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130 ByWays DoncasterMirror
July 5, 1983
Making tracks into the future
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
THE line of main roads in our district are believed to have been first made by sawmillers. They picked the high land for their tracks as ridges were easier to negotiate. Sawmillers along Ruffey's Creek are believed to have made the first tracks.
From the earliest times, right up until the late 1960s, the district's unmade roads were notorious.
Before the 1870s there was no road to Box Hill, and no road from East Doncaster to Blackburn. Most routes were walking tracks through the bush. From Doncaster to Templestowe was a dray track along what was then called Middle Rd. (now Manningham) to Thompson's Rd.
When Blackburn Rd. did become established, it was termed "a circuituous road from - Deep Creek to Melbourne". This was 1882. Its' steep guage made it next to impassable.
Residents of Deep Creek and Warrandyte were compelled to cross private property (Rutledge's land) for which they had to pay what they called an "expensive and vexatious toll."
In 1866 the roads from Melbourne to Templestowe were described as "mires where horses sank to their knees in mud." Even brushwood to fill the worst ditches cost too much for the Roads Board which had been established in 1856 and which was the forerunner of the municipal council.
In 1864 it bought its first, equipment — a wheelbar-row. Whitehorse Rd., Deepdene, where it dips, was called "The Bay of Biscay". In 1881 some travellers suc-cessfully sued the Roads Board for damages because of a road accident in which they were injured.
Mr F. Heydon, his wife and sister, of Ascot Vale, were awarded 800 pounds.
This claim cost the people of Doncaster nearly 2000 pounds, which was met by the striking of a special rate from 1881 to 1884.
All back roads were then fenced off to protect ratepayers from this type of result of visitors travelling upon them. This is why Church Road remained fenced off through all those years until it became incorporated into the municipal gardens.
In 1856/57 land was first surveyed for roads, although years passed before the Roads Board could afford to buy it and provide rights-of-way. These first road sur-veys. were for High St., Ayr St., Manningham Rd. and Whitten's Lane.
They were to provide communication with the village of Carlton and with Templestowe.
In 1857, the Roads Board assessed that it would get in $280 from rates. It also estimated that roadworks would cost over $5000. In 1873, when Warrandyte Ward became incorporated in the Templestowe District, the Warrandyte-Templestowe Rd. and the Warrandyte - Ringwood roads were all but impassable in winter and not much better in summer.
In 1913, when cars were taking to the roads, someone scattered broken bottles along the Templestowe-Warrandyte Road, to scare them away.
In 1914, Doncaster Coun-cil passed some traffic by-laws, which, included: Any person riding or impelling a machine or in charge thereof shall: (a) car-ry a bell, horn or other instrument capable of giving at the will of such person,
audible and sufficient warning of the approach and position of the machine; (b) at the request of any person having charge of a horse, cause the machine to stop and remain stationary so long as may reasonably be necessary.
131 ByWays DoncasterMirror
August 2, 1983
A quaint way to get around
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
By Joan Seppings Webster
A QUAINT aspect of Don-caster's early public transport was the twenty passenger touring cars used for a short while around the time of the-First World War.
These were very wide motor cars, which could hold four or five passengers in the front and back seats., Each seat has its own door.
These old versions of the mini-bus carried up to 10 passengers and were run by a company called the British Motor Service, at the instigation of the Don-caster Progress Association.
Percy Withers is the mane most associated with Don-caster bus services. He was a Warrandyte Councillor from 1957-1961, shire president 1960 and a long time member of local progress associations.
His first bus service in 1913, operated with father, A. A. Withers, stalled although, as with his later successful service, his drivers were known for their helpfulness and courtesy. It was patronised in Warrandyte, but did not pay. His bus company later became Pioneer Motors.
The Withers own bus company ran well from 1925 until the Tramways Board bought him out in 1962. But even before this, a jerky start was attempted in 1911.
The Doncaster Progress Association agreed to pay $12 a week to the General Motor Bus Company, which ran in Toorak, to help it put buses on the roads from East Doncaster post office, through Kew, to St. Paul's Cathedral opposite Flinders St. Station.
Forty passengers a day had been planned with a fare of two shillings to Melbourne, and threepence from East Doncaster to Doncaster and three trips a day.
But it was the start of the same old story — high running costs and lack of patronage, and it lasted only a few months.
Between Doncaster and Box Hill a horse-drawn coach service had operated since the tram had closed in1896. This terminated at the Doncaster Hotel. By 1912, this run took 45minutes and boasted a four-horse coach.
Operator Mr Víctor Sonenberg extended the line to East Doncaster with five trips on weekdays, three on Saturdays and two on Sundays.
At the eastern end of the municipality a horse drawn coach ran daily between Warrandyte and Ringwood.
About the same time as Mr Withers started his first bus service, before World War one, yr Sonenberg also turned to motor. He put on a bus carrying 26 passengers for his Doncaster to Box Hill run, but war conditions, scarcity of petrol and replacement parts, forced him to return to horses.
In 1919 Kew traders and Doncaster people co- operated to start up a service between their districts, with a solid-tyre bus.
A medley of operators hopped. on the bus bandwagon. Bus operators touted for passengers. Four or five services ran simultaneously in the district, and some sent cars ahead along the routes to pick up passengers and transfer them to their bus for the run to the city.
132 ByWays DoncasterMirror
August 9, 1983
Days of the old school
Byways of Local History
By Joan Seppings Webster
THIS story of schooldays early this century was recounted by Mrs Hazel Poulter, of Templestowe.
On school days we were out of bed before 7 a.m. to leave home no later than a quarter to eight to walk the three miles to school.
Before we were up mum had our lunches cut and a large pot of porridge ready on the side of the stove.
I usually got the job of making toast on the fire of the wood stove. Homemade butter was used on the toast, but, when the cow was dry, we used beef dripping but if it got cold it was horrid.
