1900-1929 Timeline

Note: This page is a constant work-in-progress, with new information and corrections being made all the time. To search on the “1900-1929 Timeline” for any particular year, person, event, business, shop etc, simply press CTRL+F and type in the thing you are looking for in the small box that will appear on the screen.

1900

1900

1900                             

Alfred Ladson opens his third shop in Beechworth – Ladson’s Furniture Dealer store – at 16 Camp Street, directly opposite his Ladson’s Branch Stores shop. It specialises in Ladson’s real love – new and second-hand furniture.

Since 1990 this store at 16 Camp Street has traded as ‘The Finer Things Of Life’.

1900 – Jun 30

Figures are released by the Victorian Railways detailing the number of passengers using the various railway stops and services on the Beechworth line annually for the year ending June 30^th – Beechworth: 11,964 passengers / Everton: 3,712 / Yackandandah: 1,993 /  Tarrawingee: 1,485 / Londrigan: 469 / Lee’s Crossing: 368 and Wooragee: 106 passengers.

1900

A charming three-bedroom home is built at 8 Hodge Street in Beechworth. With various modifications, and now known as ‘The Manor’, it still stands proudly today.

1900

In 1889, Edwin ‘Teddy’ Warden had passed the licence of his 1868-built ‘Midland Counties Hotel’ to his two sons – 35-year-old Edwin Warden Jnr and 28-year-old Frederick Oscar Warden. Now, at the start of the new century, the younger son will add a second story to the popular hotel, containing ten new hotel rooms, with a new front balcony, and a rear balcony with ‘a view of the distant Buffalo Mountains’. However, Frederick Warden will die suddenly at the hotel in 1905, aged just 43, leaving his widow Ellen Warden to run the business.

1900                             

30-year-old William Henry Phillips converts an auction business on Ford Street into the Beechworth Horse and Vehicle Bazaar which includes a wheelwright’s factory and showroom, a harness room, and stables. Phillips, who is President of the Beechworth Trades’ Cricket Association, will soon take over the Beechworth Foundry in Newtown which has been closed since 1896.

1900

A ‘Federation-style’ home – now known as Craig House – is constructed at 32-34 Albert Road. Set on a 4,654 square metre estate (over one acre), it is built as a home for Daniel O’Connor, manager of the Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum, who will live there for a number of years with his spinster sister Charlotte. The building features a return bullnose verandah with decorative cast iron posts, brackets & frieze and full height windows to the verandah. The four-bedroom home has 13-foot ceilings, leadlight windows, a marble surround fireplace, and a large cellar. The property is now surrounded by a large and well maintained hedge (below).

It will be named ‘Craig House’ in honour of Mayday Hills Lunatic Asylum’s final manager Douglas Craig, who held the position from 1976 to the end of 1991 and lived in the house with his family during that time. In his retirement, Douglas Craig will research and write the book “The Lion of Beechworth: An Account of the History of Mayday Hills Hospital, Beechworth 1867-1995” published in 1998.

1900 – Oct 31              

A large ornamental fountain is officially unveiled at the Beechworth Cemetery. A journalist describes it as “a cuticular pedestal with circular corners and ornamental panels with a dolphin at each corner, from whose mouths issue water jets. Above spreads a circular shell, upon which stands a graceful female figure supporting another and smaller shell, above which is a circular spray, the whole standing about 15 feet high, and constituting a beautiful work of artistic design”. Amongst those present for the unveiling are Shire President Alfred Arthur ‘Bosher’ Billson and his wife Laura, who is invited to turn on the tap, and the effect is much admired as “the jets of water descend with a pleasant rippling sound into the basin beneath”. Those present then stroll along the path to the new Rotunda at the centre of the Cemetery to partake of light refreshments and to admire the peaceful surrounds of the Cemetery, which had been beautified by the planting of hundreds of trees and shrubs – many of which had been planted only a year earlier.

Born in 1858, Shire President ‘Bosher’ Billson is the eighth child of George Billson, founder of ‘Billson’s Brewery’. ‘Bosher’ Billson marries Laura Annie Fielder at St Paul’s Church in Melbourne on the 28th of June 1881 and together they will have five children.

1900 – Dec                   

5,332 gold miners still sluice and dig for alluvial gold in the Beechworth area, bringing up a very impressive 400 ounces of gold for the year. The other major industries and employers in Beechworth are the Tannery (above), the Foundry, the Coachbuilders and the two breweries.

1901 – Jan 1                

Federation! Victoria ceases to be an independent colony and becomes one of 6 states in the Commonwealth of Australia as part of the process of Federation. As Melbourne is the country’s largest city, it becomes Australia’s [temporary] capital city while a new national capital city is planned. (By 1905 the population of Sydney will overtake that of Melbourne to become the Australia’s largest city.)

1901

Shire President Alfred Arthur ‘Bosher’ Billson calls for Beechworth to have a “beautiful resort for health or pleasure which shall be an object of pride to the residents and an attraction to visitors”. Out of this, the ‘Beechworth Tourist Club’ is founded, becoming a pivitol part of the town’s regeneration … introducing walks and walkways, carriage rides, a bandstand, a fernery and almost 200 trees to the Botanical Reserve – soon to become known as Queen Victoria Park.

1901

Following Australia’s Federation on January 1st, the Oddfellows Hall on Loch Street is renamed Federation Hall. It will become known as the Federal Theatre once silent films begin screening there.

1901                             

Beechworth now has 20 hotels, including The Central (above), The Star, The Commercial, London Tavern (below), Empire, Belfast, Hibernian, Post Office, Water Right, Shamrock (below), the Harp of Erin and two Chinese hotels – the Sun Quong Goon and Wy Kee.

1901

12 women are employed as nurses under Matron Margaret Winning at the Ovens District Hospital, while many more female nurses are employed at the Beechworth Lunatic Asylum under Matron Maria Meade. Many women in Beechworth work in traditional employment such as teaching and nursing … but are paid significantly less than men working in the same occupations.

1901

57-year-old George Henry Billson – who moved to Beechworth with his family in 1865 and went on to serve as the Mayor of Albury in NSW – leaves North East Victoria and moves to ‘Dun Lappie’ in Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick, and is promptly elected to the St. Kilda City Council (1901-11) serving as Mayor in 1909 where he is responsible for the development of the St Kilda Esplanade. He also establishes another highly successful aerated water manufacturing business on Brighton Road, Elsternwick. He dies in 1927 at the age of 83.

Billson’s Elsternwick factory occupies about an acre of ground and is fitted with the finest machinery and appliances in the state. On busy days, 14 two-decker wagons – loaded with between 160 and 200 dozen bottles – are sent out, with each wagon drawn by two horses. On special days the number of wagons is increased to 18. The factory has stables to stall up to 36 horses. The 40 factory employees handle no less than 50,000 bottles a day! George Henry Billson’s ginger beer is pronounced by experts to be “the finest on the market“and well-known Melbourne public houses like ‘Young and Jackson’ “will keep no other brand”.

1901

There is still gold to be found in the area, and the Golden Bar Mine in established in Chiltern, 25 km from Beechworth. It will yield around 12,453 ounces of gold before work at the mine ceases in 1922. It will be one of the principal mines in the area, as well as the deepest and one of the richest.

1901

The railways – both for passengers and freight – is a vital and important part of life in Beechworth. Even day trip excursions from Beechworth to Yackandandah are popular (below).

1901

After purchasing Red Hill allotment 6B from Thomas Sandham and allotments 5 and 6a from Mr T. Haig’s widow, 64-year-old German-born Auguste Elsie Marie Meglin commissions the construction of a home that will become known as The Mansion. Sitting on a large property, just over 2km from the centre of Beechworth and close to Lake Kerferd, the house will include several other buildings including servants’ quarters.

By 1903, Miss Meglin will be the owner of 28 properties, including 22 acres in Beechworth and 40 acres at Diamond Creek. She had made her money from her family’s success with the ‘Walhalla Gold Mining Company’. Upon her death in 1909 at the age age 72, Meglin leaves her 40 acre estate at Diamond Creek to ‘The Sutherland Homes for Neglected and Destitute Children’.

1901                             

The area under vine in the Shire of Beechworth has now dropped to 103 acres and wine production of 10,416 gallons.

By 1910 this figure will drop even further, to just 33 acres and 1,410 gallons of wine, possibly the result of the spread of phylloxera, first discovered in Rutherglen in 1899. By 1916 less than 5 acres are under vine. Eventually nearly all vineyards disappear from the Beechworth region (except for one) until a resurgence in the late 1970s.

1901                             

A volunteer community group, led by a member of Council, clear a section of land and then plant new trees and shrubs in the ‘Botanical Reserve’. One avenue of 14 pine trees is planted to represent the 12 Beechworth Councillors in office at the time, along with the current Secretary and Engineer. The following year the ‘Botanical Reserve’ will be renamed in memory of Queen Victoria.

1901 – Oct 17

All flags in Beechworth and around the North-East are flown at half-mast following the announcement that John Alston Wallace has passed away in Melbourne at the age of 73. One of the most dynamic of Beechworth’s early pioneers, Wallace seemed to find it impossible to turn his back on business opportunities or to resist the lure of any mining speculation. Although he is one of the first miners in Beechworth and Stanley, he quickly realises that providing supplies for miners will create better financial opportunities than actually digging for gold, and begins establishing a chain of hotels and stores around the goldfields. He becomes famous for his marathon trips on horseback, leaving one of his businesses in one town late at night before arriving at another of his businesses in another town the following morning. Becoming a very wealthy man, in 1889 he provides a lavish ‘Beechworth Banquet‘ for 500 people to celebrate and acknowledge the old pioneers of Beechworth and then puts up money for a new wing at the Ovens Benevolent Asylum and attends the laying of its foundation stone on the day following the ‘Beechworth Banquet’.

Unfortunately, Wallace will lose his substantial fortune – like so many others – in the “land boom bust” in the 1890s, followed by a bitter feud with his family before dying at his Melbourne home ‘Quat Quatta’. On his death, the Legislative Assembly of Victoria is adjourned as a mark of respect.

1902

Zwar Bros Pty Ltd is one of Beechworth’s largest employers and the tannery regularly holds annual picnics and events for its employees and their families, like the one pictured above in 1902.

1902                             

The goldmining village of Silver Creek, three kilometres east of Beechworth on the road to Stanley, now has three hotels, along with its School (established in 1882). The small Silver Creek Post Office (below) will open on June 1st 1906 on Tom Shennan’s property.

When the gold begins to run out, the last hotel at Silver Creek closes in 1920 and the school closes in 1927.

1902 – May 7                            

A major celebration is held as the ‘Botanical Reserve’ is officially renamed ‘Queen Victoria Park’ after the monarch who died the year before. The dedication is led by The Honourable John Morrissey, Minister for Agriculture. A bowling green is developed in the park the following year (below) and in 1920 a croquet lawn and an open air theatre – complete with public seating on the ‘Giant’s Grave’ rock – have been established.

