Our next meeting, the Annual General Meeting, takes place on Thursday 21 October at 7.30 p.m. in the Court House History Centre. Our guest speaker will be Laura Kostanski, a Masters student in the School of Business at the University of Ballarat, who will talk about her research, under the supervision of Ian Clark, into place names in Victoria. Please bring a plate for supper afterwards.

NEWS AND NOTES

The Central Highlands Historical Association History Expo was held on the first weekend of October at Aquinas Campus of the Australian Catholic University. We participated with a stall at the Expo, and sold a number of books and booklets, and were given one very interesting photo of the old railway line into Buninyong. Thanks to those members who assisted on the roster. The CHHA's AGM takes place on 6 November at Ballan.

BUNGAREE history Award. Our old friend Roy Huggins has given us notice of the Bungaree and District Historical Society's History Award, This competition calls for entries on any aspect of life in the former shire of Bungaree, and the north riding of the old Shire of Buninyong. Entries may be written, photographic, CD or video and entries should be sent to the Secretary, Post Office Bungaree, by 31 May 2005. Entries become the property of the Society. An excellent first prize of $100 is on offer, and $25 second prize. What a great idea for getting local people involved in recording their social history.

Louise Lee-Archer of Tasmania is writing the history of the Hannah family, prominent in Buninyong from the 1870s to the 1920s.

We have applied for a Local History Grant to publish the life of Sir Samuel Wilson.

ENQUIRIES

August-October

SADLIER

BUNINYONG COURT HOUSE

SKELTON of Scotsburn

GALLOWAY

Information being sought on Archibald Galloway who was at Lal Lal in 1886 when he married Elizabeth Viccars.

TOLL/TOLLE

Ken Toll contacted us from West Sussex, having found our web site. He was seeking information about Edward John Toll who was in the Buninyong area in the 1860s and 1870s.

GREEN

George Green married Mary Anne Ward in Buninyong in 1854, but no other details seem to exist of their time in Buninyong.. GARRETT of Clarendon. Edward and Jane Garrett came from Tasmania to Victoria and came to Clarendon by 1859, where Edmund became a shoemaker. Members of the family lived at Clarendon until the early twentieth century.

JENNER, of Mount Buninyong

Edmund Jenner came from Sussex, England, to Victoria where he married Ellen Donelly (1821-1899) from County Armagh Ireland, in Buninyong on 4 March 1856. The marriage took place at the residence of James Coote, a storekeeper in Buninyong, according to the rites of the Presbyterian Church with Rev. Thomas Hastie officiating.

Edmund Jenner signs a petition to Governor Bowen in 1859 in favour of granting local government to Buninyong. In the Shire of Buninyong's first Rate Book of 1863-4, Edmund Jenner appears living at Devonshire Lead. By 1871 he was a farmer, purchasing 10 acres of land beside the Midland Highway at Mount Buninyong.

Edmund and Ellen had a daughter Mary, born at Buninyong in 1858, who married James Butler on 20 June 1888 at St. Alypius Catholic Church in Ballarat East. In later years James was caretaker of St. Peter and Paul's Catholic Church at Buninyong, and he and his wife and family lived in an adjoining house in Scott Street. James also drove a baker's van. Mary and James Butler had two daughters and three sons. Their daughter Mary Ann Butler, born Buninyong in 1891, married William Steen at St. Peter and Paul's Buninyong on 29 September 1914, celebrant Father Bernard Duffy. The couple had nine children. James Butler died in 1927.

HALL of Magpie

John Hall from Bristol was a miner at Magpie in 1856-7.

GRIFFITHS

Thomas Griffiths from Worcestershire, with his wife Ann was reputedly in the Buninyong/Learmonth area in the 1850s, but little information is available.

Scotsburn School celebrates 125 years

The hamlet of Scotsburn lies right on the southern edge of the City of Ballarat, the most rural part of the municipality, nestled at the foot of Mount Buninyong.

This month the little Scotsburn school celebrated its 125th anniversary on the 15-16 October. The school community invited former pupils to come 'Back to Scotsburn' to celebrate the endurance of this school when most other rural schools in the district have disappeared into history. The weather was perfect for a gahtering of ex-pupils, teachers and friends with the present 26 children, who dressed in period costume for the occasion.

Scotsburn was originally known as Scotts Marsh, named after the Scott family who were the first white settlers to take up land in the area in 1838.

In testimony to the enduring qualities of this little community, Celia Bu

The Scotsburn State School opened on 1 September 1879, and was known, for a very short time, as Burnt Hill State School, then Scotts Marsh, and from 1889 Scotsburn.

When the school opened it had an enrolment of 78 children, a remarkable number compared to the 12 children a century later.

From 1864 when the Scott family's squatting license for the 'Mount Boninyong' run was cancelled, the rich, spring-fed land was opened up to selectors, who carved out farms and large families to necessitate a school, and other community facilities like a church, a hall, a blacksmith's shop and a post office. Significantly, Scotsburn never had a hotel, such was the strength of the temperance ethic in the district.

Scotsburn today boasts a small but important group of heritage buildings. Beside the attractive timber school is the hall built in 1891, and across the road is the Union Church, built in 1884 on land given by the Scott family and it still holds regular services. Nearby is the mansion built by the Scott family, and the magnificent garden of 'Mount Boninyong', cared for by Celia Burnham.

When most rural schools in the district closed in 1994, Scotsburn survived by becoming a campus of the Buninyong State School. Thus students have the best of both worlds - the intimate atmosphere of a rural school, and the facilities of Ballarat's biggest primary school.

Over the years the Scotsburn school became involved in wider community activities. In recent times it has become an important environmental centre, part of the Upper Williamson's Creek Landcare Group. The school grounds provide the opportunity for seed raising and re - planting of indigenous species.

The school organised an historical display for the anniversary, and produced a CD-Rom history.

Hunting Kangaroos at Clarendon

Hunting was a very popular sport in the district, particularly with the squatters. There are frequent reports in the Ballarat newspapers in the 1860s of hunts in the district, relating to the Ballarat Hunt Club and the Buninyong Club. In July 1868 the Buninyong Hunt met at the Crown Hotel under master Mr Rowlands, with seven pairs of hounds. They ran down to McNaught and Boyd's station at Clarendon, 'where kangaroos were known to abound'. The 23 hunters set upon a doe, and crossed Williamson's Creek, thence to Lal Lal station , and from there to Mount Doran, where the country was rough and the scent was lost, thence back to Buninyong, for a fine dinner at the Crown Hotel, where Mr Kelsall and Mr Hedrick presided. The report noted that the next meeting would be at Praeter's Hotel at Dogtrap Creek, where 'plenty of kangaroos are to be had near Lyndsay's mill'. ( Courier, Ballarat, 6 July 1868, p. 2)