Vision Australia Enterprises was the division that provided employment opportunities and training for people who are blind or have low vision. It continued the initial approach that began with the formation of the first workshop in 1867. In these images, packaging items for external vendors, office skills and woodwork are shown. In 2009, the Prahran building was sold, and a new centre opened at Kensington. 52 digital images of workers in the Prahran buildingvision australia, employment, mary pipczak, norm richards, alan binginic, gena kacowicz, adrian smith

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

Annual reports were both a way of informing benefactors as well as generating new ones for charitable organisations. In 1867 an asylum and school for blind children began in Melbourne. Between that first intake and 1891, the asylum went through a great many changes, including the building of the St Kilda Road building, growing in size and developing a workshop for blind workers. 1 bound volume with illustrations.royal victorian institute for the blind, annual reports

MEYER COLLECTION - FALLS CREEK PHOTOS In 1947 a determined group of like-minded State Electricity Commission (SEC) staff including Ray Meyer, the chief surveyor of the Kiewa Hydro-Electric Scheme, had a common interest that revolved around the skiing potential of the snow-covered high plains which included what is now the resort of Falls Creek. The six SEC employees, Toni St Elmo, Ray Meyer, Jack Minogue, Lloyd Dunn, Adrian Ruffenacht and Dave Gibson (together with their families) banded together to secretly build a 'hut' that was the first ski lodge at Falls Creek. Using a road built in 1930s to gain access to Falls Creek, their hut project was carried out in secret as efforts by other skiers were blocked by H.H.C. Williams – the engineer in charge of the Hydro Scheme. In 1946 Ray Meyer made a trip to the Lands Office in Melbourne. He came away with a 99-year lease on three acres that was ideally suited for a hut designed by Lloyd Dunn. Adrian Ruffenacht (Design Engineer for the KHS) had suggested where the group should build because of easy access to a spring for water. Much of the building material required was scavenged from derelict huts on the high plains. Due to the need for secrecy, the determined group worked on the hut in the evenings and weekends to avoid detection. During the building period the group had met at Echidna Rock (now known as Eagle Rock) where Skippy St Elmo announced, "This is my favourite ‘Skyline’.” And so the first lodge in the area at Falls Creek Ski Resort came into existence. With the development of the International Poma in the 1970s, the Skyline Lodge, which was sited between the ski-lift’s pole one and pole two, was demolished. However, the legacy of Ray Meyer, Toni St Elmo, Jack Minogue, Lloyd Dunn, Adrian Ruffenacht and Dave Gibson and Skyline lives on in the vibrant atmosphere of Falls Creek Resort. The MEYER COLLECTION documents developments on the Kiewa Hydro Scheme and their life at Falls Creek from the mid 1930s to 1960s.This image is significant because it depicts a member of a pioneering family of Falls Creek area, and one of the founders of Skyline Lodge.A black and white image of Joan Meyer in Diamantina Hut. The hut on Mt Hotham, was built originally as a Country Roads Board workers hut in the early 1920s to shelter workers who were building and maintaining the Great Alpine Rd. It was rebuilt in about 1968 as the original hut was burnt down in the 1939 fires.falls creek, victorian snowfields, joan meyer, diamantina hut

At harvest time farmers had relied on itinerant teams of workers descending on the district looking for work. The three Barrie brothers on their adjoining farms combined forces to cut their crop at its optimum time while the weather was in their favour. Up to many 20 workers at times formed a team in earlier times. Agricultural university students were also keen to gain practical experience in the field. Each of the brothers had a particular skill, and Tom Barrie was the expert on stack building. The district haystacks had a distinctive shape and could be recognised by their builder. Harvesting at Ferris Road, Meltonpioneer families, local identities, agriculture

