JULY 2006 NEWSLETTER

LAST EXCURSION

What a crowd! We thought the line of cars coming around the corner to park at the courthouse would never stop. Thanks again to Sarah Ferguson and family for being so generous with their hospitality. Such a large group is fairly formidable to come traipsing through one’s home. The site of the Park Hill homestead, sitting as it does overlooking the flood plain of the Loddon River was impressive even without the water of the cairn Cairn Curran Reservoir lapping at its edge. Memorable was the walk down to see the old bridge and the memories shared by people who had earlier connections with the site.

We have heard tell that among the crowd was someone who had connections to the McKinnon family of Tarrengower. If you could help us in this regard, Peter Skilbeck 54762450, would be interested to follow up.

NEXT EXCURSION

The Midland Historical Society is having an excursion to the Campbelltown area next month and is happy for our members to also attend. It seems that they will be getting closer to the old house at Glengower than we were. The date is the third Wednesday in August – 16^th August – and the meeting point is the Black Duck Hotel at 1.20 pm.

THE VEREY CD.

Thanks to the efforts of FOCAL, the Friends of the Castlemaine Library, the images by Verey photographer of Castlemaine that Ashley Treacy managed to salvage, have been put onto a CD that was distributed to local historical societies at a launch last Saturday. A preliminary viewing at the courthouse on Monday morning had us very excited, particularly as there was the image of Constable Stanley Ellis who was stationed at Newstead during the time of the First World War. We already have details of his career in the police force and very much wanted to get the photograph at the time of an exhibition on the Police in Victoria a couple of years ago. Letters to the Police history unit were unsuccessful. We knew the image existed as it was on display in the Castlemaine library foyer and efforts then to get it were also unsuccessful.

By searching under the location “Newstead” several images come up and there are names that are familiar to us from our knowledge of the early days of the town but also of families that still live in the area. If you wish to see the images, call at the courthouse on a Monday or make a time for us to open up the courthouse for you.

ANOTHER ACQUISITION

Another acquisition from a couple from South Australia who called at the courthouse was a newspaper photograph of an incident in 1934. It appears that a car was washed off a bridge over the Muckleford Creek by a wall of water from a burst main and resulted in three people being drowned. By putting the relevant copy of the microfilm of the “Echo” onto the reader, our researchers were able to give the visitors quite a deal of information about the event that had claimed the life of one of their family members.

PUBLICATION OF A BOOK ON THE MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE

Many members will already be well aware of this exciting project. One of our members, Adrian Haas, did significant research when he presented a paper to the Mechanics’ Institute Association on our local Mechanics’ Institute. The seminar paper was restricted to only a small part of his information so Adrian went ahead and presented it in its entirety in book form to our Society for us to do with as we saw fit. The decision to publish was an easy one – the information Adrian has assembled is a social history of the town of Newstead as well as a project on the building. The process has been an interesting one. Cherie Lawton was interested in being involved as it fitted in with a writing course she is taking. Between us we have negotiated ISBN numbers, computer complexities and then took a deep breath and approached Graffiti Press in Castlemaine. The result is that we expect to have the final product soon and then there will “THE LAUNCH” – definitively an occasion not to be missed! Watch this space.

FAMILY HISTORY DAY IN MARYBOROUGH

The Maryborough Family History Group is again having their History Fair on Sunday 17^th of September 2006 at the Maryborough Resource Centre on the corner of Alma and Nolan Streets. The theme this year is Local Industries Past and Present.

LAPSED MEMBERSHIPS

We presume that if you haven’t paid your subscriptions to our treasurer Janet Trudgeon by now ($20 single and $35 family plus $5 to have the newsletter posted each month) you are letting your membership lapse. However there may be some who have had an “old timer’s moment”. If your newsletter has a red dot it means that this will be your last newsletter.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Mondays at the courthouse from 9 am till whenever.

Wednesday 16th August excursion to Campbelltown meeting at the Black Duck at 1.20 pm with the midland Historical Society

Monday 21st August meeting at the courthouse at 7.30 pm

Watch out for

The launch of The Newstead Mechanics’ Institute” book

and our annual party in September.

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