Bivouac by the Yarra

How the farmland and river flats of Doncaster and Templestowe became a training ground for Melbourne's citizen soldiers, 1902–1939

For much of the first half of the twentieth century, the quiet remote farmland, dense bush and the Yarra river around Doncaster and Templestowe led a double life. By day they were farmland and grazing paddocks, but on selected weekends they became a battlefield. Engineers threw pontoon and suspension bridges across the Yarra, infantry companies dug in among the gum trees, and gunners wheeled their eighteen-pounders across paddocks that decades later would carry suburban streets. It was here, not in some distant training ground, that many of Melbourne's part-time soldiers learned the trade of war.
The terrain was the drawcard. Its remoteness, both dense bushland and open farmland and the winding Yarra River gave the army a variety of situations for training exercises, and the river in particular lent itself to exercises in building temporary bridges from freshly felled timber. After 1930, this training was carried out by militia units - part-time, voluntary units drawn from ordinary citizens rather than full-time soldiers, who committed to six days of annual camp plus regular evenings at local drill halls, training to defend their communities and back up the regular forces in time of need.

Much of what we know of these exercises survives because many of Melbourne's newspapers covered them closely, often with photographs. The National Library of Australia's Trove on-line digital archive of past newspapers has preserved this coverage, and it is from these long-forgotten newspaper reports and images that the story of the district's military training years can be pieced together.

Engineers and the River, 1902–1907

The earliest known account dates to November 1902, when The Argus newspaper reported that a Field Company of Engineers under Lieutenants Gilchrist, Hedges and Morton, with some forty men, had camped between Mitcham and Templestowe. In the space of a weekend, they threw a pontoon bridge across the Yarra spanning more than 136 feet, an early sign of the engineering feats the district would host for decades to come. [1]

Three years later in November 1905, both The Herald and the Weekly Times newspapers gave fuller treatment to a weekend bridge-building camp at Templestowe. A detachment of the No. 2 Field Company of Australian Engineers marched out from its Alexandra Avenue depot in the city with carts and wagons and pitched camp about two miles beyond the township, setting to work on a suspension bridge made from lengths of old tramway cable having been taken out for the purpose. Rain fell incessantly through the first night, but the men's tents had been so well sited that little discomfort resulted. On the Sunday morning soon after daylight, the camp was astir, and axes piled to cut timber to further the construction of the bridge. The State Commandant, Colonel Ricardo in company with Major Champion, inspected the camp of some sixty men that included Major Ralston and Captain Hedges (Field Engineers), and Captain Wilkinson (Staff Officer for Engineering Works). Although the bridge could not be finished in the time available, at noon the work of striking camp and packing material was commenced. The exercise however was judged a success before the detachment marched back to the city that night. [2] 

A detachment of the No. 2 Field Company of Australian Engineers in camp at Templestowe. The pictorial included scenes of breakfast at the camp, bridge-building over the Yarra, the camp fire, and officers Major Ralston, Captain Wilkinson and Captain Hedges.  Source: Weekly Times, 25 November 1905, p11 [3]

The No. 2 Field Company of Australian Engineers returned again to Templestowe at a camp at the Pontville pastoral holding in January 1906, this time sixty-three strong with two waggons and two tool carts belonging to the company were pulled down on the Saturday afternoon by special car dray horses driven by drivers from the Royal Australian Artillery, and fifteen tents were pitched in the vicinity of the Yarra River. When everything had been fixed up in regular camp style, the officer in command Major Ralston, invited discussion as to the engineering possibilities in connection with a proposed suspension bridge, the erection of which was to be commenced early the next morning. "Bustle time" came at about 5.30 a.m., and after breakfast a special "timber" gang scoured the vicinity, axes in hand, making short work of several fine gum trees. Sergeant-Majors Tootell and Hunt then selected two gangs of about 25 men each and under Major Ralston, the two gangs worked from before dawn and in the hot sun on opposite banks of the river, felling timber and raising the frameworks for another suspension bridge. Two strong cables were stretched from one to the other, and the cross pieces tied in fours. The camp was struck around 3:00pm for return to depot. The Age could not resist noting the comparison with the professionals, the English Royal Engineers, it reported, generally allowed sixty men six days to build a similar structure, the Victorians intended to manage it in rather less. [4]

The location map c1935 below shows the location of the Pontville property located just above the Newmans Road - Websters Road corner and its proximity to the Yarra River. A 1931 aerial photograph annotated with the corresponding area shows the Yarra River and the farmland at this location.