1903 – Jul 9

One of Beechworth’s early leading citizens, the Honourable Frederick Brown, dies at the age of 73. Having arrived in February 1853 (as an agent for the Port Phillip Gold Mining Co.) when the settlement is a mere collection of canvas and bark buildings, Brown initially works as an auctioneer, going back to Melbourne to study law, before returning to Beechworth as a solicitor and barrister. Elected to Beechworth’s original Borough Council in September 1856, he will become one of its longest serving councillors on record, before serving the district as a member of Victoria’s parliament. Two stained glass windows in the chancel of Beechworth’s Anglican Church perpetuate the memory of his service to the church and to Beechworth.

1903  – Aug                           

The new Beechworth Fire Station opens at 30-32 Camp Street with the station’s steel bell tower and a meeting room added around 1907. The fire station is built by 39-year-old Thomas Arthur Shoebridge and features rendered detailing above triple false arches in the ‘Federation Style’. Although the steel tower has been removed, the building stills stands today, one of the few remaining in Victoria from the era, another being in Ballarat.

Following the completion of a modern fire station on Victoria Road in November 2013, the old Fire Station is sold in 2014 for $630,000 – including the fireman’s residence next door – for private use.

1903 – Nov

Beechworth butcher George Newton passes away at the age of 79 at his home ‘Beaumaris’. A well-known and highly respected resident of the Upper Three Mile, English-born Newton had arrived on the ‘May Day Hills’ goldfields soon after gold was discovered in 1852 and the 28-year-old quickly opened a butchering business, which he continued to run until the early 1890s. Living alone in his later years, after the death of his wife, he is regularly visited by his neighbour Mrs. Hartman who, on entering the house on a Monday morning finds old George dead in his chair, with the lamp still burning, suggesting he passed away during the previous night. A few days later, under the direction of Beechworth undertaker W. H. Phillips a funeral procession leaves George’s house ‘Beaumaris’ at 11 Weir Lane and makes its way to the Beechworth cemetery.

After Newton’s death, his property ‘Beaumaris’ at 11 Weir Lane is sold to Thomas Wood, a painter. He bequeaths it to his daughter Margaret Ryan in 1918 and she holds it until her tragic death by drowning in the well near the kitchen in 1931. It is then sold (by her trustees) to Francis Blume and upon his death in 1938 it passes to his sister Alvina (known as ‘Tops’). She sells it 1971 to Adrian Bartsh and in 1977 Bartsh sells it to Beechworth school teachers Helen Gordon and Neil Smooker. Helen renews the formerly derelict gardens over the following 28 years before she and Neil sell ‘Beaumaris’ in 2005 to Peter and Yvonne Wilkinson. The Wilkinsons refurbish the house and extend the gardens. Peter Kenyon and Jamie Kronborg will re-name the property ‘Wallasey-Beaumaris’ when they purchase it from the Wilkinsons in October 2013 for $765,000.

1903 – Dec

Beechworth dentist Percy R. Morgan is involved in a serious buggy accident while traveling on the road between Beechworth and Yackandandah with a horse and buggy hired from Mr. W. B. Phillips. About a mile from Yackandandah, the horse takes fright at a passing train and rushes up the embankment, upsetting the buggy, and throwing out Percy Morgan, who escapes with a severe gash and heavy bruising. However, the hired buggy is smashed to pieces and the horse is so severely injured that it has to be put down. Morgan has been practicing dentistry from his surgery in the Foster Buildings on Ford Street in Beechworth since the mid-1880s.

1903 – Dec 16             

The Beechworth Bowls Club (BBC) is officially opened at Queen Victoria Park by Florence Rose Bligh, the Countess of Darnely (below), on her first visit back to Beechworth since leaving as a young girl. Today the club is situated on the corner of Albert Road and Harper Avenue.

Florence Rose Bligh (née Morphy) is born in 1860, the youngest daughter of John Stephen ‘James’ Morphy, Beechworth’s police magistrate and Gold Commissioner for Beechworth. Florence meets English cricket captain Ivo Bligh at ‘Rupertswood’ near Melbourne in 1883. They marry, and after he becomes the 8th Earl of Darnley in 1900, she becomes Countess of Darnley.

1904 – Apr 17

60-year-old Irish-born Stephen Reville, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sandhurst (Bendigo), arrives in Beechworth for the laying of the Foundation Stone for extensions to the 1890s-built Brigidine Convent & Boarding School in front of an excited crowd of around 2,000 people. Situated on 10 acres of land, it will be one of Beechworth grandest buildings, requiring half a million bricks.

Bishop Stephen Reville has huge responsibilities as the Bishop of Sandhurst (Bendigo). The diocese is (then) made up of 22 districts with a total of 37 secular and Order priests, 105 churches, seven Religious Brothers and 200 Religious sisters. The sisters and brothers are responsible for Catholic education in the diocese and control 6 boarding schools, 37 primary schools and 13 secondary schools.

1904                             

The Beechworth Federal Competitions are inaugurated as an annual musical and elocutionary eisteddfod.

1904

The Beechworth Camera Club is established. Meeting once a month at the Beechworth Public Library, its first President is Beechworth chemist Charles Hembrow, resident pharmacist at the Ovens District Hospital. In 1916 Hembrow will take over William Johnston Bowen’s pharmacy on Ford Street when Bowen retires and moves to Melbourne.

1904 – Jul 4

Donald Fletcher dies at the age of 74 and is buried at the Beechworth Cemetery. His grand home Myrla sits at 2 Fletcher Road, on Fletcher’s Hill, overlooking the township.  Myrla and its large gardens and surrounding farm land will be purchased by the government in 1953 and be known for a number of years simply as Fletcher House.

1904 – Aug

Two new memorial stained-glass windows – representing St. Peter and St. Paul (below) – are unveiled at Beechworth’s Christ Church in loving memory of the late Frederick Brown, M.L.C., (above) respected barrister and parliamentarian, Mayor of Beechworth (1866 and 1871). A special address is delivered by the Right Rev. Thomas Armstrong, Lord Bishop of Wangaratta. The congregation includes brethren of Beechworth’s Masonic Lodge of St. John, of which Frederick Brown had been a member from its inception in the town in 1856.

Frederick Brown became the first chancellor of the Anglican Diocese of Wangaratta after its creation in 1901.  The stained-glass windows honouring Brown are created by ‘Brooks, Robinson and Co’ of Melbourne who also installed the ‘great cycle’ of windows at Melbourne’s ‘St Paul’s Cathedral’, made by London firm ‘Clayton and Bell’ in the 1890s.

1904 – Nov 21

Lee’s Crossing on the North-East Rail Line from Wangaratta to Beechworth is renamed Baarmutha. Located near the ‘Lower Three Mile’ gold mining site on Diffey Road, by the 1920s two trains a day run to Beechworth and each train will stop at Baarmutha if a passenger waves a red flag to signal the train to stop as it approaches the small station building.

1904 – Dec

The new wing of the grand Brigidine Convent & Boarding School is completed. Situated on 10 acres of land adjacent to St. Joseph’s School on the newly named ‘Priory Lane’, the school and its gardens become known simply as The Priory.

The school will reach its attendance zenith in the 1960s with 150 students, but by 1978, declining student numbers lead to the closure of the school and convent and the property passes to private enterprise. It is now known as ‘The Old Priory’.

1905

Hodge & Hughes Monumental Masons are busy at their establishment on Albert Road. John Hodge and Charles Richard Hughes complete orders for the design, creation and erection of monuments in the Beechworth Cemetery and other cemeteries in the district, which are “distinguished by their superior workmanship”.

27-year-old John Hodge arrives in Beechworth in 1888 with a contract to construct cottages at the ‘Hospital for the Insane’. When he completes his contract, he and Charles Richard Hughes go into business together as stone masons. In 1893 Hodge marries Ellen Cornelius of Beechworth and they have four sons (one deceased) and five daughters. In August 1908 – when the borough is divided into ridings – Hodge is elected to the Beechworth Shire Council – of which he becomes a very active member – and will become president of the Shire after World War One. He is a good churchman, a trustee of the Methodist Church and, for over 25 years, a most enthusiastic member of the choir. In 1916, after the death of one of his sons from meningitis, the health of this once remarkably active, energetic man, gradually fails. He continues to devote himself to war work and his work on the council at the expense of his health. Successive attacks of influenza leave with him with a weak heart. Although advised by Dr Lawrence to give up his heavy stone mason work, he continues at his trade until November 1921 when – at age 60 – his health fails completely. Although he is able to attend a Council Meeting in December, it will be his last public appearance. Just after Christmas he suffers a heart attack. Briefly revived by Dr Lawrence, less than an hour later he suffers another heart attack and dies. On the day of his funeral at the Methodist Church, nearly every Beechworth business is draped in black, and a large funeral procession to Beechworth Cemetery is led by members of the Beechworth Council, his business partner 58-year-old Charles Hughes, and his dedicated employees.

1905

The Beechworth Football Club leaves the Ovens & Murray Football Association (O&MFA) and joins the Ovens & King Football Association (O&KFA) where the standard of football is somewhat lower. The Beechworth Bombers will remain with the O&KFA – with the exception of a single season return to the O&MFA in 1907 – until after World War One. The club fields strong sides during much of its time in the O&KFA and will win an unprecedented three-flags-in-a-row between 1912 and 1914!

Beechworth will return for one last attempt at glory in the O&MFA in 1923 but, after six dismally inglorious seasons, will switch back to the Ovens and King with much better results, winning three-flags-in-a-row again between 1937 and 1939! It will remain with the O&KFA until the end of the 2003 season. The club’s overall tally of fourteen senior grade O&KFA/L premierships is surpassed only by Moyhu.

1905                             

Victoria’s telephone system is extended to Beechworth, now connected to the telephone exchange.

1905                             

Cornish-born Joseph Pearce Harper – who arrived in Beechworth as a 16-year-old in 1877 and quickly apprenticed to local bootmaker William Datson – finally opens his own highly successful boot-making business at the age of 44. His business will have clients both locally and, eventually, all over Australia and even in England. An active member of the Beechworth Volunteer Fire Brigade, the Beechworth Rifle Club, and a leading member of the Beechworth Bowling Club, Harper will serve as a member of the Beechworth Council from 1913 to 1923 and again from 1929 to 1945 and is twice Shire President. He will become a respected Justice of the Peace and Beechworth’s Deputy Coroner and – for an impressive 59 years – serve as a member of the Ancient Order of Foresters, having been initiated in ‘Court Robin Hood’ in Beechworth back in 1886 (below). Harper Avenue is now named in his honour.

1905

22-year-old Beechworth-born Frank Jarvis purchases a shop on Ford Street and establishes a grocery business. Beginning modestly, Frank makes home deliveries using a handcart or a bicycle. By buying commodities such as flour, sugar and vinegar in very large quantities, he realises he can undercut his competitors and his business grows. He soon acquires horse drawn vehicles – a spring cart and a covered wagon – and for many years he has four horses, two very strong horses to pull the wagon, one cart horse and one saddle hack. They are stabled behind the shop but are regularly moved to one of several grazing paddocks nearby. “Dolly” and “Ginny” (the latter lives for over 30 years) pull the wagon that convey the goods from the station to the shop, all of which come to Beechworth by rail.