If we were running late for school we would eat our toast on the way. As we children grew older there were chores to do before leaving for school.
My oldest brother Ron had the cow to milk. Depending on what animals we had at the time, the next eldest boy Charlie would feed the calf or pig.
There was wood to bring into the wood box in the kitchen by the younger children.
Hide and leather were cleaned with boot blackening and usually the boys put the blackening on the boots, then put them on the hob of the stove to dry to take the effort out of polishing them.
Water in an enamel bowl and Lifebuoy soap was used to wash our faces and hands before breakfast. On a frosty morning I remember a brother wash as little of his face as possible with his coat pulled up over his head. This was referred to as a "cat's lick."
We encountered all types of weather going to and from school. Boys wore short pants and on cold days had red or blue knees. If children didn't have gloves they would put a pair of sox on their hands for warmth. Chilblains were a common complaint on fingers and toes.
If the weather looked threatening we were sent off with overcoats. Some times we thought we knew better and would stuff the coats up a drainpipe to be retrieved on our way home.
On one of these occasions there was quite a storm and when we went to get our coats they were gone, We found them in the gutter further down the road, covered with mud. With a bit of quick thinking they were washed in a dam then put on near home to let mother think that it was the rain that wet the coats through.
On frosty mornings children would walk along the gutters along the side of the road breaking ice. Consequently there were plenty of wet boots.
133 ByWays DoncasterMirror
August 16, 1983
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
CONTINUING Mrs Hazel Poulter's account of schooldays in Don-caster – Templestowe early this century: Mrs Poulter describes the school hand drill: "Hands on head, hands on shoulders, arms outstretched, arms upstretched, hands on hips, bend knees, attention, turn quick march."
We learned our ABC at tables by rote like a lot of parrots. We used to write using a slate and slate pen-cil. A duster was attached to the slate clean. We graduated to book and pen-cil then finally wrote with pen and ink. Copy books ruled with red and blue lines were used when we were learning capital letters. The only colored pencils we had were red at one end and blue at the other and commonly called a red and blue pencil.
Children shivered in their boots the day the inspector visited the school. He wrote questions on the blackboard and pointed to a pupil for the answer. The school ground was surrounded by a post and rail fence. Children would see how far they could walk along the top rail before losing their balance.
Groups of children perched on the rails like a lot of crows. Occasionally boys played the wag from school. One of mv brothers tried it once and sat all day under the culvert in Porter St. It was so boring he didn't bother again.
In the 1930s a younger brother and sister, Nancy and Malcolm decided with the children next door to have a day off school. They played in the Mullem Mul-lum Creek until they heard the quarry whistle go. They headed for home mistaking the quarry lunchtime whistle for the afternoon knock-off whistle and arrived home soon after lunch.
They had to admit they had wagged school. All the children ended up with a hiding. The headmaster's strap was a piece of leather about three inches wide and eighteen inches long attached to a piece of wood. This was used often on boys when they misbehaved.
If boys knew they were to get the cuts they would car-ry rosin in their pockets ready to rub on their hands. The teachers must have been aware of this because at times he would say: "Hold out the other hand." Once several boys took the strap and chopped it up. They hid the pieces behind the honor roll which was about the fireplace.
There was a terrible to do about the missing strap but as far as I know it was never found.
134 ByWays DoncasterMirror
August 23, 1983
Trip to town was a treat
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
A BIG treat for a child of early this century was a trip to town. Mrs Hazel Poulter, of Templestowe, recalls that on these occasions the family would go by horse and wagon to Heidelberg and stable the horse at Dawson's - who owned the Sir Henry Barkly Hotel in Burgundy St.
A holiday trip was to travel by horse and wagon to Heathmont. Russ Chivers, of Serpells Rd., rode a pushbike from Northcote to join Mrs Poulter’s family, the Morrisons, on a holiday with relatives at Heathmont. Spare beds were made up from bags.
When relatives stayed Templestowe at makeshift arrangements had to be made for the great number of children to be bedded down.
About four or five boys would make a bed in the wagon using several thicknesses of bags for a mattress. Girls shared beds. A highlight of another the holiday for Templestowe children while Heidelberg was going shopping on Friday night in Smith St., Collingwood.
"I thought Coles was fairyland with its lights and sparkling jewellery,” recalls Mrs Poulter. There were no demands for lifts from parents for children’s trips and visits. Several children walked from Templestowe to Mitcham to visit a grandfather.
They walked from Chivers Rd., Templestowe, to Sunday School at the Church of Christ in Doncaster, walking along Church Rd., which was a track then, and crossing Ruf-feys Creek. Mordialloc was the distant destination for Sunday School picnics. Families packed their hampers and piled into orchard trucks to travel there.
Teenage boys and girls had a wonderful time rowing boats on the Mor-dialloc Creek and several romances blossomed when locals met up with other picnic parties. Holiday camping at Rosebud is still an attraction today, but the type of trips -are light years apart.
Mrs Poulter recalls: "After the wagon was loaded, the kids found possies to sit on top of the gear. Mum drove with grandad Chivers sitting beside her. Although grandad was in his eighties, he was very active. "When we came to a hill all the kids had to pile out and walk to make the load lighter for the horse.
“Our route was along Springvale Rd. which was then a dirt road with 'stock route' written on signposts to Dandenong then through to Frankston where we camped for the first night beside the railway station. This position was chosen for the use of water and toilets.
“One night soon after we had bedded down grandad called us to get up. He then vanished back in his tent when he found he had mistaken the full moon for the sun.”
(to be continued next issue).