Pontville location map c1935 – Outlined area located above Newmans Road – Websters Road corner  Source: Pontville: Cultural Significance (Kellaway and Ellender 1995) [5]

Yarra River and farmland at the Pontville area – Annotated 1931 aerial photograph  Source: 1931 Melbourne area aerial photo run – frame No. 3139 [6]

Construction of the Engineers’ Suspension Bridge at Templestowe Source: Leader Newspaper - 10 Feb 1906, p34 [7]

By January 1907 the exercises at Pontville, on the estate made available each year by its proprietor, Mr O. Webster, had grown to include Nos 2 and 4 Field Engineer Companies, sixty-eight men in all with wagons and horses. The men arrived in camp on the Saturday afternoon, and lost no time in making themselves comfortable for the night, under the guidance of the commanding officer, Major Ralston, and an energetic staff of non-commissioned officers. Beyond bridging the Yarra, this camp turned to "demolitions" - lectures on explosives and the application in time of war, the construction of a stout earth and bark blockade wall packed between palisades and its destruction by gun cotton, the blowing up huge trees by the roots along with trench-digging exercises staged as though an invading enemy were closing in from the direction of Heidelberg. The suspension bridge which was thrown across the Yarra close to the encampment by the engineers last year was still in existence, and it is probable that repairs to this and to a local bridge will be effected before a return is made to the metropolis on the Sunday night. A feature of the camp was the admirable cooking appliances in use. In lieu of the ordinary dug out fireplace, the engineers brought their practical knowledge to bear in the construction of an up-to-date iron camp oven, while a caucus of skilled knowledge resulted in the, at this sequestered spot at any rate, the wholesome waters of the Yarra being pumped up a steep incline to the cook house door. [8]
Later that same year, in November, The Argus reported a further three-day camp on the Pontville Estate in which the No.2 Field Company Australian Engineers, under highly instructive training that comprised of the construction of a trestle bridge across the Yarra, construction of stockades and demolitions, this time under Captain P. T. Hedges and Lieutenant R. Morton, with over ninety per cent of the company's strength under canvas. The director of Engineer services and acting chief of ordnance, Colonel Parnell, visited the camp, and expressed himself as highly pleased with the practical nature of the work. [9]

Manoeuvres Across the District, 1909–1912

As the decade wore on, the exercises broadened beyond engineering works to full tactical manoeuvres involving infantry and light horse. In November 1909, on the King's Birthday holiday, around 150 men each of the Scottish Regiment and the Victorian Rifles converged on a joint camp at Eltham. The Victorian Rifles marched directly there, while the Scottish contingent went first to Doncaster before marching on to Eltham the next day, crossing the Yarra at Templestowe by pontoon with the assistance of a squad of engineers, the main engineering body being occupied elsewhere, at Ferntree Gully. [10]
Easter training in 1910 saw squadrons of the Australian Light Horse working at Doncaster and Dandenong, alongside battalions training at Ballarat and Eltham and practical instruction for the Army Medical Corps and Signallers, a reminder that by this point the district was just one of several scattered venues used each year across the Melbourne region. [11]

The last substantial report from this early period came in January 1912, when The Age newspaper described weekend field operations between Heidelberg and Eltham involving the 5th and 6th Australian Infantry Regiments, the Victorian Rifles and the Victorian Scottish Regiment. The 6th Regiment broke camp at Doncaster at 4.30 in the morning and marched to Templestowe, where engineers under Captain Percy had built a raft to ferry the men across the river under simulated fire from Scottish Regiment outposts. The advance continued across country toward a mock battle at Sugar Loaf Hill, near Eltham, the following day. [12]

After 1912, newspaper coverage of exercises in the district falls silent for almost two decades, the years in which the First World War and its aftermath absorbed the nation's military energies.

The Militia Returns, 1930–1937

Reporting resumes in January 1931, when The Herald described a weekend "bivouac", a temporary outdoor camp offering little or no shelter, held by "A" Company of the 39th Battalion (Hawthorn and Kew Regiment) near Templestowe under Captain C. Burnett. Each man provided his own food and cooking gear and fared for himself during the weekend, and despite persistent rain the exercise was, the paper noted, thoroughly enjoyed, the wet weather if anything sharpening the men's improvisation. [13]
Through 1932 and 1933, photographs of the exercises appeared regularly in the newspaper pages. In March and April 1932, The Argus photographed the 3rd Divisional Signals bivouacked at Templestowe over Easter, its men stringing a multi-air telegraph line, a new technology for the unit, watering their transport horses in the shallows of the Yarra and feeding of the horses.