1905                             

The Beechworth Hospital for the Insane has 623 patients, mainly ‘chronic cases’, but a Health Inspector argues that the asylum has “100 patients too many” considering that there is no proper sewerage or heating system; a defective water supply; poor conditions in the kitchens and laundry; high turnover among nurses (possibly due to the poor standard of their accommodation – see photograph above); and other staffing problems.

Due to the findings of the damning report, by 1914 general repairs have been carried out and a new male hospital and kitchen have been constructed.

1905 – Jun

The 1859-built London Tavern at 43 Camp Street has a new licensee – renowned New Zealand actor Collet Barker Dodson. He will depart after a year to become the manager at the Beechworth Jam Factory – established in 1906 as a co-operative to produce jams, pickles and preserves – before resuming his acting and theatre management career. He will die of a heart attack at the Majestic Theatre in Adelaide in 1936. The new licensee of the London Tavern is John Timothy Kelly.

1905 – Jun 22             

Another Fire! A fire breaks out at 4.30am in the dental surgery of Henry Vandenberg, next door to the Star Hotel on Ford Street. Awoken by the noise and the flames, people gather in the street and stand on the balcony of Tanswell’s Commercial Hotel directly across the road to watch the fire brigade try to contain the blaze. Amongst the onlookers at the Commercial Hotel is Sir John Madden, the Chief Justice, and his wife, who will donate £5 to the Star’s licensee John Rowe, and £7 to Mrs Ryan who loses her Fancy Goods Store next door to a vacant shop (also destroyed) on Ford Street. Although there is some fire damage to the roof of the Star Hotel and lots of water damage to the interior, it will continue to operate for the next 13 years.

1905 – Sep

Dr. Henry Augustus Samson, Medical Superintendent of the Beechworth Hospital for the Insane, dies suddenly at the age of 50, leaving his wife Mary with seven children, the youngest just 5 years old. A week earlier, feeling unwell, Dr. Samson travelled to Melbourne to obtain medical advice. He was quickly diagnosed with Bright’s Disease which results in his unexpected and premature death. His body is returned to Beechworth on the train, and mortuary arrangements are carried out by undertaker Mr. W. H. Phillips. Dr Samson and his family had been living on the top two floors of the Beechworth Hospital for the Insane Administrative Building with their accommodation described as “very comfortable” and “palatial”, with patients attending to all their housekeeping duties, including keeping the fires stoked. The Samson family had regularly joined in with the Beechworth community and enjoyed local community life before Henry’s premature death.

10-year-old Henry Samson had arrived in Melbourne with his family from Essex in England in 1865 after his father Edmund Samson’s appointment as a teacher of English and Elocution at Melbourne’s Scotch College. Young Henry went on to study medicine at Melbourne University and become a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery in 1880. Whilst studying he meets and marries a nursing assistant, Mary Savage. He becomes a GP in 1882 but decides to specialise in Psychiatry and is appointed Senior Medical Officer at the ‘Kew Asylum’ in 1887, followed five years later by an appointment at ‘Ballarat Asylum’ subsequently being transferred to Beechworth in 1896 to succeed Medical Superintendent Dr Deshon after his passing.

1906                             

The former Oriental Bank building at 97 Ford Street is taken over by the Savings Bank of Port Philip which will operate from the building until 1988 (as the State Savings Bank of Victoria).

The government-controlled ‘Savings Bank of Port Philip’ is founded on January 1st 1842. In 1912, the Victorian government will reconstitute the bank as the ‘State Savings Bank of Victoria’.

1906

Crowds flock to Baarmutha Park during Easter celebrations. Beechworth is becoming quite the tourist desination.

1906 – Oct 2                             

Richard Warren, the long serving editor of The Ovens and Murry Advertiser, dies at the age of 75, and the newspaper is taken over by his wife Mary Ann Warren who runs it until her death in 1918.

Richard Albert Warren has owned ‘The Ovens and Murray Advertiser’ since 1855 and, at the time of his death at the age of 75, is considered the oldest active newspaper proprietor in Victoria at the time, being the paper’s proprietor and editor for over 50 years. His adopted son Richard Rowe Warren – nicknamed ‘Little Dick’ – works with his father at the newspaper for many years but after his father’s death (and his mother takes over the paper), ‘Little Dick’ chooses to buy Alfred ‘Alf’ William Foster’s popular Newsagent and Tobacconists shop at 74 Ford Street, which Warren will run successfully until his death in 1950. ‘Criterion Lane’ which runs beside the shop is renamed ‘Warren Lane’ in his honour (now ‘The Marion Arcade’).

1906                             

Following the death of Frederick Allen, his Spring Creek Brewery is purchased by 48-year-old Alfred Arthur ‘Bosher’ Billson who begins converting the brewery into a jam and fruit preserving works. The Beechworth District Jam, Pickle and Fruit Preserving Company Ltd is officially opened in January 1907. A number of Beechworth farm families earn up to £2 a week selling blackberries to the factory.

Billson will sell the preserving company in 1912 to a Melbourne company who rename it the ‘S.S. Jam Factory’ and it continues operations until 1915.

1906 – Nov 5

76-year-old widow Harriet Pratten is found dead on the footpath near her home on High Street, where Harriet has lived alone for the last 22 years following the death of her husband Thomas Pratten (who had run his popular grocery store on the hill at Newtown in Beechworth since the late 1850s – see photo below). The coroner determines she has died due to a brain haemorrhage and chronic Bright’s disease. When Beechworth Police Sergeant Blade and Constable Colin Campbell Gardner later visit Harriet’s home, they make a surprising discovery … they notice a box tucked in behind the back of the chimney. It contains eight large glass jars filled with sovereigns, holding over 850 of the valuable coins. With other jars holding smaller value coins, the complete number of coins in the jars is counted out to be over 3,000 … with a total value of around £900, equal to over $160,000 in today’s decimal currency! Harriet appears not to have made out a will and, as the Pratten’s two sons had both died in their 20s in the 1890s, and their only living relative is a teenage girl in Melbourne, the coins are delivered to her. It is not known what she did with them.

1907

Beechworth locals flock to see silent films presented by various ‘Travelling Picture Show’ companies including McGuires Pictures and Parkinson’s Pictures. One of the most popular and anticipated ‘picture show men’ is Will Hill, who arrives in Beechworth with his films and equipment in his truck, then jacks up the back wheels to create a generator to power his electric projector. Mr Hill then gives a lucky local lad a free ticket to the screening for walking around Beechworth with a hand bell shouting “Will Hill’s electric picture show is on in town tonight!”.

1907

The film ‘The Story of the Ned Kelly Gang’ is screened to a packed theatre in Wangaratta with actors on the side of the stage adding voices to the silent film, and young boys employed backstage to create sound effects. At the end of the screening, audience members – including a number from Beechworth – are surprised to see 68-year-old Wangaratta policeman Sergeant Arthur Loftus Maule Steele leaving the theatre. Rewarded and applauded in 1880 for being the police officer to bring down Ned Kelly at the Glenrowan siege, Sergeant Steele is now booed and hissed by the filmgoers for having shot their “persecuted folk-hero”!

Running for one hour and ten minutes, ‘The Story of the Ned Kelly Gang’ is now considered the world’s first feature film. By the end of 1907 it will be banned in Victoria for its “romantic portrayal of bushrangers”.

1907                             

At the Mayday Hills Asylum, a Medical Superintendents quarters is constructed. It will soon be used as an early psychiatric treatment centre.

1907

Although it had been opened on June 22 1897, Wallace Park is now officially dedicated in honour of Beechworth titan John Alston Wallace who had passed away in 1901. The dedication ceremony is overseen by the Honourable Mr Swinburne, Minister of Agriculture, where several memorial oak trees are planted in the park, one of them planted by Margaret Trim, vice-president of the Beechworth Ladies’ Benevolent Society and wife of William Trim, owner of Beechworth’s popular Oven’s Bakery on Albert Road (also known simply as Trim’s Bakery).

1907 – Nov 21

24-year-old Frank Jarvis marries 21-year-old Lillie Gentle Harvey. Beechworth-born Frank is running his popular general store on Ford Street.

1908 – Jan 28              

A number of excited Beechworth residents pile into coaches to travel to Wangaratta where they have tickets to the Tuesday evening performance by Nellie Melba at His Majesty’s Theatre, 48-50 Murphy Street.  After the concert – in front of a capacity crowd of over 1,000 – Melba will stand on the balcony of Wangaratta’s Commercial Hotel (next door) to wave goodbye to all the Beechworth locals as they head back home, calling out “How long will it take you to get home?” When they call back “About four hours if we meet without accident.” Impressed, Melba replies “And all for the sake of a little music!”.     

Nellie Melba (real name Helen Porter Mitchell) will be made a Dame in 1918. She will pass away at the age of 69 on February 23rd 1931 at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

1908 – Feb 14

A heatwave hits the North-East of Victoria. Daily temperatures of over 100 degrees (Fahrenheit) will last for a record-breaking eight continuous days in and around Wangaratta and Beechworth.

Another heatwave strikes the area in 1919 where the temperature reaches a sweltering peak of 107.2 degrees (41.7 Celsius) in Wangaratta.

1908

Famed Italian engineer 56-year-old Carlo Catani arrives in Beechworth to inspect progress of the first section of the Gorge Road. He has travelled from nearby Mount Buffalo where is is presently in charge of building a road to open up the Mount Buffalo Plateau and dam the Eurobin Creek below the mountain to form a lake (which now bears his name – below). He will also design and build the difficult roads to Arthur’s Seat and to Mount Donna Buang, so his insights and advice are invaluable.

Since arriving in Australia in 1876 Catini has carved out a respected career with Victoria’s Public Works Department, including widening and improving the Yarra River upstream from Princes Bridge in Melbourne and overseeing the planting of the Alexandra Gardens. Just before his arrival in Beechworth, Catani designs the landscaping of the gardens at the beach-end of Fitzroy Street in St Kilda. They are later named the ‘Catani Gardens’ and are still a popular St Kilda feature today.

1908           

The Beechworth Mounted Rifles, a voluntary detachment of the Australian Light Horse Milita, march on their horses down Ford Street. The detachment consists of soldiers from Euroa, Longwood, Violet Town, Benalla, Thoona, Wangaratta, Rutherglen and Beechworth. They will form the 8th Australian Light Horse Regiment.

1908                             

30-year-old Lot Victor Diffey becomes a local Councillor and eventually serve two separate terms as Shire President, before becoming a member of Victoria’s Parliament in 1929. Diffey Road is named in Lot’s honour.

1908 – Dec 26  

Beechworth residents – young and old – gather in their finery at Baarmutha Park for Boxing Day celebrations and sporting events.