135 ByWays DoncasterMirror
August 9, 1983
Days of the old school
Byways of Local History
by Joan Seppings Webster
Childhood memories
Continued from last week's issue
OLIVERS Hill, Frankston, in the early years of this century was a steep, narrow, winding road. When the Templestowe family the Morrisons went to Rosebud for a holiday, travelling by horse and wagon, the eldest boy always had to be ready at Olivers Hill to put a chock under the wagon wheel when the horse stopped for a rest.
One time when the family came down the hill, the horse bolted. With the brake on, the wheels of the wagon skidded down the road, frightening everyone. Rosebud was made by the second day, in time for the family to put up the tent. The horse was put into a paddock owned by the storekeeper at the corner of Nepean and Boneo Road.
Entertainment for the children was catching a steam train to Heidelberg and being taken over a battleship when it visited Melbourne about 1920. Silent films were held in Templestowe Memorial Hall every second week and children laughed at the antics of Charlie Chaplin. The projection box with the steep steps to enter it are still in the hall," raconteur Mrs Poulter pointed out.
“With the advent of talking films the Orient Theatre was built in Heidelberg in the 1930s," she said. “On a Saturday night my uncle Wattie Morrison would take his family to the theatre in his truck.” “Anyone wanting a ride to Heidelberg would wait for him along the main road. "Often the truck would be full of young people either on their way or coming home. “It was a special day as we watched a cousin install a cat's whisker wireless for us. All the children were eager to have a turn at listening.
“When Federal Parliament was opened in 1927 my father wanted all his children to hear Dame Nellie Melba sing.
Dad sat with one earphone on and passed the other to each child in turn. "When I said I didn't want to listen, I got a box over the ears and was told it would be the last opportunity to hear the greatest singer in the world! "
A prominent social occasion for older girls was the holding of a kitchen tea for a local girl about to marry. The kitchen tea would be held in the Memorial Hall with all the locals attending. Mrs Poulter still visualises all the different brooms and mops standing beside the steps up to the stage of the hall. Around the late 1920s children sat around the kitchen table while dad read instalments of stories from a weekly paper.
Mrs Poulter remembers the laughter that came from her father as he read Steele Rudd's "Dad and Dave."
I think he enjoyed it more than the children,” she said. “The stories would have brought back many memories to him of his struggle to clear his own land."
136 ByWays DoncasterMirror
September 6, 1983
What did they do?
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
NO television or radio, no little athletics or calisthenics, no cubs or what did the brownies - young child of 70 years ago do with her/his time?
Of course there were many chores about the house and orchard which parents expected would be done. But that still left time for play. Young children found much pleasure simply roaming the orchards and riversides. They played their age- old games, some of which are still played today by children on busy residen-tial roads. Games would include flying kites, riding billy carts and using shanghis.
They swam in dams and in the river, went boating, rode calves and horses, fished and yabbied, went rabbiting and bird-nesting and tormented possums. Mrs Hazel Poulter, who grew up in Templestowe, recalls vividly her out-of-school life: "As we roamed along the Yarra River and Mul-lum Mullum Creek we picked wattle gum to chew. Boys often threw yonnies (stones) at objects or took their shanghis from their pocket for a pot-shot. “Usually sparrows were a target as they we, a nuisance to fruit.
Gum leaves were used to whistle on. Girls often went home with a bunch of wildflowers. "We had a slide on the steep side of the creek across which we tried to shoot on a piece of corrugated iron.
This slide was kept slippery with water and at times toad-stools would be used to make it extra slippery. "In this paddock where the ti-tree grew thickly, the boys used long sticks to poke the ring tail pos-sums in their nests. "When disturbed from sleep the possums had the habit of wetting - much to our amusement. "Bird nesting was pop-ular with the boys who would collect one egg from as many different birds as possible.
“We learned to know the different birds and their nests often poking our noses into small nests to see how many eggs were there and what color, or if the chickens were hatched. "Sometimes we were caught unawares when a magpie dived and pecked a head. We soon learned to carry sticks to whirl around our heads to keep them off. "Skylarks could be watched hovering away up in the sky on a still sunny day. At night, when you lay in bed, you could hear the owls and mopokes calling." Kites were made out of sticks cut from fruit cases and pasted over with brown paper.
Billy-cart games had the children variety raced down the steep hill which is now Watties Road, not only in billy carts but on old bikes without tyres and old prams. One day such a game nearly turned to tragedy…
to be continued next week.
137 ByWays DoncasterMirror
September 13, 1983
Continuing Mrs Hazel Poulter’s story
Byways of Local History
by Joan Seppings Webster
Fun and games in old days
Continuing Mrs Hazel Poulter's story
"One day Malcolm the baby was being raced down the hill in the pram when he was tipped out on his head," recalls Mrs Poulter. "The screaming baby was dumped back in the pram by the children and their race continued.
"No-one could tell mum how a lump had appeared on Malcolm's head. The incident was held over my head for quite a while, like—‘If you tell on me I’ll tell what has happened to Malcolm.
"Fun was had riding poddy calves, ours or others, it didn’t matter so long as you weren’t caught. "At times when pigs were out of their sty we enjoyed chasing them and rounding them up, even jumping on small ones for a ride."
A dam in Websters Rd. (Melway map page 34 A2), owned by Mr Alb. Johnston was the place to catch yabbies.
They would be boiled in a billy and eaten by the children on the spot.
Horses grazing in paddocks were often ridden around bare-back.
Mrs Poulter recalls that many spills were had but no one came to much harm.
A variation on the theme of children's tormenting games was one played with ants. The ants were stirred up by quickly running back and forth over their nest.
Rabbiting was enjoyed with ferrets and nets which the children found much more interesting than traps.
"When a ferret was put into a burrow we would listen for the thumping of the rabbits trying to escape while we waited to pounce on them when they ran into the net," said Mrs Poulter.
"If the ferret found rabbit kittens and stopped to eat them there would be the hard job of digging the ferret out."