Busy signallers: members of the 3rd Divisional Signals carry poles for the multi-air line during their bivouac at Templestowe, using the new system for the first time. Source: The Argus, 28 March 1932, p5 [14]

Watering the transport horses by the Yarra during the 3rd Division Signals' Easter bivouac at Templestowe.  Source: The Argus, 2 April 1932, p5 [15]

Through The Tent Flap - Horseman and bugler seen through the flap of the fodder tent at the bivouac of the Third Divisional Signals at Templestowe.  Source: The Argus 31 March 1932, p5 [16]

The following March, The Herald pictured men of the 4th Australian Field Artillery bivouacked at Templestowe, loading a dummy shell into one of their eighteen-pounder guns and working an anti-aircraft piece, a small sign of how training was beginning to anticipate a different kind of war to come.

Artillerymen of the 4th Australian Field Artillery loading a dummy shell into an 18-pounder gun during field exercises at Templestowe. Source: The Herald, 21 March 1933, p2 [17]

Templestowe Gunners - Gunners of the 4th Australian Field Artillery working their anti-aircraft gun during the Templestowe bivouac.  Source: The Herald, 21 March 1933, p22 [18]

A month later The Age returned to the 3rd Divisional Signals, photographing a visual signals station keeping in touch with a post three miles distant, and the unit's multi-air-line section erecting a terminal pole at the end of a three-mile telegraph line it had just completed and being the first Australian unit to operate the system.

Keeping in Touch - A visual signals station in communication with another post three miles away during the 3rd Divisional Signals' field operations at Templestowe.  Source: The Age, 18 April 1933, p9 [19]

Signal Manoeuvres at Templestowe - The multi-airline section of the 3rd Divisional Signals erecting the terminal pole on completion of a three-mile telegraph line at Templestowe — the first Australian unit to operate this system. Source: The Age, 18 April 1933, p9 [20]

By October 1933 the district was hosting several units at once. The Age listed a weekend exercise for the 59th Battalion at Doncaster, a tactical exercise for the 14th Battalion at East Malvern, night operations by the 58th Battalion at Doncaster, a bivouac for the 20th–22nd Battalion at Heidelberg, cable and multi-air-line training for the 3rd Divisional Signals at Templestowe, and tactical exercises for the 2nd and 8th Field Brigades at Templestowe and Doncaster respectively. A week later, the same paper reported the 3rd Divisional Australian Army Service Corps holding a bivouac and supply-and-convoy test at Templestowe, alongside further night operations by the 59th Battalion at Doncaster, and a tactical exercise without troops conducted by the 39th Battalion at Templestowe. [21] [22]

Artillery units were back at Templestowe in early 1934. The 4th Brigade Field Artillery, comprising the 10th, 11th and 104th Batteries under Lieutenant-Colonel R. E. Fanning, held a two-day bivouac there in February, and in April the 10th Field Artillery Battery returned for a further bivouac and battery exercise (while, simultaneously, the 4th Field Artillery Battery trekked to East Oakleigh with two eighteen-pounder guns, ammunition wagons and fifty-four horses). In May that year the 22nd Field Battery ran tactical field exercises on the low-lying ground between Doncaster and Box Hill and The Sun newspaper photographed cheerful gunners of the 22nd Field Battery leaving their Alexandra Avenue depot for a weekend of tactical field exercises between Doncaster and Box Hill. [23] [24] [25] 

Happy artillerymen of the 22nd Field Battery leaving their Alexandra Avenue depot for a weekend of tactical field exercises between Doncaster and Box Hill.  Source: Sun News Pictorial, 14 May 1934, p18 [26]

October 1936 brought the 12th Battalion, its companies operating simultaneously at Diamond Creek, Doncaster and Lilydale. That same year, The Argus began running a column titled "Amongst the Militiamen" by Major W. S. Scrivenor, an Australian Imperial Force veteran better known to Melbourne listeners as the host of 3UZ's "Diggers' Session", delivering news, talks, and Anzac Day broadcast descriptions for Victorian ex-servicemen. He also wrote on the importance of the voluntary work performed by members of the Militia in their training and instruction. [27]

In October, he wrote of rifle-fire resounded through the undulating county surrounding Doncaster, Lilydale, and Diamond Creek when the members of the 24th Battalion did their annual musketry course at a bivouac. As the battalion area was a considerable distance from the Williamstown Rifle Range, where the course is usually fired, it was thought that better results would be obtained by combining the weekend training and the small arms course. From all accounts, the innovation was successful. He offered thanks to the district rifle clubs for their co-operation, which contributed in no small degree. As an example of the enthusiasm of the militiamen, Private Cousins, the very necessary cook of A Company, after preparing the evening meal on Saturday, returned to Malvern, did his regular milk round, and arrived back in bivouac at Doncaster in time to serve breakfast. [28]