1909

65-year-old John Fletcher, who has been running the Beechworth Newsagency and Bookseller business next door to the Beechworth Post Office (above) since 1898, sells the popular business to Mr. M. Wyatt. Fletcher – who has acted as agent for “The Leader” and “The Age” during the whole of his business career in Beechworth – had bought the business from James Ingram Jnr, who had himself taken over the business (established by his father in 1855) back in 1882.

1909

The Newtown Bridge is getting more and more traffic and becoming quite the tourist attraction.

1909

Popular Beechworth doctor David Skinner and his wife Wilhelmina ‘Minnie’ Skinner purchase the London Tavern at 43 Camp Street and rename it the Federation Hotel. (It stands next door to their home and surgery.) John Timothy Kelly is the licensee and after Minnie’s death the following year, Kelly continues to run the business before purchasing it outright from Dr Skinner and his new wife Beryl in 1918. By 1920 the hotel has become a private home before gradually falling into a state of decline.

In 1970 the property is purchased by Frank Strahan and a syndicate of fellow Melbourne academics and friends linked to the National Trust, with the aim of conserving the buildings (below).

1909 – May

The Heaviest Man in Australia? Popular Beechworth blacksmith, 57-year-old Charles Frederick Phillips – said to be “the heaviest man in Australia” – passes away of a heart attack. For much of his adult life Charles weighs upwards of 30 stone (approx. 191 kg), although he loses 11 stone (70 kg) in weight during an illness before his death. He works as a blacksmith in a laneway behind Ford Street for many years until his ever-increasing weight interferes with his movements and he can longer work. Phillips Lane is named in his honour.

1909

Billson’s Breweries release their first non-alcoholic beer … and Billson’s Herbal Beer will prove to be one of their most popular beverages. Said to be ‘invigorating’ & ‘healthful’, its original recipe – flavoured with lemon, orange and a range of exotic bitter herbs – is developed from a prescription by Beechworth’s much loved Dr David Skinner. The distinctive bitter drink, later sold as Eks Herbal Beer, is revived by Billson’s in 2019 (above).

1910 – Jan 14                 

30-year-old Australian soprano sensation Amy Castles arrives in Beechworth to perform a concert at the Federal Hall on Loch Street. Just over two months later, on March 26, 1910, Melbourne-born Amy will sing the title role in the Australian premiere of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly” at the Theatre Royal in Sydney and will make her much-heralded American debut at Carnegie Hall in 1917 (below).

Amy Castles never marries and, in her later years, lives with her younger sister Ethel ‘Dolly’ Castles, also a singer, in Camberwell. Amy will pass away aged 71 at a hospital in Fitzroy on November 19, 1951.

1910

22 members of the Beechworth Fire Brigade gather for a photograph in front of the Beechworth Fire Station at 30-32 Camp Street. Constructed in 1903, the impressive building features rendered detailing above triple false arches in the ‘Federation Style’. The Fire Station’s steel bell tower and a meeting room are added around 1907.

Following the ‘Great Beechworth Fire’ in 1867, Beechworth’s first ‘Fire Brigade’ is established at a meeting at the ‘Star Hotel’ on Ford Street. Made up of 10 paid members and 16 volunteers, their initial ‘home base’ is in area below the ‘Beechworth Shire Hall’. Shortly afterwards the ‘Volunteer Fire Brigade Board’ is also formed, and Hiram Crawford will go on to serve as the Superintendent of the ‘Beechworth Fire Brigade’. However, just 10 years after being established, the Beechworth Fire Brigade – through lack of funds – will be disbanded.

1910

Newtown continues to grow on the steep hill just before the Newtown Bridge, with the private home Pennyweight House built at the top of the hill (far right above).

1910 – Jan                            

In summer, seats are set up at the bottom of the rock at Queen Victoria Park (above) for popular open-air film screenings (below) and, throughout the year, the Empire Picture Company screens silent moving pictures in the Federal Hall (later renamed the Regent Theatre) while Mr Philips advertises new Edison Phonograph Players and hundreds of popular records at his Ford Street Store.

1910 – May 20

A procession, followed by a memorial service, is held in Beechworth in memory of King Edward “Bertie” VII who had died on the 6th of May at Buckingham Palace. The procession begins at the upper end of Ford Street led by Captain Robert Barnes, who is followed by the Town Band. The band’s drum is draped in black for the occasion. The procession concludes at Queen Victoria Park where the memorial service takes place.

1910

Wirth’s Circus – led by 46-year-old Beechworth-born Philip Wirth – makes a triumphant return to Beechworth during one of their many Australia-wide tours. Arriving in their special train – consisting of eight passenger cars and 20 wagons – they perform an extended engagement in Beechworth featuring their now famous herd of elephants, along with 40 horses, a lion, two lionesses, two Russian wolves along with cages of wild animals … and a huge tent seating over 1,000 patrons!

1910 – Oct 10

Irish-born Hopton Nolan passes away at Tarrawingee the age of 82. A substantial landowner in and around the township of Tarrawingee, Nolan (who established The Plough Inn at Tarrawingee in 1861) had been one of John Alton Wallace’s right-hand men at the Nine Mile diggings (later known as Stanley) just as Wallace was starting to build his empire of hotels and stores in the district.

1910

Beechworth College – established by James Goldsworthy as Beechworth Grammar School in 1856 – closes its doors after 54 years, when its owner and headmaster Parker John Moloney leaves Beechworth for Melbourne after winning the Victorian seat of Indi for the Labor Party in the Federal election. The Beechworth College school building on Loch Street will become the printing office of The Ovens and Murray Advertiser.

Moloney will serve in the House of Representatives from 1910 to 1913, 1914 to 1917 and from 1919 to 1932. He will be the Minister for Transport and Markets in James Scullin’s Labor Government from 1929 to 1932 when he will negotiate Australia’s first trade treaty with Canada.

1911                             

53-year-old Alfred Arthur ‘Bosher’ Billson’s Beechworth brewery is amalgamated with his older brother George Henry Billson’s Albury Brewing and Malting Company, to become the Border United Co-operative Breweries Ltd.  

‘Bosher’ Billson moves to Melbourne in 1916, making his home at ‘Wooragee’ in Toorak (‘Wooragee’ is named after the place his father George had built a hotel in the 1850s). He dies at ‘Wooragee’ of coronary vascular disease on 31 October 1930 at the age of 72, survived by his wife, three sons and two daughters, leaving an estate valued at £6,047. His older brother George Henry Billson, who at one stage is Mayor of Albury in NSW, moves to ‘Dun Lappie’ in Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick in 1901, and elected to the St. Kilda City Council (1901-11) serving as Mayor in 1909 where he is responsible for the development of the St Kilda Esplanade. He also establishes another highly successful aerated water manufacturing business on Brighton Road, Elsternwick. He dies in 1927 at the age of 83.

1911 – Apr 3

The first ‘national’ population Census ever taken in the Commonwealth of Australia is held, recording the details of the country’s population between the 2nd and 3rd of April. It records that 4.46 million people are living in the country, which is almost double the recorded population of the combined ‘Colonial Censuses’ 30 years before. The population of Beechworth is recorded as 5,978, down on the pre-Commonwealth census figure of 7,384.

1911                             

The Defence Act of 1910 makes it compulsory for all boys aged 12-14 to sign up for junior cadet training and boys aged 14-18 to join the senior cadets. Students at the Beechworth State School are no exception and begin cadet training. When war is declared in 1914, Australia has “a ready-made army of well-trained, disciplined and patriotic young lads, glad to risk their lives.”

1911                             

Beechworth Technical School is established at 101 Ford Street. The first headmaster is former Working Men’s College (later RMIT) lecturer William Troutbeck, hired by Albert Michael Zwar, the President of the Technical School Council. The first intake at the new school is an impressive 130 students.

1911 – Jun 22

A grand ‘Norman Gateway’ is erected in Camp Street to celebrate the Coronation of King George V.

1911

43-year-old James Bradley is appointed Manager of the Beechworth Asylum. He and his wife Ida Emily Bradley (née Scopes) will have three children, all born in Beechworth. James will become heavily involved in community activities, serving as Vice-President of the Asylum Cricket Club (above), Vice-President of the Alpine Tennis Club (formed at the Asylum in 1912) and, in 1915, he is elected to the committee of the Beechworth Bowling Club. He will sit on the council of the Beechworth Technical School, works to encourage men to enlist to serve in World War One, and is Secretary of a group collecting clothing to support the war effort. He and his family will leave Beechworth in 1918.

1911

At Beechworth Junction – where the railway line from Wangaratta branches off to Beechworth – the North Wangaratta Public Hall is completed at a cost of £220. Situated on the north-western side of the railway line, close to the popular 1880’s-built Vine Hotel on Detour Road, the hall initially has corrugated tin walls and roof (with no lining!) but the floor is made of beautiful jarrah, and wooden stools surround the side walls. The main part of the hall features two large ‘Miller’ kerosene lights with large chimneys, and a raised stage at one end. The building will later be clad in brick.

With the settlement of North Wangaratta growing at the turn of the century – with new farms and small industry expanding – the local community see the need to establish a community hall to cater for their social needs and the ‘North Wangaratta Public Hall’ will quickly become the centre of district life. ‘Beechworth Junction’ will be re-named ‘Bowser’ in March 1922 in honour of Sir John Bowser, a local journalist, state politician and former Premier of Victoria.

1912

The Minster of Education, Beechworth’s own Alfred Arthur ‘Bosher’ Billson, announces a major development in Victoria’s education system … a number of new ‘Higher Elementary Schools’ are to be established in certain country towns. These will include Benalla, Rutherglen, Omeo and Beechworth. These changes will take effect immediately. This is the most fundamental and important change in Victoria’s education system since its establishment under the State in 1872. The new act strengthens the elementary school system by insisting that every child must now remain at school until the age of 14, unless the child has obtained the merit certificate and is 13 years of age; and, further, it insists that every pupil must, unless there is reasonable excuse, attend school on every school day.

1912                             

A new High School is established in Beechworth. Following changes to the Victorian education system, the Government proclaims Beechworth State School No. 1560 will add a Higher Elementary School. This is much needed following the closure of Beechworth College in 1910, which had been educating Beechworth’s secondary students for 35 years.  Declining enrollments at the Higher Elementary School will later cause the loss of Leaving Certificate classes, which are not revived until 1957. The Higher Elementary School will be officially upgraded to Beechworth High School in 1959 and then moved to a new, purpose-built building in Sydney Road in 1962. The rooms formerly occupied by the Higher Elementary School then revert to the Beechworth State School.

