 14.9% of people having both parents born overseas, the most common countries of birth were England 3.2%, Vietnam 1.7%, New Zealand 1.4%, India 0.7% and Germany 0.5%. The number of people with both parents born in Australia was 75%, on par with the Shire as a whole. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people make up 3.1% of the population of Chewton, significantly higher than the 1.0% within the Shire as a whole. Of the families in Chewton, 35.7% are coupled families with children, 45.3% are couple families without children and 19.0% are one parent families. Overall in Chewton, 7.5% of the population were attending primary school, 5.9% of the population were attending secondary institutions, and 5.1% were learning at a tertiary level, compared with 8.1%, 6.9% and 4.6% respectively for Regional VIC. There has also been an increase since the 2006 census in the number of people attending a tertiary level institution indicating that continuing education is seen as important for that population. The number children currently enrolled in the Chewton Primary school is 31. Children aged 0 - 14 years made up 11.4% of the population and a further 3.9% in the 15-19 years age bracket. Over a quarter of the population in Chewton describe themselves as having no religion at 28.8% whilst 25.9% of Chewton residents described themselves as having a faith (either Christian or non-Christian).