Honour Box to go home
The Society is excited to have been part of the tale about an Honour Box returning to its home.
We have an Honour Box in our collection, and a copy of the book that it contained, issued at the end of World War I, recording all Victorian Teachers who served.
This is our box, one of the commercially produced type.
When the Valencia Creek school closed in 1951 as part of the amalgamation that formed Boisdale Consolidated School, the book and box remained in the vacant building.
When the vacant building was moved to Bairnsdale (in the 1960s?) to use at the first Nowyeung in Grant Street, there was still no interest in the box and its book, so the relocation contractors kept it, rather than see it thrown out.
They have now handed it to the East Gippsland Historical Society at Bairnsdale, who in turn passed it to us, in the hope that we would know where it should be most appropriately placed.
It did not take a lot of thought. The Valencia Creek Soldiers Memorial Hall, which was built next to the school after WWI, was the only option we were prepared to consider. It will be returned as close as possible to its original home in the near future.
The box itself is interesting, apparently a locally made option, much more vernacular than the commercial options usually found. (It is actually quite square - blame the photographer for the list!)
Does anyone have any knowledge of other examples of these boxes, especially any that are different again?
The assistance of the East Gippsland Historical Society in the return of this valuable item to its original home is much appreciated.
Dairy Factories
George is currently working on our dairy display in The Shed, and Maffra Historical Society are working on dairy factories, so our minds are turning to the same thing.
We have a number of items in our collection that relate to home milking and processing, and one cream can (from Miss Farrell), pictured.
But we have no photographs of either milking or of the numerous dairy factories that were in the Shire of Avon.
There were early private factories at Inverbroom and Craigielee, and later the Avondale Condensed Milk factory near Chinn's Bridge. The Heart / Clydebank Cheese factory was very prominent in the 1880s, and a creamery operated on the river (about where the Rules live) from 1893 to an unknown date. The Bundalaguah Creamery was just inside the Shire of Avon, and a private butter factory at Wolverton may have also been in the shire, the same for one on Tom's Creek at Bengworden. Thomas Coto had a large factory near Sale. There was even a cheese factory at Dargo.
But not one photo of these do we have in the collection.
Can anyone help with the loan of any we can copy???
We have a Flower!
The Tuesday team has, over the years, become very attached to the plant on the corner. We used to know its name, but have temporarily forgotten, but think it was planted long before the society took over the building. You can see it here, behind the sign.
Every Tuesday Wemyss would carefully water it, and ever year its flowers were celebrated.
Until we came along, and found the brickies had removed it during renovations during the week, and it had been left on the lawn to die!
Total despair.
One member picked it up, took it home, potted it up and mollycoddled it. Surely, since it had survived that long, it had to be tough.
And it was - it is in flower
Closing for Christmas
The Stratford and District Historical Museum is now closed for Christmas.
We will be reopening on Tuesday, 10 January 2012
We hope everyone has a Joyous and Safe Christmas and New Year.
Over the break, some members will be working on a new database of biographical information on some of our early residents - stay tuned for an announcement in a few days.
We hope you enjoy the Christmas card, on the left, from the collection. Our New Year's resolution is to unwrap it and photograph it properly!
Baptisms by the Rev John Roberts
The Society has recently received a copy of the baptismal register for the Rev John Roberts, who came to the Maffra Presbyterian Church in late 1865, later moving to Stratford. Overall, he spent fifty years ministering to the people of Gippsland from the two towns, carrying out 1,240 baptisms in the process.
The Rev Roberts often travelled to Lindenow, and obviously had a close relationship with the Scott family at Delvine. In all, he performed 32 baptisms at Delvine. Some other figures are: Briagolong 94, Nuntin 38, Roseneath 14, Stratford 119, Yeerung 30.
Stratford names include Barker, Beecher, Gilmour, Hardy, Hazlett, Johnson, Keddie, Light, Little, Manning, Mitchell, Poole and Weir. Yeerung names include Bartlett, Blake, Carroll, Gray, Martin, Orchard, Sibbald, Tweedie and Walkden. Nuntin names include Stothers and Wrigglesworth.
The different makeup of the Stratford community is also shown – from 1891, itinerant families of line repairers, working for the railways, began to have children baptised. However the majority of children in Stratford were from families of farmers and labourers, with only an occasional storekeeper, shoemaker or other occupation.
The Rev Roberts was born in London in 1829, and arrived in Adelaide in 1849. He worked as a lay preacher in various Adelaide suburban missions, until being appointed to the new charge of Goolwa the following year. He remained there for ten years, but maintained strong links, often returning there for holidays. He was returning from a holiday there in December 1915, to celebrate his fifty years of continuous service to the Presbyterian Church in North Gippsland, when he died suddenly on the train at Camberwell. He had carried out two baptisms in South Australia several days previously.
After Goolwa he relocated to Melbourne, spending time at missions at Footscray and Maidstone, before moving to Stratford and Maffra in 1865. Ill-health forced his retirement from full-time ministry at Stratford in 1897, but he continued to baptise children, often the children of those he had first baptised many years before. In retirement, he lived in Maffra.
The records now held by the Society have been organised by surname, making it easy to check for those interested in their early family history. They are currently on open access in the museum as part of small exhibition on the Rev and Mrs Roberts. The portraits that form the centrepiece are on loan from the Uniting Church at Stratford, and previously hung in the Presbyterian Church at Valencia Creek.
The Bulletin is out
Bulletin #20 is out - well done Martin, who has been chugging along with it for all those twenty issues.
This one contains a tribute to our president, Wemyss Struss, on the presentation of her RHSV Award of Merit, a building report (you should see the bricks and foundations!), a report on the baptisms by the Rev John Roberts, a listing of names on the 1855 Map of Stratford, and a continuation of names in the index to Kelly, the grocer of Stratford (P-W). And a photo of a nasty-looking trap.
Full abstracts for articles will appear soon on our newsletter blog.
The Society is excited to have been part of the tale about an Honour Box returning to its home.
Does anyone have any knowledge of other examples of these boxes, especially any that are different again?