1912

Following the death of Auguste Elsie Marie Meglin in 1909, Harry Anton Johnson purchases ‘The Mansion’ which Meglin had built in 1901. The large house and associated buildings stand on a property at Red Hill, 2km from the centre of Beechworth, close to Lake Kerferd. Harry moves his family – his wife Elizabeth (‘Lily’) and their five children – to Beechworth from St Kilda in Melbourne, and the Johnsons establish a ‘Ham & Beef’ shop called ‘The Little Digger’ opposite the Beechworth Fire Station on Camp Street. Harry and Lily improve the land surrounding ‘The Mansion’, clearing the brush, erecting more fences, and planting hundreds of trees including 800 apple, pear, walnut lemon and limes (clearly seen in the photograph above). They also attempt to plant a vineyard but it, and the fruit trees, eventually fail. The Johnsons eventually return to Melbourne when Lily Johnson becomes ill, dying at the Austin Hospital for Incurables in September 1924.

1912

After lying deserted for a number of years, 44-year-old Gavin Baxter Fletcher resurrects the old Wallaby Mine at Nine Mile Creek, 12km east of Beechworth, and completes a new 12-Head Stamp Battery to replace the original stamper destroyed by bushfire. Beginning in the 1860s, the original Wallaby Mine – dug to a depth of of 200 feet – yielded as much as 17 ounces of gold per ton, with the registered returns between 1870 and 1888 coming to 6,903 ounces for 14,300 tons of ore. Fletcher’s new venture develops the original mine shafts, tunnels, open cuts and aqueducts, adding a horizontal steam engine, a stone boiler and the stamp battery. The stamp battery is used to crush ore-bearing rock, with its twelve stamping heads powered by a single-cylinder steam engine. The Wallaby Mine Gold Battery Site is of historical and scientific importance to the State of Victoria and is classified “C” and placed on the Register of the National Estate.

Gavin Baxter Fletcher is the fourth son of successful Beechworth pioneer miner Donald Fletcher. The 1912 replacement Stamp Battery that Gavin builds will itself be damaged in another bushfire in 2003 but restored by Parks Victoria. The Stamp Battery crushes rock so that gold can be extracted, widely used during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries before being replaced by more efficient crushing methods.

1912                             

Dr David Skinner, Beechworth’s popular local doctor, becomes the first person in town to own a car – a Renault.

1912                             

Victoria Police build a Federation-style home at 104 Ford Street (corner of William Street, opposite the Beechworth Gaol) as the official police residence, and it will remain the Beechworth police residence for more than a century.

In April 2019, the police residence is transformed into ‘Dryden House’ – a multi-use accommodation facility for Victoria Police employees working in Eastern Region Division 4 (ED4) away from home or in the process of relocating to the area. It is named in honour of long-time injury management consultant Jeanette Dryden who assists police employees return to work after physical and mental injuries.

1913

Eight years after the sudden death of her 43-year-old husband Frederick Warden in 1905, his widow Ellen Warden has continued to run the family business – The Midland Counties Hotel – established by Frederick’s father Edwin ‘Teddy’ Warden in 1868. Ellen now carries out major renovations and changes the name of the business to ‘Warden’s Hotel’. To celebrate, the Beechworth Town Band play selections from the front balcony for the gathered crowd at the official re-naming, and ‘free drinks are dispensed for an hour’. With the new name of the hotel, Ellen also adds two now ‘iconic’ stained glass windows – ‘Wardens’ and ‘Hotel’ – which can still be seen on the front of the building facing Ford Street today (below).

1913

After working at his father’s Black Springs Bakery since he was a teenager and learning the trade, 25-year-old William James Henry Price opens his own bakery in Newtown and will run the successful Beechworth bakery for the next 25 years. A great lover of horses, at one time Price owns racehorses and trotters, with which he wins races in Melbourne.

1914

‘Sydney Road’ – which runs from Melbourne to Wodonga – is officially declared a ‘main road’ by the ‘Country Roads Board of Victoria‘ (established in 1913), although most of it is still unsealed. The passing of the ‘Highways and Vehicle Act of 1924’ through the Parliament of Victoria will provide for the declaration of ‘State Highways’, and Sydney Road (also known as ‘The Main Sydney Road’) will become known as the ‘North Eastern Highway’ on July 1^st 1925. Made up of a number of roads from Melbourne – through Seymour, Benalla, Wangaratta and Wodonga at the Murray River- it stretches for a total of 161 miles.

1914                             

The Beechworth Mining Board, along with other mining boards throughout Victoria, is phased out.

1914 – Jul 14

For the first time, an aeroplane lands at Wangaratta! Flown by French stunt pilot and aviator Maurice Guillaux, the tiny Blériot XI makes a safe landing at lunchtime on John Sisley’s property ‘Wendouree’ near Racecourse Road to the cheers of a waiting crowd. Carrying mail between Melbourne and Sydney, Guillaux’s historic flight is (at the time) the longest air mail flight in the southern hemisphere! (A shorter mail flight had previously been made between Bendigo and Ballarat.) The first commercial flight occurs when Mr and Mrs Joseph Lewis are flown from Wangaratta to their property ‘Thistlebrook’ at Moyhu in a Farman bi-plane flown by Graham Carey under contract to Pals Children’s Magazine. The same plane will later be used for publicity stunts to advertise the sale of Wangaratta Woollen Mill shares in 1920 when Bill Callander’s daughters – Lena and Alma – drop handbills from the air which read “Buy Woolen Mills shares and make Wangaratta fly ahead as we are flying now!”

1914

Determined to finish the Gorge Road (started in 1908) behind the town, the Beechworth Progress Association arranges a ‘series of entertainments’ to raise £75 in order to claim the Government grant of £175 to complete the project. Their first fund-raising event is a picture show – the 1913 silent three-reel American film “Ivanhoe” – held at Queen Victoria Park.

So far, the Gorge Road has only been completed to the head of the Reid’s Creek Falls, and a bridge now needs to be erected over the creek so that the road can continue to the Sphinx. This is estimated to cost around £250, chiefly in labor. It will end up costing substantially more and take another 12 years to complete!

1914                             

The Billson brothers Border United Co-operative Breweries Ltd. is liquidated and sold to their good friend Albert Michael Zwar, who renames it Murray Breweries in August 1915 (see document above) and takes the name of one of Alfred ‘Bosher’ Billson’s popular products and creates the Melbourne-based soft-drink company Ecks Pty. Ltd. (bottle samples below). Albert Michael Zwar is known as the unofficial ‘King of Beechworth’ and is bestowed the nickname of ‘Big Fella’. He quickly begins restructuring Murray Breweries, closing the Tallangatta factory by the end of 1914 and selling the Albury brewery (which no longer brews due to poor water quality) in 1920. However, Murray Breweries in Beechworth continues to operate successfully, selling Ecks, cordials and various aerated waters within an 80 kilometre radius of Beechworth.

The Billsons and the Zwars always have a good, if competitive, relationship. There is an annual cricket match between the two companies for many years and the Zwar Bros Pty Ltd annual Christmas party is always well stocked with an extensive range of Billson’s beverages!

1914 – Aug 4

After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on July 28, the Austro-Hungarian government declares war on Serbia. Then on August 1st, Germany declares war on Russia followed by a declaration of war against France. Great Britain then declares war on Germany, and Australia immediately pledges its full support. The world is at war!

1914 – Aug 18

Following the outbreak of the war, the Beechworth Patriotic Women’s League is established, just five days after the Australian Red Cross Society is created. The Beechworth Patriotic Women’s League supports Australian soldiers at the front in Europe, sending linen, clothing, socks, slippers, bandages, pillows, bags of tea and sugar, magazines and other items to the central Red Cross depot at Government House in Melbourne for despatch to the Western front. For Christmas, they arrange for 150 ‘Billys’ (for boiling water) to be sent, filled with Christmas treats for Victorian soldiers, followed by hundreds of Christmas puddings the following year.

The ‘Beechworth Patriotic Women’s League’ will later become known as the ‘Beechworth Branch of the Australian Red Cross Society’ and still exists today – as ‘Beechworth Red Cross’ – holding monthly meetings at the ‘Anglican Church Hall’ on Church Street.

1915 – Jul 22

Beechworth pioneer John Martin Diedrich Pund dies at the age of 81. The well-known and highly respected owner of the‘Three-Mile Mine’ – 3 miles / 4.85 km south Beechworth – was born in Hamburg in Germany. John Pund was apprenticed to a sail maker as a teenager and, at the age of 18 and attracted by reports of gold discoveries, embarks on a vessel that arrives in Sydney in 1852. Making his way overland to the Ovens goldfields, he quickly begins gold mining in various parts of the district including Spring Creek in Beechworth, the Buckland, the Woolshed, and Yackandandah before finally settling in Three Mile in 1874 where he brings up a lot of gold and ends up controlling almost the whole of the alluvial mining ground there, as well as the area up the gully to the head of the Buckland Gap. In time, Pund will also own valuable water rights and pay a considerable sum to purchase several miles of large iron pipes to convey his race water from the hills to his claims at the ‘Three Mile Mine’. Always optimistic, energetic and and resourceful, he experiences much success and becomes well known for his generosity towards his employees, many who spend their entire careers working for Pund.

John Pund will go into partnership with John Alston Wallace – one of Victoria’s major mining entrepreneurs with extensive interests around the colony – and by 1895 the pair control the major water network supplying the Three Mile and Six Mile diggings near Beechworth. In the early years of the twentieth century ‘Pund & Co’ are averaging over 1,000 ounces of gold per year! Following his death, the enterprise will be sold and becomes the ‘GSG Amalgamated Co’, which continues to sluice the Three Mile claim area until 1950.

1915 – Sep 18-19         

Fire at Zwar’s Tannery. A spectacular overnight fire destroys much of Zwar’s Tannery, one of the largest factories of its kind in Australia, and one of Beechworth’s biggest employers. The cause of the fire is never discovered. The economic reality of the time is to move the entire operation to Melbourne, given that the Zwar family already have interests in a tannery in Preston. But the business is insured for £16,000 and Albert Michael Zwar displays his loyalty to the town and his local employees by rebuilding the Tannery in Beechworth – on a larger and more modern scale. (Another factor in his decision might be Albert’s success in negotiating reduced rail freight costs with the Victorian Railways Commissioners.) Little unemployment in Beechworth occurs during the rebuilding phase as many employees are temporarily transferred to the Preston Tannery.

In the 1920s ‘Zwar’s Tannery’ will install electric generators and is able supply Beechworth with electric power (see entry further below) until the State Electricity Commission takes over serves in the 1940s. ‘Zwar’s’ is the largest tannery in country Victoria.

1915

Established by Alfred William Ladson in 1882, Alfred’s 33-year-old son Arthur George Ladson takes over his father’s popular store at 30 High Street.

1916

Work is halted on Beechworth’s Gorge Road during the Great War as there are not the funds, nor the manpower, to complete the planned ‘full circuit’ of the road, which has only reached as far as the Reid’s Creek Falls. 82-year-old John ‘Jack’ Skidmore approaches the Beechworth Shire Council to ask for financial assistance after he has spent much his own money and time on the upkeep and repair of the section of the road that has been completed so far.

Skidmore Road will be named after Jack Skidmore in recognition of his efforts in conservation. Skidmore Road links the bottom of Camp Street to the ‘Powder Magazine’ and the Gorge Road. Jack’s home at the bottom of Camp Street had been destroyed in the Christmas bushfires of 1899. Skidmore dies aged 91 in Beechworth on 9 March 1925 and is buried in the Presbyterian section of Beechworth Cemetery.

