Mt. Rouse & District Historical Society

1. "Penshurst History - Snapshots" - Award Success

Ruth Pihl on behalf of Mount Rouse & District Historical Society received a certificate from Lynne Kosky MP, Minister for the Arts that we have been awarded $3,000 to write and publish "Penshurst History - Snapshots. We have been promised a photograph of the award ceremony held at Stawell on 22/4/2008

2.Half-Yearly Dinner - 28th March, 2008

Twenty-five members and guests of Mt. Rouse & District Historical Society had our half-yearly dinner at Penshurst Hotel, Friday, March 28th. Vice President Ruth Pihl introduced Ray Burger's "Moments and Memories", which was formally launched. Guest speaker Arthur Jones gave a biographical presentation entitled "Some of Life's Adventures". Thank you Val for having transcribed Arthur's handwritten manuscript into publishable document text format. Starting with the first installment today, we will shortly upload another two installments to our "Members" section.

26/4/2008: The second installment has now been uploaded.

3. Penshurst History - by Elizabeth Hatfield

*A 22,000 years perspective

"The area around Penshurst is in the country of the Djab wurrung language group of Aboriginal people, very close to the border with the Dhauwurd wurrung language group people to the south. The Djab wurrung language is apparently some 5,000 years old according to linguists, but the people referred to a previous group as the Old People. It is presently believed that Aboriginal people lived in this area some 22,000 years prior to the arrival of Europeans."

*Ed.: Thank you Elizabeth Hatfield for your article, which reminds us that settlement of the Penshurst area dates back for thousands of years. Read the full article in our Penshurst Historical section. Subheading added editorially, since the township Penshurst as such has only existed for some 160 years.

4.Second World War Memories - by Arthur B Cook

Penshurst RSL are collecting stories about local servicemen and women.
The following article was provided to the Penshurst RSL by Arthur Cook. Arthur has kindly agreed for it to be published. The Penshurst RSL would gratefully accept any memoirs or stories for a collection of stories about local servicemen and women.

Ed.: Thank you Arthur Cook for providing us with your biographical article, and thank you Mary Johnson for making it available to this website. The first of two installments has just been uploaded to our serial section. We would be most grateful for further contributions, if possible accompanied by photographs, which we would scan in and return within two days.

13/4/2008: Here our serial section the second and final installment of Arthur Cook's article

5. Dairy Factories and Creameries in Western Victoria - Information Requested

"After having spent all my working life in the dairy industry, in the manufacturing and regulatory areas, my retirement project is to compile a history of all the dairy factories and creameries that have ever existed in Victoria. At the present moment, my list extends to well over 700 of these premises and a large proportion of these existed in the Western District of Victoria, with many of those in the Hamilton/Penshurst general area. Although dairying is still a major industry in this area, the number of manufacturing plants in the whole of the Western District is now down to single figures. In order to compile this history, I would welcome any information, documentation and photographs, no matter how large or small, that relates to any of the dairy factories or creameries that have ever existed in Victoria. Any enquiries or information can be addressed to Reg Hassett, 8 Roscrea Court Werribee Vic 3030, or to xreghassett421@hotmail.com ."

Ed.: Please remove the "x" in the email address when answering. Its purpose is to prevent automatic "harvesting" by spammers. We received the above request from Reg Hassett after he had read Phillip Doherty's article on dairying in our area. The picture shows "the old creamery" sent to us by email. The building is still standing but has had extensions added.

4/1/2008: The above article resulted in further information from Rhonda Engert (nee Lucas), ('click on thumbnail' picture for caption re. the persons in the picture). Rhonda has kindly sent us much information and pictures also previously.

23/1/2008: Phillip Doherty has researched the rabbit plague subject further and submitted "Rabbitting in 1910", which we have uploaded to our serial section.I

The Volcanoes Discovery Centre is now open on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, 1000 - 1600 hrs, and in addition when Penshurst News is being prepared (we can not guarantee any specific hours for the latter, since timing depends on very few overworked volunteers). The centre was officially opened by Helen Morrison on 18/10/2003. It became possible thanks to grants of $100,000 from the Commonwealth Government, and $70,000 from the Southern Grampians Shire. The opening event was hosted by the Shire.

27/5/2005: The Centre is running well, thanks mainly to a small number of volunteers (28 "on the books") and Val Rentsch's organising skills. We are presently preparing its own website, but its uploading is subject to finding suitable host.

8. Tree Planting Day, 1/9/02 - history in the making; the pine trees

on Mt Rouse have been removed, a walking track made, and up to 5,000 tree saplings and grasses planted. The 1st of September 2002 started with an "invisible" Mt Rouse" swept in mist, but it soon cleared up, and the rest of the day was in glorious sunshine and warmth. By noon, 116 people had registered. The day was a great success. We are keeping it uploaded to demonstrate that our community spirit was alive and well at least five years ago, although several of our clubs, community organizations e.g. Advance Penshurst, and related internet websites are now (2007) in strife, attracting very few members or willing contributors.