In the early 1930s the children who were by then teenagers made their own rabbiting nets by using string and a ruler for a gauge.
O’Briens Lane (Melway map page 33 K3) points to the direction of the river in which platypuses could be seen swimming.
This was known as O’Briens Paddock and in the river were rapids known as O’Briens Falls.
Men and boys would walk quite a distance to fish in the river and often sat on the riverbank for hours at night fishing.
Small children learned to dog paddle in their dam. It didn’t matter to them that the water was muddy or that the horse and cow drank there while ducks swam with them.
They would be taken on hot Sundays by the adults for a dip in the river at either Websters or O’Briens Falls.
Older children and teenagers spent most of their spare time in summer on the river swimming or rowing in flat bottomed boats.
138 ByWays DoncasterMirror
September 20, 1983
When walking home from school was an education
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
The cars lined up outside schools today at 9 a.m. or 3.30 p.m. show one great change in children’s way of life. The lift to and from school has become a convention. It saves the children time (for what?), but their loss is great. The walk to and from school was an education in one’s life.
Mrs Hazel Poulter, of Templestowe, remembers: “There was a lot of interest for children in the 1920’s as we walked the three miles to and from school.
“Wood was still being carted by horse and dray to Melbourne suburbs from Warrandyte.” The children did hitch some rides — but not to make life easier for themselves. Sometimes they would be given a ride part of the way in an empty cart, the driver of which would be returning after selling a load of wood.
“The Sloan Brothers would give us a ride downhill and along the flats,” Mrs Poulter says.
“We would hop out and start to walk up the long Porter St. hill to make the going easier on the tired horses.”
A horse coach ran from Warrandyte to Heidelberg and passed the children in Porter St. on their way home.
If the coach was empty the children were given a ride, but as soon as a passenger needed to get on one of the older children would get off the coach to make room.
Mrs Poulter remembers a funny situation: “Jack Tenby got off the coach and let Mrs Smith on. Mrs Smith, a very large woman, was struggling up the last step when Jack made a dash to get back on the coach.
“He ended up with his head underneath Mrs Smith’s dress, looking at a pair of white bloomers.” There was merriment — and the macabre.
A man named Cockbill had the job of collecting dead animals around the district. This fascinated the children. “We would watch as an animal was winched onto a truck. Often it was bloated and fly-covered with all four legs sticking stiffly up into the air.
“The animals were carted away free and used for making of blood and bone.”
Walking past a section of road which was being made, the children watched with interest as Prickett’s motor trucks carted metal from the Templestowe quarry and tipped it in long heaps on the side of the road. “It was fun to run over the length of stockpile of metal,” says Mrs Poulter.
“Workmen used horse and dray to move the metal to the road then spread it with shovels ready for Mr Hewish to consolidate it with the steamroller.”
The walk home from school would sometimes take the children past a flock of sheep.
to be continued next week...
139 ByWays DoncasterMirror
September 27, 1987
Street devils wander home
(Continued from last week)
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
THE general store at which the Templestowe children called to pick up mail and papers on their way home from school covered a large area at the corner of James and Anderson Streets and where the Caltex Service Station is today was surrounded by a boxthorn hedge. Here the children delighted in watching the thousands of sparrows which darted in and out of the hedge as they fed on its red berries.
Then for a bit of devilment with the public phone which stood on the veranda of the store. It was a manually operated phone box connected to the Heidelberg exchange. The kids would turn the phone handle to the annoyance of the telephonist. Also under the veranda of the store was a slot in the wall for posting letters.
One time some big boys dropped a bunger into it causing great consternation to the storekeeper.
Mornings added human interest, as passing the Templestowe Hall the children would watch old Paddy Parker in the house opposite washing his face in a tin dish on his front veranda.
Then into Mr Mullens smithy to watch the work. There was a charm about the great bellows that used to keep the coke fire burning and the ring of hammer on anvil as they made horse shoes.
In the hollow of Atkinson Street was the creek where a lot of fen-nel grew. To us the fennel was known as aniseed. Boys would use long fennel sticks to aggravate the butcher's small terrier dog which was kept behind a fence in the yard of the butcher's shop and dwelling, at the corner of Atkinson and Clarke Streets. The butcher would rush out and chase the boys off with a stock whip.
The facts of death were learnt by the children on the way to and from school. They often saw the butcher slaughter cattle for his shop. This was in the paddock where Morcambe Court ends today.
A look in at the cool store on the corner of Porter Street and Fitzsimons Lane and a chat with Mr Nightingale the engineer.
Another pause to watch a horse making chaff by walking on treadmills to keep a chaff-cutter working. Terrified of the new electricity pylons which were being built, the children would run under the wires. They ran too in wet weather, hoping to beat the rain; and ran the gauntlet of a fierce bull — so fierce it had to be rounded up with a pitch fork — while cutting through land on a short cut.
A few deserted grape vines still grew and from these the children picked grapes to eat on their trek. If the smaller children became tired or lagged behind they were piggy-backed by the bigger ones.
Children had all types of weather to contend with while walking to and from school. On frosty mornings we shivered till we warmed up by hurrying. Often we left home in the fog. In winter when the sky was dark with threatening black clouds approaching, we would run to try and beat the rain.
Our walk was slower in the heat of summer. When we came to shade it was time for a rest. Many times Mrs Carl Aumann took us in when we were wet and changed us into dry clothes.
140 ByWays DoncasterMirror
Text corrected and transferred to page on Plassey https://dt-hs.blogspot.com/2017/05/plassey-zelius-home.htmlOctober 14, 1983
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
"Plassey" — a fine example of 1880s style
OPPOSITE Woolworth's store, in Doncaster Rd., East Doncaster, is an elegant old home, much ornamented with lacey cast iron work. It is another of Doncaster - Templestowe's National Trust classifications. "Plassey," the Zelius home.