1916

In the shade of Beechworth’s famous 300-year-old applebox “But-But” tree, the historic house at 2 Dowling Lane becomes ‘Nurse Dowling’s Private Hospital’ and many a Beechworth luminary will be born here between 1916 and 1927. Originally constructed as a prefabricated two room miners’ cottage by prominent citizen James Scobbie during the gold rush, two homes are later joined together on the land and modified in the ‘Victorian style’ by Nicholas & Elizabeth Dowling around the turn of the century, to become known as Dowling House.

Nicholas ‘Nicky’ James Dowling joins the ‘Cobb & Co’ coach company at the age of 10 in 1862, growing up to become a coach driver with the company. Eventually moving to Beechworth as a driver for ‘Crawford & Connolly’, he will later be elected President of Beechworth’s ‘Hibernian Society’. Nicky Dowling dies in January 1939 and ‘Dowling Court’ is named in his honour.

1916

The Shaw Brothers are now successfully operating two Grocer, Wine Spirit & Produce Merchant stores, one on Camp Street opposite the Fire Station, the other on Albert Road (below).

1916

Frank Jarvis and his wife Lillie Gentle Jarvis (née Harvey) purchase ‘Wongrabel’, the large property at 5 Finch Street established by John Armstrong and his wife Margaret Armstrong (née Johnson). (Armstrong had run ‘Cheapside House’ on Ford Street since 1889.) The beautiful gardens feature a large fern house and glass house. Sitting on two blocks of land on Finch Street and three on the Last Street boundary, the Jarvis’ soon expand the property by acquiring two more blocks on Last Street and, much later, another adjoining property. Frank and Lillie have three children – Max, Roma and Verna – and always live well, with a regular live-in maid. Between 1928 and 1931, their son Max builds a “dirt” tennis court on Last Street.

The ‘Wongrabel’ house still stands, although the once large property has been divided up, with two houses on Finch Street and five on the Last Street boundaries.

1917 – Mar 2

Richard Wesley Wong becomes one of the many young men from Beechworth to die in ‘The Great War’. Educated at Beechworth State School, Richard enlists on February 22 in 1916 and fights as a Private with Australia’s 17^th Infantry Battalion. Just over a year later, on March 2^nd, an artillery shell explodes close to Richard and he is killed instantly, aged 28, near the French village of Warlencourt. He had been on the Western Front less than four months.

Richard is the son of the respected members of Beechworth’s Presbyterian Church – Chinese-born Bartholomew Wong and his English-born wife Emma Jane Richards. Although Richard successfully enlists in 1916 when the army is desperate for soldiers, a year earlier, in February 1915, when Richard’s younger brother William Thomas Wong attempts to enlist with the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) he is turned down as being “not substantially of European descent”.

1917 – Jun 7

The worst flood since 1870 hits North-East Victoria. Following days of heavy rain, water rushes down the Ovens and King River systems and overflows, drowning six people in Wangaratta and causing much destruction and loss of property throughout the area.

1918 – Jan

After William Johnston Bowen retires from his popular chemist shop at 55 Ford Street in 1916 – selling the business to pharmacist Charles Hembrow of Camp Street – and moving to Melbourne, Bowen misses his footing boarding a Windsor tram whilst in motion on the Esplanade at St. Kilda and is dragged underneath the tram. His injuries are fatal. Aged just 55 at the time of his death, Bowen had served as a member of the Beechworth Shire Council and was also a local J.P. An esteemed member of the Beechworth community, Bowen always takes an active and financial interest in many companies and movements for the advancement of the town. He leaves behind a widow and two sons.

The shop at 55 Ford Street will continue to operate for many years as a pharmacy before becoming the home of the popular ‘Beechworth Dairy’.

1918                             

Beechworth Gaol is closed after only one prisoner is held in custody. He is moved to the old police lock-up. Over the following eight years Beechworth Gaol will undergo various alterations before re-opening in 1926 as a reformatory prison for habitual male prisoners.

The alterations include the construction of a new two-storey wing with a chapel at ground level, and a dining-room above; the installation of new bathrooms; and the re-roofing of all building with corrugated iron.

1918                             

Sittings of the Supreme Court in Beechworth are moved permanently to Wangaratta, while Courts of General Sessions will continue at the Beechworth Courthouse.

1918

The Beechworth Powder Magazine is closed and abandoned. It has been in use for almost 60 years without an explosion ever taking place. During the depression in the 1930s, a number of unemployed and homeless people will take refuge in the building (which they nickname ‘The Menzies’ – see box below) and woodwork from the interior is ripped from the floors and walls to be used for campfires. There is still evidence in the corner of the foyer of one of the campfires held inside the building during those desperate times. To discourage the homeless and move them on, the Beechworth Council removes the roof, which consequently leads to the Powder Magazine’s deterioration and demise.

Some of the homeless men who use the Beechworth ‘Powder Magazine’ as an overnight shelter will refer to it as “The Menzies”, a sarcastic reference to Melbourne’s grand ‘Menzies Hotel’. Built for Scottish immigrants Archibald and Catherine Menzies in 1867 by David Mitchell, Dame Nellie Melba’s father, the hotel stands proudly on the corner of Bourke and Williams Streets. It will be demolished in 1969.

1918 – Apr                   

Beechworth’s two local newspapers – ‘The Ovens and Murray Advertiser’ and ‘The Ovens Register’ – amalgamate. Thomas Frederick Powden Porritt (son of The Ovens Register founder Andrew Porritt) decides to keep alive the older title and incorporates the Register into the Advertiser.

1918 – Jun

42-year-old George William Hines moves his butcher shop business to John Rowe Pyle’s larger premises on the corner of Camp and High Streets opposite the Empire Hotel (see photo below). Hines will pass away in Melbourne in 1960 at the age of 84.

1918                             

Between 1918-1920 nearly 2,000 ounces (57 kilograms) of gold is extracted from the pool at the bottom of the Woolshed Falls, a much larger amount of gold than other areas around Beechworth at this time. A large steel flume (pipe) is built from the top of the falls to a point downstream, diverting it away from the pool at the bottom. Once the pool is dry, it exposes the gold-bearing material in the sand.

1919 – Jan                   

Following a severe outbreak of pneumonic influenza (‘Spanish Flu’) in Victoria, the pandemic will cause the border between Victoria and New South Wales to be closed.

This border closures will be repeated just over 100 years later when the Covid Pandemic hits Australia in 2020.

1920                             

John James Alfred Arthur Clements (known as J.A. Clements) takes over the vast William Andrews & Son store at 52-58 Ford Street (where he had worked as a teenager) renaming it the John Clements Store, alters the front of the store including the awning and verandah, and installs the first concrete paving in the shopping area, with “J. CLEMENTS” in large capital red concrete lettering on the pavement right in front of his store. (The lettering can still be seen on the pavement today, over 100 year later.)

The Clements family have been operating shops in Beechworth since 1866 when John Clements Snr opened the first ‘Clements Store’ on High Street. After his death in 1884, his 29-year-old Beechworth-born son John Nichols Clements takes over his father’s popular shop, running it until his death in 1907, aged just 51. His son, John James Alfred Arthur Clements Jnr, who runs his own ‘Cash Grocery’ store on Ford Street, then merges his late father’s High Street ‘Clements Store’. with his own Ford Street shop. He will successfully run the ‘Clements Store’ on Ford Street until his death at the age of 65 on June 12, 1942.

1920                             

The Postal Department establishes the Beechworth Junction Railway Station Post Office.

1920

The large and imposing brick Salvation Army Hall (Citadel) at 35 Ford Street (above) is demolished after a fire. A new, smaller wooden hall quickly replaces the 1885-built brick building. An extension is added at the rear of the building in 1996. Both sections still stand today and are still run by The Salvation Army.

1920                             

The search for gold continues along the Nine Mile Creek at Baarmutha where a large sluice system is now in operation.

1920

‘Mrs Doig’s Cottage’ is built at 11 William Street. The house is now known as ‘Summerleigh’.

1920 – Mar 23             

The Zwar Bros Tannery is incorporated as Zwar Bros Pty Ltd with Albert Michael Zwar as Governing Director with full powers of control. Exports are expanding rapidly, with Zwar Bros overseas shipments to London alone exceeding 315 tons to a value of £72,714.

With the rise of the motor car, in 1922, Albert Michael Zwar sails to England to purchase a large quantity of ‘whole hide’ machinery required for motor trimming. Following his return from overseas and later that same year he stands for election in the Victorian Parliament and is elected unopposed to represent the North-Eastern Province as an MLC. He remains a member of Parliament until his death in 1935.

1920

The new pavilion at Lake Kerferd is becoming a popular picnic spot and tourist destination. The lake is the main source of water for the Beechworth community, with a capacity of 200 million gallons of water.

1921 – Feb 21

Receiving its charter from the Victorian Branch of the Returned & Services League of Australia, the Beechworth RSL Sub-Branch is established. One of the founding members is World War One veteran Alfred Hoffman, whose brother Frederick Hoffman had been killed in action.

Established in 1916 during World War One, the RSL provides support to veterans and their families, acknowledges Australian Defence Force service, and perpetuates its patriotic duty whilst encouraging conversation and mateship between those who have served and their communities. The RSL also commemorates those who have suffered and died in the service of Australia.

1921                             

Commercial gold mining operations – close to the township of Beechworth – finally cease, while people still search for gold in the surrounding district.

Just a few metres walk from the centre of town, where Lake Sambell now stands, was once a vast goldmining site, which yielded over 1,360 kg of gold through the use of hydraulic sluicing.

1921                             

Despite providing motorised transport services and recently adapting to hiring out motor cars, the coaching firm of Crawford and Connolly finally closes after 65 years in business, symptomatic of Beechworth’s decline as a commercial centre.

1921                             

The population of Beechworth stands at 2,624, with nearby Wangaratta eclipsing Beechworth at 3,700.

By 1947, Beechworth’s numbers slightly increase to 2,900, while Wangaratta surges ahead to 6,700 people. In 2021 Beechworth stands at 3,900, while Wangaratta has reached 29,400!

1921                             

At the liquidation sale of the Rocky Mountain Extended Gold Sluicing Co. the Zwar Bros Tannery purchase the tunnel under Beechworth, together with the water rights from the Rose Reef at Silver Creek, for the knock-down price of just £35!

The tunnel had cost a massive £30,000 to complete between 1876 and 1880. Water is now siphoned off in a 6” pipeline to the ‘Zwar Bros. Tannery’ reservoir and water will never be a problem again.

1921 – Dec

Beechworth’s biggest employers, like Zwar’s Tannery, are relieved when the Arbitration Court in Melbourne rejects the proposal by numerous unions to lower the 48-hour standard working week to 44 hours. Although engineers and timber workers had been granted a reduction in standard weekly hours in 1920, it will take another 14 years before most other unions will be granted a reduction of weekly hours – to 44 – which will become the standard throughout the country.