Site contents:

We have run out of interviews and stories suitable to be serialised. Please help! You can find earlier serials in our archive.

1. Index (this page)

2. Penshurst 150yrs

3. Serials & Stories

4. Historical

5. Aim Was Preservation

6. Tribes Shared

7. Explore Historical Penshurst

8. Museum

9. Events

10. Feature Articles

11.ARCHIVE

12 .MEMBERS

Mount Rouse - our sine qua non

The Brambuk Aboriginal Dancing Group performing on Mt. Rouse for the first time in 200 years

Penshurst is a small rural community, located 276km West of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 70km North of Warrnambool and the Great Ocean Road, 30km South of the Grampians mountain range. The townshop of Penshurst was surveyed and allotments sold in 1851, although Penshurst was formally proclaimed a town in 1861. The rural Shire of Mt. Rouse previously had its council administration in Penshurst. Other smaller communities, e.g. Dunkeld and Glenthompson were part of the shire, which made the Mt. Rouse & District Historial Society (hereafter referred to as 'the Historical Society') name inclusive of the whole shire area. However, the shire was amalgamated with neighbouring shires to form the Shire of Southern Grampians in 1994, i.e. the links with other communities are weakened but the original historical society name is maintained for historical reasons. We meet in the 'old' court house building, next to the post office. Our museum is located in the 'old' Shire of Mount Rouse building. Here a Penshurst 'streetscape', and a view of Mount Rouse.

'Click on thumbnail' images to view full size picture. The BACK command will take you back to the page.

Web Site Components:

1*. Index page (this page):

We are members of The Australian History Webring, the aims of which is to bring all quality Australian history related web pages together so that students and researchers may share their interests and services.

The commemorative event on 26th March 2000, in relation to the railway disaster in 1890, when seven young railway workers lost their lives, was very successful.

2. Penshurst - the First 160 Years

3.* Serials, Documents, and Stories:

i. Second World War Memories - by Arthur Cook

ii. Penshurst Gun Club - by Phillip Doherty

iii. The Rabbit Plague; Rabbitting in 1910 - by Phillip Doherty

iv. Dr Tom Stephens Speach at Our Dinner, 3/8/2007

v. Chatsworth House/Hopkins Hill - by Phillip Doherty

4. Historical

Shire of Mt. Rouse - 1864-1994

5. Aim Was Preservation - Co-existence

6. Two Tribes Shared the Area - Aboriginal Inhabitants

7*. Explore Historical Penshurst - i. A self-guided historical walk to view 22 of our most significant historical buildings, brief histories, and map.

ii. Historical building - Former Victoria Hotel

8*. From the Museum - 19/7/02: We have now finished uploading our historical pictures and would appreciate it if any of our "visitors" could lend us 'old' Penshurst and district pictures. We would return them within one week, since they are easily scanned in, provided they do not exceed A 4 format.

9*. Events. i. Penshurst Railway Disaster (1890) Commemorative Event 26th March 2000. ii. A Tribute to Those Who Died Bring the Railway Through.

10*. Feature Articles. i. Mount Rouse Tragedy in December 1884 - by Debbie Down, 12/10/99, ii. Threshold - Life in the 1500's, iii. How the West Was Won - by Ruth Pihl, 24/4/2007 , iv. Frightful Railway Accident in 1890.

11. Archive

12*. Meetings, Members, and Correspondence

* These items will be updated from time to time.

Family research: If you want to trace your family tree, our member Val Heffernan is prepared to do family research at $10/hour. Proceeds to Mt Rouse & District Historical Society.

We also have available records of burials at the Boram Boram Cemetery from 1863 to 1969. Similar records from the Gnadenthal and Tabor Lutheran Cemeteries can be found at :http://members.datafast.net.au/marrtronics/CEMINDEX.HTML

Benalla & District Family History Group Inc.

History of Australian Places Index

In the Shadow of Mount Rouse (the Nye family history as it relates to the Mt. Rouse area in the 1850:s)

Mortlake and District Historical Society Inc.

Penshurst On Line (Penshurst events, news, feature articles, and projects)

Volcanoes Information Centre (Penshurst)

Stawell Historical Society Inc

Western Victorian Association of Historical Societies

**Previous serials and chapters transferred to our archive directory.

Written, photographed, and uploaded by Eric Pihl

We would appreciate your feedback. Please remove the "x" when e-mailing us at xsylvestris@westnet.com.au (we are trying to avoid automatic "harvesting" of our e-mail address, since we have been inundated with malevolent coded e-mail lately).