There was more than one family of Zelius in East Doncaster 100 years ago. One was that of William Zelius, a dentist, son-in-law of John Williams and grandson-in-law of W. Sydney Williams, famous for his lemons and a saint dam which is now the tip in Renshaw St. William Zelius lived with his wife Alice Williams in Wetherby Rd.
Plassey was built by Martin Zelius at the tail end of the land and building boom of the 1880s. He bought his land in 1888.
The National Trust describes Plassey:
"A standard Italianate building, unusually elegantly carried through. Metal ridge cresting and fin-ials, patterned slate roof, double curved veranda roof, stuccoed front with label mould windows and statuary niches flanking the door."
Brick stables, looking very like an olden schoolhouse in shape, with their narrow front and high pitched gable roof stand beside a flagpole-thin palm tree. In this stable-house, Martin Zelius and his family lived while the main house was being built.
A similar situation to that of the "modern pioneers" of the 1950s, who often lived in garages while their homes slowly went up beside them. Zelius was a born businessman, and a perfectionist.
A Norwegian, he had gone to sea at 14, but was left high and dry in Melbourne Port when the rest of the crew deserted ship for the gold fields. Instead of following them for the chance of quick fortune, Martin took a surer, steadier way to riches.
He left the ship for a restaurant in William St., Melbourne, where he washed dishes and worked himself up until he bought the restaurant.
He traded the steam of the kitchen for the steam of a trading ship, and plied the Gippsland coast until he got wind of a coming railway, and sold out at the right time, before the fortunes of shipping transport sank.
Zelius had built a house at Bairnsdale, of which he must have been very fond, because he used basically the same design and plans for Plassey.
While living in the stables, he was able to supervise the building of his new home, about which he was particularly painstaking, being again slow but sure.
Looking at Plassey from Doncaster Rd., one is struck by the symmetrical design — two decorative urns each side of the steps, three veranda posts each side of the entry, two windows each side of the door set between the veranda posts,
two small decorative spire-like crests at each end of the flattened roof ridge, and flanking all, twin chimneys at each side wall. Inside, the theme of restrained good taste is continued. Plassey is claimed to be the finest example in Doncaster - Templestowe of an 1880s house.
141 ByWays DoncasterMirror
Oct 18, 1983
Electric trams a Doncaster first
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webste
MOST local people know that the first electric tramway in the Southern Hemisphere ran from what is now Shoppingtown (then "White’s") corner to the Box Hill Post Office.
This tram travelled from the Doncaster-Williamson’s Rd. intersection, down what became known as Tram Rd., from 1889 to 1896.
But it is not so well known that in 1885, the Shire Councillors of Bullsen were all set to launch a tram down Doncaster Road to the Koonung Creek in North Balwyn.
Had the scheme got off the ground — or rather, on the ground — it would have made two "firsts" — the first electric tram, and the first tramway of any kind in the colony to have been put on so steep a gradient. (Cable trams had been in use in Melbourne since 1885).
The municipal representatives had been determined, despite strong opposition from ratepayers, that the tramline would be laid from the Morning Star Hotel, which was then at the foot of the steep hill, to the home of Dr Thomas Fitzgerald (now the golf links clubhouse).
A public meeting at the Athenaeum Hall in 1866 voiced the people’s worries of the experimental nature of this new form of transport, and expressed fears for the safety of those who might use it. They called upon council to resign.
A following deputation of ratepayers was ignored: the shire resident refused to see them. Ironically, the deputation was led by two men who were later to become leading shareholders and prime movers in the Box Hill-Doncaster Tramway — Messrs.
Richard Serpell and W. Meader. Others in the deputation were C. Smidt, J. Kent, and Messrs Bloom, Clay, Chivers, White and Schukraft.
The council did pass the motion for the creation of the Smedley’s Cutting tramway, in 1885. But their plans lapsed when the implementation of these was adjourned pending skilled overseas engineering advice.
The protesters planned to appeal to the Governor-in-Council to stop the construction of the tramway.
Had it been implemented, it could have later met the terminus of the Balwyn tram.
And it would, in all likelihood, have led the way in decision-making on the controversial route of the extension of the present freeway and its public transport facility of buses or light railway.
142 ByWays DoncasterMirror
November 15th, 1983
The high cost of Chivers'
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
THE story behind Church Road is also the story of the original selection of the huge estate of Doncaster-Templestowe as gazetted by the Colonial Office in 1840.
This landholding arrangement offered packages of eight square miles to be selected by anyone with £5120. The regulation governing these selections of land were known as the Special Survey.
The land, described as in the Parish of Bulleen, which stretched from the Yarra River to the Koonung Creek, was selected by Frederick Wright Unwin. It then became known as Unwin’s Special Survey.
Unwin subdivided his selected surveyed land into farms for lease.
Then Unwin found that there had been a discrepancy over his western boundary which led to a resurvey and amended deed. This amended survey, which shifted the selection a bit to the west, then left a long, narrow strip on its eastern boundary between it and other landholdings.
This strip of land reverted to the Crown, and was the precursor of Strip Road, which became Church Road.
Unwin’s title was transferred to a James Atkinson, who changed its name from "Unwin’s Special Survey," to "the Carlton Estate."
A township, to be called "Carlton" was planned at the junction of Doncaster Road and High Street. The area, however, became generally known as "Kennedy’s Creek," after a squatter who lived along the Koonung Creek there, and the township, of course, never eventuated.
In 1851 the Carlton Estate was sold to Robert Campbell, who began to sell small allotments in 1855. The strip on the eastern boundary was rediscovered.
Seven chains wide, it stretched from the Koonung Creek to Foote St., Templestowe. It was decided to make this an access road to the land parcels adjoining it, which were being subdivided into six acre lots.