1922

Mary Jane Rogers purchases the Star Hotel on Ford Street for £400 and renames it the Star Coffee Palace, offering good meals and beds for moderate prices, but no alcohol. She will run the Star Coffee Palace for the next two years until she forecloses on the mortgage and Henry Vandenberg takes over the licence, reverting it to the Star Hotel, but the hotel’s “glory days” are now well and truly over.

1922 – Mar 1                            

The Railway Station at Beechworth Junction is re-named Bowser after Sir John Bowser, a local journalist, state politician and former Premier of Victoria. A Station Master is appointed at Bowser Station on March 20, 1923, with the position being withdrawn on January 13, 1933.

1922 – Apr

To celebrate 70 years since the discovery of gold at Spring Creek, the first ‘Back to Beechworth’ weekend is held, featuring a number of festivities and a street parade (above).

1922

In nearby Wodonga, the “Number 5 Bridge” is completed and opened to traffic. Spanning Wodonga Creek, it is built of reinforced concrete, except for the central beams which are fabricated steel.

1922

After owning an original Ford ‘Tin Lizzie’, Beechworth General Store owner Frank Jarvis purchases a new car – a ‘Flint’ – and establishes a taxi service in Beechworth. Over the following years he will own many different models, always purchased new and always kept impeccably clean and shining. His vehicles include a ‘Durant’ an ‘Austin’ followed by a ‘Hudson’, two ‘Packards’, two ‘Oldsmobiles’, then a very big black Ford, and lastly two Holdens. Soon after setting up his taxi service, he installs a petrol bowser on the street in front of his ‘Bike Shop’ on Camp Street. By 1941 this was a ‘Caltex’ bowser with a glass tank on top into which approximately four gallons (about 17 litres) of fuel is pumped. Commercial travellers journey by train to Beechworth, where they find accommodation and from that base use Frank’s taxi service to convey them to nearby towns such as Myrtleford, Stanley, Whorouly and Yackandandah to obtain their orders. Whenever possible, Frank meets the train from Melbourne which arrives at Beechworth in the afternoon, six days a week, and on many mornings he’d be booked to drive a client to the station to catch the train departing for Melbourne.

Frank’s constant ‘opposition’ is one of Beechworth’s memorable characters – Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Dowling – who for 64 years transports people in his black horse-drawn cab, never failing to meet every train. Nicky had started working for the ‘Cobb & Co’ coach company at the age of 10 in 1862!

1922 – Sep 14

Electricity is switched on in nearby Wangaratta and the town celebrates by lighting its main streets with a dazzling display. Before kerosene lamps were installed in Wangaratta in 1866, the only streets lights are the lamps outside hotels and a publican could go to court for “failing to keep their lamps lighted”.

Although the provision of electricity to Wangaratta had been proposed as far back as the 1870s, the building of Wangaratta’s Gasworks in January 1888 led instead to the transition from kerosene to gas.

1923 – Mar 27

Ned Kelly’s mother, Ellen Kelly, dies at the age of 91. Ellen has outlived her two husbands and seven of her twelve children. She has reared three of her grandchildren after their mother died, including Frederick Foster who is killed in France during World War One.

In 1841, Ellen and her six brothers and sisters arrived in Australia from County Antrim, Ireland. Her father, James Quinn, is a free settler who rents land for dairying in Brunswick upon their arrival, before moving his brood to Broadmeadows.

1924

‘Concert Parties’ are a regular and popular form of entertainment in Beechworth.

1924

77-year-old Henry Vandenberg takes over the Star Hotel on Ford Street. Henry’s parents had run the Vine Hotel (about a mile from Beechworth) for many years (starting in 1863) and Henry now resides in the de-licensed 1858-built Vine Hotel, now known as Vine House.

Henry Vandenberg (or Henry Van Den Berg) is born in London to his Dutch parents Jacob and Christina in 1847 and arrives in Beechworth with them in 1857. At various times Henry has run the ‘Victoria Hotel’ in Everton and the ‘Corner Hotel’ in Beechworth. In the 1890s, attracted by the new gold rush, Henry spends time in Western Australia, gold-prospecting, working as a commercial traveler and then training to become a qualified dentist! He returns to Beechworth where he establishes a successful dentist practice in the former ‘Star Theatre’ building next to the ‘Star Hotel’. He dies at the age of 86 on July 20, 1933, and is buried in the Beechworth Cemetery.

1924

The Beechworth Higher Elementary School on Sydney Road presents a farcical play titled “School Days” as part of the 1920s State School Concert series. They may well have performed the specially written school song ‘One and All’ (below).

1925 – Jul 1

The ‘Main Sydney Road’ – between Melbourne and the Murray River – is officially renamed the ‘North Eastern Highway’. Made up of a number of (mainly dirt) roads from Melbourne – through Seymour, Benalla, Wangaratta and Wodonga at the Murray River – it stretches for a total of 160 miles. For many though, the railways are still the best way to travel from city to country areas.

1924

With motor cars becoming more popular, Charles Algernon Reynolds has established the Beechworth Motor Garage on Ford Street and offers a brand new, imported ‘Hudson Super-Six’ to Beechworth customers. From his garage he also sells a range of confectionery and is a licenced radio dealer. At various times Reynolds will be the secretary of the Beechworth Football Club and the Ovens District Hospital. He will die in 1979 at the age of 89, five years after the death of his beloved wife Catherine.

1925 – Jul 4                 

The Boy Scouts Association – which had begun in Australia in 1908 – commences its first Beechworth Scout Group. Led by Scoutmaster Keith Zwar, they hold their first meetings at the Fire Brigade Hall before Mr W.J. Edwards kindly leases his old Auction Mart on Ford Street to the scouts at a low rent. The 1st Beechworth Girl Guides will be formed two years later with Miss Bell as Captain, and the Beechworth Girl Guide Rangers established in 1931, with Miss Syme of Eldorado appointed Commissioner of Guides for the North-East.

From 1957 the ‘Beechworth Scout Group’ meet at the ‘Serviceman’s Memorial Hall’ on Ford Street before finally moving to its present location, the Scout Hall on the corner of Church and Finch Streets in 1961.

1926

Beechworth’s first electricity!The Zwar Bros. Tannery convert their power supply from steam to oil when they import two Ruston high-compression engines from Lincoln in England. The 13,000kg crude-oil powered engines drive alternators which provide electricity for the tannery.

By 1925 ‘Zwar Bros Pty Ltd’ owns many properties in Beechworth and surrounding rural areas, with many of the tannery workers living in rental houses owned by the company. The Tannery also organises picnics and outings throughout the years which become quite famous and are always well attended.

1926                             

£12,000 is spent on upgrading and sealing the first seven miles of the road between Beechworth and Stanley.

1926 – Apr 22

Another of Beechworth’s pioneers, Frederick Reid, passes away. He had moved to Wangaratta in 1888 to marry Margaret Spillane later becoming the landlord at the Red Lion Hotel in Tarrawingee and then the Vine Hotel in North Wangaratta.

‘The Red Lion Hotel’, a red brick building, stood on the corner of Eldorado and Beechworth Roads, next to the Tarrawingee Football Oval, in an area of Tarrawingee known at the time as ‘Irish Town’.

1926 – May 26             

On a wet and soggy day, the second and final section of the Gorge Road – completed at a cost of £2,000 – is officially opened by Alfred Downward, the Commissioner of Crown Lands, with a ribbon being cut by Jessie Diffey, wife of Beechworth Shire Councillor Lot Diffey. The day ends with a celebration dinner at Tanswell’s Hotel where it is proposed that new electric lights be installed along the new road to give it a “fairyland appearance” at night. The first section, from Sydney Road to Reid’s Creek Falls, had commenced construction around 1908, with work continuing with volunteer ‘working bees’ over many years.  The 5-kilometre scenic one-way road takes in the northern and western outskirts of Beechworth, ending at the Newtown Bridge, allowing visitors – both on foot and in motor vehicles – to take in the specular views of the Spring Creek ravine and the Reid’s Creek Valley.

Gorge Road runs through the ‘Beechworth Historic Park’ which takes in the ‘Powder Magazine’; ‘One Tree Hill’ (named for the single red stringy bark that survived the miners’ determination to cut down every tree!); the ‘Spring Creek Cascades’; a diversion dam built to divert water into a water race for usage in mining operations; ‘The Precipice’ (with views of the former Reid’s Creek goldfields); ‘Ingram’s Rock’; ‘Fiddes Granite Quarry’; and the ‘Woolshed Falls’.

1926 – Jul 2

A water drinking fountain is unveiled outside the Beechworth Post Office, on the corner of Ford and Camp Streets, in honour of leading Beechworth citizen James Warner, who had passed away, aged 88, on 8 June 1925. The red fountain features gold lion’s heads from which drinking water is dispensed by pushing a small pedal at the bottom of the structure. It still stands proudly in the centre of town (below) and is used regularly for a refreshing drink.

James Warner and his wife Anna have three children, Alice, Charles and their youngest – Lance-Corporal Ray Thomas Warner – who is killed in action in the First World War in 1917 and awarded the ‘Military Medal’ at Messines. One of Beechworth’s most popular butchers, James Warner runs his butcher shop for many decades on Camp Street, just a couple of doors up from the Hibernian Hotel towards the Post Office. He also gives fifty years of service to the town as a local shire councillor from 1875 to 1898, then from 1901 to 1907, and finally from 1908 to 1925, and serves as ‘Beechworth Shire President’ four times and is also a director of the ‘Third Beechworth Building Society’. Warner Road is named in his honour.

1926 – Jul 9

Ada Cambridge dies in Elsternwick in Melbourne at the age of 81. Better known to many in Beechworth as Mrs Ada Cross, the wife of Reverend George Cross (who ministered at Beechworth, Wangaratta and Yackandandah), Ada will write more than twenty-five fictional works (many of them serialised in newspapers – under the name of “A.C.”), three volumes of poetry, and two volumes of her autobiography – “Thirty Years in Australia” (1903) and “The Retrospect” (1912) using her maiden name of Ada Cambridge. She experiences her share of tragedy, including a near-fatal miscarriage and a serious carriage accident, as well as the loss of children to whooping cough and scarlet fever.

1926 – Sep 1

Beechworth Gaol re-opens as a Reformatory Prison for habitual male offenders. In the eight years the gaol has been closed, a new chapel and a new dining hall have been built on the base walls of the original office wing. Stores and a Workshop have been built in the female exercise yards, and a bath house and laundry have been added to the north-eastern cell block, with a boiler house added to the end of the kitchen. The roofing of all buildings, both old and new, now feature corrugated iron … and electricity is soon connected to the gaol.                           