Scrivenor used the column to celebrate this kind of dedication, men fitting a night's civilian work around a weekend under canvas, and more broadly to make the case for the militia itself. In a December 1936 column, he reflected on how little the public understood of the voluntary effort involved, regular attendance at unpaid parades and instruction classes, which he argued was the very foundation of the militia's efficiency, and citizens could repay that effort simply by taking an interest in their local unit's activities. That same weekend, he reported, the 24th Battalion would march from Surrey Hills to Doncaster for a night exercise, before a company rifle and machine gun attack would echo across the Templestowe countryside the following day and on its completion the battalion will reassemble and march back to Surrey Hills. [29] [30]

A section bayonet advance during the 24th Battalion's weekend bivouac in December. Source: The Age, 7 December 1936, p15 [31]

A further report in early December 1936 described the same battalion's recently recruited recruits camped on Mr J. Williamson's property at Doncaster, with the company cooks and quartermaster's staff sent ahead to prepare the ground, with a route march and night exercise on the Saturday, and a company attack staged in the country beyond Templestowe on the Sunday. Almost a year later in November 1937, the Fern Tree Gully News noted that the 24th Battalion would again bivouac at Templestowe over the weekend of the 27th and 28th. [32]

War Approaches, 1939–1943

By April 1939, with war in Europe only months away, the exercises had taken on a more technical, Commonwealth-wide character. The Argus reported that the 3rd Division Signals will bivouac at Templestowe for a national signalling competition. The 4th Division Signals and the 2nd Cavalry Division Signals would bivouac at Broadmeadows, and will carry out the tests there tomorrow afternoon. Each signal unit will be represented by two officers and 32 men of other ranks. The messages will be sent through a chain of communications, beginning with a battalion and ending with a division. Two channels of communication will a maintained throughout, and the means to be employed will include lamp and a buzzer and sounder telegraphy. [33]

A member of the 3rd Divisional Signals team checks back to the umpires on a field telephone during the interstate signalling competitions at Templestowe.  Source: Sun News-Pictorial, 2 May 1939, p21 [34]

As far as the newspaper records show, this was the last report of militia training exercises at Doncaster and Templestowe. Within a generation many of the farmland, paddocks and river bends that had hosted pontoon bridges, bayonet charges and anti-aircraft drills would start to give way to suburban Melbourne, leaving these newspaper reports and photographs as the clearest surviving trace of the district's forgotten role as a training ground for the citizen soldiers who volunteered to defend Australia.

Sources:

1 The Argus, 11 November 1902, p6 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article9078889
2 The Herald, 13 November 1905, p4 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242201354
3 Weekly Times, 25 November 1905, p11 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article225187787
4 Doncaster Templestowe Historical Society - https://dt-hs.blogspot.com/2026/08/pontville-cultural-significance.html 
5 Doncaster Templestowe Historical Society – Uncatalogued resource
6 The Age, 29 January 1906, p6 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196322582
7 Leader, 10 February 1906, p34 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198360790
8 The Age, 28 January 1907, p6 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196153877
9 The Argus, 12 November 1907, p8 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10155150
10 The Herald, 16 November 1904, p8 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10747741 
11 The Herald, 24 March 1910, p8 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242070689
12 The Age, 29 January 1912, p6 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article197399206
13 The Herald, 29 January 1931, p24 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article242875035
14 The Argus, 28 March 1932, p5 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4443790 
15 The Argus, 2 April 1932, p5 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4444676
16 The Argus 31 March 1932, p5 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4444279
17 The Herald, 21 March 1933, p22 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243050392
18 The Herald, 21 March 1933, p22 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243050415
19 The Age, 18 April 1933, p9 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204883829
20 The Age, 18 April 1933, p9 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article204883835 
21 The Age, 11 October 1933, p12 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205116683
22 The Age, 18 October 1933, p7 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205109498 
23 The Herald, 25 January 1934, p21 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243208006 
24 The Argus, 5 April 1934, p7 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10924618
25 The Argus, 12 May 1934, p22 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10936036
26 The Argus, 14 May 1934, p18 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article276356730 
27 The Argus, 10 October 1936, p33 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11924059 
28 The Argus, 17 October 1936, p39 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11926629
29 The Age, 3 December 1936, p4 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205948994 
30 The Argus, 5 December 1936, p39 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article11944390 
31 The Age, 7 December 1936, p15 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205942045 
32 Fern Tree Gully News, 11 December 1936, p7 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article264237151 
33 The Argus, 29 April 1939, p3 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12122809 
34 The Sun News Pictorial, 2 May 1939, p21 - http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article278189963 

Notes:

1 All research undertaken by the author
2 Primary newspaper resource - The National Library of Australia's “Trove” on-line digital archive of past newspapers
3 Author made use of ClaudeAi to assist in the presentation of his research

Source: Author: Ian Schafter - Member Doncaster Templestowe Historical Society - August 2026