John Chivers, who owned a large tract of land stretching from Porter St., Templestowe, to the Strip Road area, was not keen to have a road next to him. He knew what consequences could come from allowing people to cross one’s land and establish right-of-way, and had never allowed anyone to cross from Templestowe to Doncaster through his farm.
So when in 1854 the Strip lots were auctioned, he intended to buy up those lots alongside his established holding.
But all the other settlers, carters and travellers he had thwarted by denying right-of-way got together to force up the bidding so that Chivers paid double for his lots. That part of Strip Rd. was then blocked by his purchases, which is why Church Rd. is intersected by a land mass which became the Gardens. When the Church of England was built in Strip Road, Doncaster, it was renamed Church Road.
143 ByWays DoncasterMirror
November 29th, 1983
From towering past to concrete heads
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
MID-20th century commercialism has ruined what was probably the best viewpoint in Melbourne. Doncaster Hill.
In 1969 Doncaster Shoppingtown took the hilltop, blocked the skyline, and wiped out a panorama for the people.
Mid-19th century commercialism developed the panorama for the people, opened up its breathtaking beauty and put Doncaster on the map because of it for nearly half a century.
Perhaps engineer and visionary was a rare blend. But that was Alfred Hummell. Just one hundred years before our modern monoliths of Shoppingtown and the Municipal Offices reared their concrete heads, Hummell built a big house on the south side of Doncaster Road at the hill top.
Bay view
As well as the mountain view, there was the bay view. And this is what Hummell called his home —"Bayview." Ships could be seen in the bay. Hoping for a better, all-round lookout, Hummell built a 30 metre tower beside Bayview, but it blew down in a storm only a few months later.
He tried again with one further along the street near the home of Mrs Pickering. The morning after a windy night, Mrs Pickering could not open her door — the tower had blown down and blocked it.
When Hummell tried again, he succeeded better than anyone could have imagined. By commercialising on the potential of the magnificent view, Hummell built not only a strong tower which was to become world renowned, but a hotel, function hall, picnic grounds with tracks for cycle and foot races and roller skating, all set in 13 acres of splendid gardens.
The function hall seated 200 persons and was used for balls and parties in the season' and had both public dining hall and private parlours.
Meadows
The tower, twice the height of Shoppingtown tower, encouraged people from Melbourne, and visitors from all over the world, to walk the distance from Kew to Doncaster "over pleasant meadows." Later the electric tram up Tram Rd, used it to entice travellers.”
To Doncaster Tower by Electric Tram is one of the most pleasant, novel and initial cheapest of outings. Magnificent view from the tower: Book Princess Bridge Station to Doncaster, via Box Hill, return fare 1/6. Trams will meet every train up to 6 o'clock p.m." Alfred Hummell charged sixpence to climb the tower. In 1885, the Hummels moved to Tasmania.
The tower stood strong until 1914, when it was pulled down. The official reason was that it was not safe. But could it have been that the 1914-18 war had everybody hysterical about spies (particularly German spies),
who could have sent signals from the tower, to enemy ships about to enter the bay? When Doncaster Road was widened in 1969, an Oregon base plate support of the tower was unearthed, and a piece sent to Alfred Hummell's descendants in Tasmania.
144 ByWays DoncasterMirror
December 6th, 1983
Old Deep Creek's unhealthy damp
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
THE area which was subject to a controversial name change proposal of "Temple Hills" in Doncaster-Templestowe Council recently, was originally known as Deep Creek.
One early map has the Templestowe-Warrandyte Road (spelt Warrandyte on the map) annotated "Three and three-quarter mile from Templestowe to Deep Creek Bridge. The bridge was at the intersection of that road with Anderson's Creek Road.
At the corner of Reynolds Road with Anderson's Creek Road was the Deep Creek School. Another map of Doncaster, annotates the "Kew to Doncaster Road" at the site of the Doncaster School: "Distance to present site of Deep Creek ..."
The first settlers selected land close to the creeks, from which they drew water and in which they washed clothes and bathed.
The creeks were life to the early pioneers… the Koonung and Ruffeys in the west, Mullum-Mullum and Deep Creek to the east where the Pickering, Smedleys, Kents, Andersons, Sergeants, Hoares, Reynolds, Bayleys, Whites, Bucks, Smiths, Cleggs, Jenkins, Mrs Serpells, Petty, Jenkins, Furnhamns and Spears had taken up land.
Deep Creek school moved its size twice. It was first built in 1875, a tiny school on a hill above the St Phillips Church of England, on a two acre site near the creek crossing of Andersons Creek Road, following a petition. W. S. Williams suggested the location where population was expected to increase.
In 1877, the Deep Creek School No. 2206, was then built on another site, a five-acre block which the Education Department had owned at the corner of Andersons Creek Road and Reynolds Road.
It was a 24 ft. by 16 ft. wooden schoolroom, with an adjoining three-room residence. The average pupil attendance during its first year on the new site was 28, but this dropped to 16 in the years following.
Maybe those steep "Temple Hills" discouraged the children, who had to walk up and down them to and from their learning. And before and after this marathon there were chores to be done at the orchard.
Diseases kept this school closed more often than it was open.
Deep Creek became known as "unhealthy" school, an unhealthy area, because city dwellers dumped their night soil there. Also, deep watercourses crossed Anderson's Creek Road near Reynolds Road, near the school.
Diphtheria, and whooping cough, which killed so many children before immunisation, thrived some damp conditions.
In 1885, the head teacher Mr Kelso wrote : "If the school is left in its present position for a year or two more I will have but seven or eight pupils to teach."
He urged its removal to Germantown, higher, drier and more thickly populated. That year there was a typhoid outbreak." The people of Deep Creek were very community minded and assertive. They once kept their children home till a teacher was dismissed. In April 1891 the name was changed from Deep Creek to East Doncaster.