1927 – Feb 4

Another Bushfire! After a spark from a washing copper ignites a grass fire at nearby Chiltern, strong, hot northerly winds whip up a bushfire which quickly spreads throughout the area and rages to within two miles of the Beechworth township before heading towards Yackandandah, devastating the country all around. Stock, property and infrastructure are lost, including the wooden bridge at Kangaroo Crossing between Beechworth and Eldorado. The 1856-built Kangaroo Inn, on the approach to the bridge, is saved and becomes a central meeting and refreshment spot for firefighters. The bridge is not rebuilt and today cars ‘ford’ the shallow Reedy Creek at Kangaroo Crossing, although it can be impassable during floods.

1927 – Jun 8

As the 1926 upgrade from steam to oil has dramatically increased the power output at the Zwar Bros Tannery – and they are now producing excess electricity – Albert Michael Zwar signs a contract with the United Shire of Beechworth Council to supply Beechworth with 24 hour electric power for street lighting at 4 pence per kilowatt unit. The electricity will come from Zwar’s sub-station at Albert Road (next to the Beechworth Gas Works, opposite where Indigo Veterinary Services now operates) until the State Electricity Commission (established in 1921) takes over the service in November 1945.

1927 – Jun 8

Having taken out a loan of £5,000 to erect and wire new electric streetlamps and poles throughout the main streets, the United Shire of Beechworth Council switch on almost 60 new-fangled electric streetlamps, replacing 37 gas lamps around town. The electricity is provided by Albert Michael Zwar’s crude-oil Ruston engines after the Council signs a contract Zwars at 4 pence per kilowatt unit. The State Electricity Commission will take over the service in 1945.

1927 – Dec

As the population of Silver Creek dwindles, the Silver Creek School No. 2438 closes after 45 years operating 3km east of Beechworth on the road to Stanley.

1927 – Dec

Stephen Carkeek is running the Post Office Hotel on Camp Street, advertising the fact that the hotel has ‘Electric Light’, only introduced to Beechworth a few months earlier.

1928 – Jan                   

The Beechworth Forward Committee wins £200 to beautify the town in the Sun News Pictorial’s “Ideal Towns” competition. Beechworth-born John McConville supplements this win with a further £200. A lake is proposed for an area very close to town that had been gouged out during the gold-mining era. Council reclaims the land from a grazier who has been leasing it for just £1 per year and construction of Lake Sambell begins within three weeks of approval.

Lake Sambell is named after shire engineer Leslie Herbert Sambell who designs a plan for planting around the lake, with plants purchased from the Victorian Government nursery at Macedon. McConville Avenue that skirts Lake Sambell is named for the generosity of former Beechworth resident John McConville.

1928

The ‘Hume Highway’ is officially named. The road has formerly been known as ‘The Major’s Line’, ‘Sydney Road’ and ‘North Eastern Highway’ in Victoria, and the ‘Great Southern Road’ in parts of New South Wales. Adopting the principle of giving each important State Highway the same name throughout its length, both state governments agree to rename the entire inland route between Sydney and Melbourne after NSW-born explorer Hamilton Hume who, with William Hovell, led the first exploration party overland to Port Phillip in 1824. The ‘Hume Highway’ follows much of their route.

Major Thomas Mitchell’s 1836 expedition, twelve years after Hume and Hovell’s trek, established a well-worn track between Melbourne and Sydney that became known as ‘The Major’s Line’. Later called Sydney Road, it begins at Flinders Street Station in Melbourne. Starting as Elizabeth Street, it runs north from the centre of the city eventually becoming Sydney Road. From 1925 the ‘Country Roads Board of Victoria’ has used the term ‘North Eastern Highway’ for the route towards the border, until accepting the change to the ‘Hume Highway’.

1928                             

After winning the “Ideal Towns” competition, Leslie Herbert Sambell, shire engineer and secretary of the ‘Forward Beechworth Committee’, publishes a 56 page booklet entitled “Beechworth: The Ideal Tourist Resort” to promote the attractions of Beechworth for tourists and prospective residents.

1928

‘The Mansion’ – built by Auguste Maglin at Red Hill in 1901 – is now owned by Frederick John Roberts and his wife Amy who run the property as ‘The Mansions Private Guest House’, although is it not connected to the town’s electric supply or water supply and gets its water from a well on the property.

1928 – Mar 17             

James Ingram – one of Beechworth’s pioneers and its one if its oldest citizens – dies just six weeks before his 100th birthday. The “Grand Old Man” lives near the rock on Old Chiltern Road that now bears his name. He is still remembered for his newsagency (still operating today) which supplies newspapers and stationery to diggers on the goldfields in the 1860s, and his part in establishing the Beechworth Hospital and Beechworth State School.

Ingram’s house still stands at 75 Old Chiltern Road, just a few yards from the massive ‘Ingram’s Rock’. He is buried at the Beechworth Cemetery where he had been the secretary of the ‘Beechworth Cemetery Trust’ for over 70 years!

1928 – Apr 5-11

A second ‘Back to Beechworth’ festival is held in commemoration and recognition of Beechworth winning the ‘Ideal Towns’ competition earlier in the year. An estimated 750 old ‘Beechworthites’ are invited to return for the celebrations, organised by Beechworth Shire engineer Leslie Herbet Sambell.  A special train travels from Melbourne to Beechworth on Saturday April 5^th bringing hundreds to the town. Running for seven days over Easter, the ‘Back to Beechworth’ festival includes a vast array of events including church services, a race meeting, Anzac sports, a monster picnic, a motor gymkhana, swimming carnival, fireworks display, re-unions, a Grand Ball, band recitals, motion picture screenings, and a game of cricket – Beechworth versus a Melbourne team.

1928

Beechworth-born William Joseph Pemberton establishes his Pemberton’s General Store in Beechworth. After learning the grocery business with Taylor &. Co. as a teenager in Beechworth, Pemberton moves to Bright and then to Hay in NSW before establishing his first grocery and bakery business at Goulburn, then at Queanbeyan, before returning to Beechworth at the age of 43 to open his grocery store to support his seven children. Pemberton’s General Store – which competes with eight other grocery traders in Beechworth – delivers goods by horse and cart to customers all over the district, including the hamlet of Stanley. He will run his grocery store in town for the next two decades before retiring and handing over the store to his wife Bertha and their two sons Maxwell and Robert, but continues to run his second business – a real estate agency – until his death in December 1953 at the age of 68.

In November 1935 William Joseph Pemberton moves his Beechworth grocery business into the former ‘Star Hotel’ at 59 Ford Street, a much larger building a few doors up from his long-established store.

1928                           

While most country tanneries have closed (going from 40 to just 4) due to freight costs, the Zwar Bros. Tannery in Beechworth is going from strength to strength and now covers over 6 acres and is spending up to £40,000 a year on wages and over £3,000 a year on freight. All finished products are carted by horse and cart 3 kms to the Beechworth Railway Station and then by rail to Melbourne and beyond. The tannery is now using about 400 tons of wattle bark each year. Supplies are becoming difficult to obtain in Australia with some now sourced from South Africa.

1928

At the Beechworth Gaol, a second storey is added to the original ‘Prisoner Reception Area’ (later known as the ‘Mess Hall’). At the same time – following the recent demolition of sections of the Old Melbourne Gaol (see photo and box below) – a spiral staircase is saved from the Gaol on Russell Street and transported to Beechworth where it is installed to improve access around the inner dome.

Erected in stages between 1851 and 1864, the ‘Old Melbourne Gaol’ was designed by Henry Ginn, Chief Architect of the Department and built of bluestone. The oldest remaining section is the ‘Second Cell Block’ (1851-1853) – which now serves as a museum – consists of a long block with three tiers of cells terminating in the Central Hall (built in 1860), the site of the scaffold where Ned Kelly, amongst others, is hanged (above). It ceases to be used as a Gaol in 1923 and parts of the complex are demolished to accommodate the new ‘City Watch House’, the ‘Police Garage’, ‘Emily McPherson College’ and various buildings for RMIT.

1928                             

Scaffolding is erected so that the Beechworth Post Office Clock and Bell Tower can be raised even higher, while renovations begin inside the Post Office to update and modernise the interior. When the work is completed in 1930, the tower is almost one floor higher and customers are finally allowed inside the building to undertake their tasks! The long-standing ‘serving window’ is replaced by a double doorway and a full serving counter inside.

1928 – Oct 6                 

Lake Sambell, named after Beechworth Shire Engineer Leslie Herbert Sambell, is formally opened to the public by the Victorian Government’s Minister of Water Supply, Henry Stephen Bailey, as part of initiatives to boost the economies and development of Victorian country towns. This includes the building of a dam wall with overflow capacity. (The dam wall will need major repairs in 2012 after cracks appear.)

1929 – Mar                   

The wooden bridge over Spring Creek – where Camp Street becomes Albert Road – is finally replaced by a concrete and stone structure. Built by a party of Italians employed by the Beechworth Shire Council, the small but sturdy bridge is covered by 8 inches of tarred metal and then given 14 days to set, which is “an inconvenience to people travelling up and down Albert Road”.

1929 – Aug

The owner of Beechworth Motors, Frederick William ‘Wheeley’ Orme, passes away suddenly at the age of 44 after complications following an operation for appendicitis a week earlier. Orme is a popular car salesman in town, selling a range of American cars – including Chevrolets, Dodges and Pontiacs – to excited Beechworth residents. He also offers comfortable motor vehicle tours of the district. He had recently doubled the capacity of his car dealership on High Street and had planned other extensions before his sudden death, leaving his widow Ruby to find a buyer for the lucrative business. A line of 50 cars and other assorted vehicles – nearly half a mile in length – lead Wheeley’s funeral procession through the streets of Beechworth.

1929                             

The Beechworth Gaol acquires a 480-acre property, three miles west of Beechworth. The property – known as ‘The Rest’ after an early local hotel – is to be used by the prisoners to create a pine plantation of ‘Pinus Radiata’ (aka ‘Monterey Pine’). The plantation is a success and will be extended with a further 777-acres purchased in 1965. Prisoners also work at ‘The Rockery’, a 280-acre grazing property two miles north of Beechworth.

1929                            

After 18 years of operation, dwindling student numbers, the decline of local mining jobs, and the opening of a rival technical school in Wangaratta in 1928, brings about the closure of the Beechworth Technical School, which ‘amalgamates’ with the Wangaratta Technical School.

In its prime position in Ford Street, the modest timber Technical School building – a rectangular hall with an annexe of small rooms on the west side – will sit empty for a few years until acquired by the ‘Beechworth RSL Women’s Auxiliary’ in the 1940s with the intent of turning it into a war memorial hall. Following various proposals, plans, designs, alterations and improvements, the old school will finally be turned into the ‘Beechworth Servicemen’s Memorial Hall’ in 1957.

1929 – Dec 6

Two years and nine months after his death, a memorial to Beechworth pioneer James Ingram is unveiled at the Beechworth Cemetery. The inscription at the base of the memorial reads – “Erected by Friends and Relatives in Recognition of his Great Public Services – Beechworth’s Grand Old Man”. Ingram had died shortly before his 100th birthday.

THE STORY CONTINUES IN THE 1930-1959 TIMELINE