145 ByWays DoncasterMirror
Jan 31, 1984
German settlers left little to remember them by
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
Just south of the old Deep Creek area — almost renamed ‘Temple Hills’ recently — was a town known as German Town.
German Town was bounded roughly on the east by Blackburn Rd. and on the west by Victoria St. Through it ran German Road.
A map of December 16, 1885, which names a site for the (now) East Doncaster Primary School No. 2096 as ‘Deep Creek School’, marks out the pegs and trenches for the boundary lines of the site on German Road.
More often it was known as German Lane (or Waldau Lane) to its inhabitants. During the 1914–18 war, it became George St., in honor of the King of England.
German Town was not a pogrom. The German settlers mingled, married, worshipped and worked, entertained and were educated alongside the English settlers.
Three friends
They settled in a close area because three friends originally bought the whole 320 acre parcel of land adjoining that of fellow German immigrants, Gottleib and Phillippine Thiele, who in 1853 had pioneered settlement in that stringybark neck-of-the-woods and Germans sold to Germans.
The three German friends had at first farmed in Victoria’s Western District. Though they opened up such a large area to settlement, not a street is named after them, and not one stayed long in the district — John Fredrick Straube, Johann Gottlieb Hilbrig and John Walther.
The Straubes stayed eight years, the Walthers only four. Not much is known of the Hilbrigs. There is no name Hilbrig I the tele-phone directory, altough
John Straube’s father, Ernest, arrived in Adelaide in 1849 and farmed at Warrnambool and Hamilton. Johann Walther arrived about the same time and also farmed near Warrnambool.
The friends formed a syndicate to buy the land next to Thiele’s. Straube was allocated the western end and another portion, Walther took the eastern end with Hilbrig in the middle.
Nucleus
They were the nucleus. But it is by the names of their descendants and later purchasers of the land, that the areas they gardened are now known.
Straube’s western land, where he lived, bears the name of the grandson-in-law of its next purchaser, Rieschieck’s Reserve.
Walther’s land at the eastern end bears the name of Zerbe’s Reserve, a next-but-one purchaser who at first bought only an L-shaped piece which included what is now the East Doncaster High School and a strip to the north of this.
At the position of what is now the athletics track at Rieschieck’s (George St.) Reserve was once a great dam, built by the son of Straube’s purchaser, John Finger.
Like many huge dams in the district, its walls were wide enough to support a road. The dam wall was directly behind John Finger’s house.
In Straube’s original house, built higher up the hill, where the car park of Schramm’s cottage is now, the first Lutheran church services were held and he donated the land on which the church was later built, where the cottage now stands.
Walther, an accomplished organist, became a school teacher.
146 ByWays DoncasterMirror
12/2/84
Service was hot at the Tower Hotel
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
ON a typical January day of hot north winds, Doncaster had a fire which became a spectacular. It lit the hilltop like a beacon, beckoning fire brigades from Kew and Hawthorn, in 1895.
Not for them were the radio calls for help. Just the sight of the fire from afar. Not the speeding trucks and high-powered hoses, but struggling horses and a creaking hand pump at a well. It was the Tower Hotel on fire.
A kerosene lamp, newly lit in the lamproom beside the hotel bar, set it off. The barman had just served a customer after lighting the lamp, when behind him he saw the room ablaze. The hot north winds did their traditional worst.
Men and boys worked the pump of the hotel's big well until the pump broke while one of the Petty boys was working it.
Down below at Box Hill Fire Station the blaze was seen by the lookout. The horses which were later to struggle up the hill with the fire cart were not standing by at the ready, harnessed for emergency.
They were not even trained for emergency, nor practiced at working together. That was a second reason — apart from the steep incline — for their struggle.
Each fireman called from his home by the bell, grabbed the first available horse — baker's horse, farm horse, milk horse. They were independent workers, not used to teamwork.
They pulled against each other up the hill as the flames of the blazing Tower Hotel rose higher. As the horses rose higher up the hill and closer to the fire they jibbed.
A crowd running alongside the firecart urged the horses on and the firemen off. Off the cart. "Get off and walk. They'll go better without your weight," they shouted.
Collapsed
The brigade finally reached the fire, but just as their hoses were let down into the well, and the fire cart engine-driven pump went into action, the roof collapsed.
Kew and Hawthorn brigades had also been alerted by their lookouts. No doubt the same process of gathering first men and then horses from their usual work was repeated. The cumber-someness of the procedure did not quench the variance of the firemen.
With primitive transport and primitive equipment, the flames they fought burnt just as hot and as high as those of today.
And though too late to save the hotel, they quenched the flames and stopped the spread of the fire to the other buildings on the hotel land, and adjoining properties.
That Tower Hotel had been built three years after the famous tower, by its entrepreneur, Alfred Hummell. He called it the Beaconsfield Hotel, and for many years the tower was known all over Australia — indeed, the world — as the Beaconsfield Tower.
It had 39 rooms and stables for 20 horses and was built of timber.
After its destruction, its then owner, William Meader built a brick hotel, of an elaborate style, with a curved entrance drive.
The original hotel was built three years after the tower. The second hotel was delicenced three years after the tower was dismantled. It became a grocery store, and then until the late 1960s, the Doncaster Mower Service.
147 ByWays DoncasterMirror
28/2/84
For the young —the not so good old days
Byways of Local History
by Joan Seppings Webster
PARENTAL involvement in education 120 years ago was very different from today's school committees and councils.
Parents decided whether their children were to be formally educated or not. We must not forget that education is not only in school subjects.
Many parents of last century and before, believed that educating a child for life's responsibilities, duties, work sphere, was more able to be achieved in the home, or in their future work situation.
The apprenticeship system thrived. Children of eight years, sometimes less, were apprenticed to a trade, a physician, a chimney sweep.
Children were expected to help with home duties, as automatically as are parents, as part of their education for part of their future lives.
In between house, farm, orchard or cottage industry chores, parents who believed in 'book learning' and who could themselves read, taught their children what they knew of the three Rs, of the literature classics, or of a particular talent.
Men of learning often set up their own 'school' in their homes, with their wives helping — in 'female subjects' and with the little ones.
Women of learning hired themselves out as governesses to well off families who did not want to send their children away to board at church schools, nor to have them walk through paddocks, puddles, bog and bush to local 'home' schools.
Mary-Ann Chivers was governess to the children of Major Newman in Templestowe's earliest days, the 1840s. Most of the schools in this district began as 'home' schools.
Miss Wilson's log school, in Doncaster, after which Log School Road is named; Mr Ferguson's school, in Templestowe.
Mrs Ferguson taught the beginners, and is reputed to have been very kindly, hiding tearful pupils in her skirts from her stern husband about to inflict the 'cuts'.
Mr and Mrs Pretty held a school in their wattle and daub hut at Warrandyte (Anderson's Creek). Before that, schooling for the children of the gold miners was to be found in a tent.
Pastor Schramm held classes for many years in his cottage, which was then on Doncaster Road. It is said that a large ham always hung, curing, in the chimney and that one day classes were enlivened when the ham fell into the fire.
East Doncaster Primary School had an attached teacher's residence, as many did when the State enforced formal education.
In June, 1970, workmen remodelling the century-old school uncovered some boarded-up windows behind the blackboard of the Grade 5 room. The stone base of a fireplace was also found beneath the wall which divided the Grade 5 and 6 rooms. They were part of the teacher's house.
148 ByWays DoncasterMirror
27/3/84
Byways of Local History
Of Log Hut Rd., Angela Booth and Dame Nellie's dad
DID YOU know that:
● Picnic races were held in Doncaster in the 1870s-80s? The track was Doncaster Road, from the Doncaster Arms Hotel (now Doncaster Inn) to the Methodist Church and back.
Promoter was hotelkeeper Robert Wilson and crowds of 2000 were common. Many came to the races by tram.
● Construction of the tunnel at Pound Bend, Warrantyte, was financed by the father of Dame Nellie Melba — David Mitchell?
● The meeting to form the first municipal body in the district, the Templestowe Roads Board, was held in the Templestowe Hotel in 1865?
● East Doncaster-ties were nicknamed 'stringybarkers?’
● First woman councillor was Angela Booth, in 1928?
● Log Hut Road, West Doncaster, is so called because an early school was held there in a long hut? It was conducted by Misses Anne and Robina Wilson.
● The council was once held by a court of law to be responsible for a road accident in which three people were injured, due to the bad state of the roads, in 1881?
It was ordered to pay 800 pounds damages, funds for which were raised by striking a special rate.
● Victoria Street was once named Bismark Street, King Street was Wilhelm Street and George St. was Waldau Road?
They were changed to British monarchist names in 1916, following a petition of 22 names of German descendants, who wanted to display their loyalty to Britain.
● Public transport was better, pro rata population, in 1950 than in 1980? Five different bus operators provided their services at the one time.
● What an immigrant to Australia did to while away the months at sea on the voyage here? John Petty made a pair of lace curtains. They were used continually by his descendants for 100 years.
149 ByWays DoncasterMirror
6/4/84
Lucre was the lure of Down Under
BYWAYS OF LOCAL HISTORY
by Joan Seppings Webster
"YOU or I little thought when I left home that I would turn from Draper to Butcher, but I never care what I do as long as I get paid for doing it.
"About a week ago I earned 7/6 before breakfast, for killing a bullock for a neighbor. That is more than your Lochaber farmers would give me for working hard for a week.
I will never forget working for three years and a month for Sandy Grant for my grub and clothes and a 5 pound note. I can get the same here in less than three weeks."
This was the type of letter sent home to England and Scotland, Ireland and Germany, that brought more and more settlers to Australia.
It was written by John Smith in March, 1856, to his parents in Scotland and it was not long before the rest of the Smith family emigrated to Templestowe, where their descendants still live.
This letter was made available by Mr Bill Ross, John Smith's grandson, of Newman R.A., for Templestowe researcher and historian Mrs Hazel Poulter, who allowed me use of it.
John had some brothers already out with him, and doing well.
"My brothers are also well, and fully employed. Tom is still butchering up in the bush. David and George are still in the same place, only I have changed masters.
Mr Hewish, the man I engaged with when I came out here, being a butcher, I worked for him on his farm for 25/- per week, until the 13th January last, when he let his shop and yard and paddocks to another man, so he engaged me the same as Hewish, only he gives me 35/- per week, with board and lodgings."
John Smith later married Emma Hewish.
John wrote of the possibility of going to the diggings:
"I have never thought of going to the diggings, as I have never been out of work. I might go if I happen to be out of a job, go and try my luck but not else, for I think one is as well in regular work than going from one place to another."
His older brother David had a different outlook. Two years earlier he had written home:
"I intend going to the diggings in a short time that is to say if it comes any rain; if I am spared there is new diggings found out and I intend going to them to try my luck.
"I live in hope of a nugget being left for me. When I go, lose or win I'll spend all I have at them before I give up." David had found work by moving around.
"I left the place I went to first as soon as my time was up to try to make something better at the harvest, so I took a job at moving 10 shillings per acre and my rations and drink. I had as much tea as I could drink and two bottles of rum.
"On the week I made a great deal more than if I had stopped where I went to first... When I finished moving I got 2 pounds per week.
We got it all in them my master took down the wages to 30 shillings per week, so I left and went two miles before I got another job at 12 shillings per day, but no rations, and I intend to stay here until I start up at the diggings."
This letter from David was made available by Mrs Phillips Miller, whose husband, Alfred, is grandson of another Smith brother, George.
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