This document is has been compiled by Wendy Barrie daughter of Ernest (Bon) and Edna Barrie and granddaughter of Charles E and Jessie M Barrie. I was born in during WW 11 and the first child of my generation to live on the ‘ Darlingsford’ property at Melton. My grandfather was well known in the district and was mostly referred to as Ernie. He shared the same initials as his second son Edgar. His three eldest sons lived and farmed in Melton for their entire lives. His descendants are still associated with farming, engineering and earthmoving in Melton. Ernie Barrie operated a travelling Chaff Cutter in the St Arnaud area where his parents William and Mary Ann had taken up land at Coonooer West in 1873. Ernie commenced his working life with a team of bullocks and a chaff cutter. The earliest connection he had with Melton was in 1887. By the beginning of the 20th century Ernie and his father William and brothers, William, Samuel, James Edwin,[Ted] Robert, Arthur and Albert have been associated with farming and milling in the Melton district. In the early 1900’s Ernie and his brother Ted were in partnership in a Chaff cutting and Hay processing Mill on the corner of Station and Brooklyn road Melton South. The mill was managed by William for a time. By 1906 Charles Ernest and James Edwin were in partnership in the Station Road mill when a connecting rail line across Brooklyn Road for a siding was constructed to the Melton Railway Station. In 1911 the Mill’s letterhead shows C.E. BARRIE Hay Pressing and Chaff Cutting Mills. Melton Railway Station. Telephone No 1 Melton. This Mill as sold to H S K Ward in 1916 and stood until 1977 when it burnt down in a spectacular fire. Ernie built a house at Melton South beside the Chaff Mill at Station Road in 1906 and married Jessie May Lang in August at the Methodist Church. Jessie’s father was Thomas Lang. He came to Melton in 1896 and was the Head Teacher at Melton State School No 430 until he retired in 1917. They had 9 children with 8 surviving to adulthood. Jessie and Ernie had 6 sons and 3 daughters. All the children lived at Darlingsford. In April 1910 the family left Melton for a brief period and moved to a farm in Trundle in NSW. They returned to Melton and purchased Darlingsford in May 1911. For a time during WW1 they lived at Moonee Ponds near the Lang grandparents at Ascot Vale. Mary and Bon attended Bank St State School. The children developed diphtheria in 1916 and their youngest boy, Cecil died of complications. Mary and Bon were taken to Fairfield Hospital and both recovered. At the end of the war influenza broke out the family returned to Darlingsford and shared the home for a short while with the Pearcey family who had been working the farm. By 1922 the family had and grown and Edgar, Tom, Horace, Jessie, Joyce and Jim were living a Darlingsford. Ernie continued during the 1920’s working the farm and attend his many civic and community commitments. Two 8 clydesdale horse teams were used to work the land which meant early rising for the horses to be fed and harnessed to commence the days work. In 1916 Ernie also became involved in a Chaff Mill on the corner of Sunshine and Geelong Road West Footscray, which at the time was being run by John Ralph Schutt. It was known an Schutt Barrie. A flour mill was added at a later stage. Other Schutt and Barrie mills were situated at Parwan and Diggers Rest. Another mill was situated beside the railway line at Rockbank. The Footscray mill ceased operation in 1968 Ernie spent a lot of time and energy at the Parwan Mill and travelling around Parwan and Balliang farms, where he came to know many of the families in the district. Ernies commitment to the civic development to the Melton and district was extensive, he was involved with a number of large events during the 1920’s such as the Melton Exhibitions and the 1929 Back to Melton Celebrations. He was a member of the Australian Natives Association at the turn of the century. He was Chairman of the School Committee at Melton State School 430 and the Melton South State School in thw1920s. He donated the land for a Hall for Melton South in 1909, known as Exford Hall and later in 1919 renamed Victoria Hall. The Hall was demolished in 1992. He was a Councillor, JP, and Vice President and President of the Melton Mechanics Institute Hall Committee in 1915- 1916. He was a member of the Methodist Church and later the Scots Presbyterian Church. He was Superintendent of the Sunday School of the Methodist Church to 1910 and later Scots Presbyterian Church until 1931. This is reflected in the theme of children in the stained glass window which was dedicated in his memory by his wife Jessie as a gift to the Scots Church. Charles Ernest Barrie made many generous donations to many charities who supported young people and children. In 1918 Jessie and Ernie made the first donation to a very prominent Victorian charity whose work still continues. Yooralla. In July 1931 Ernie’s untimely death was a major blow to the family and the Melton community. To this day people still vividly recall the day they lined the streets for his funeral. The day of the funeral is recalled as the day Melton stood as two of their prominent citizens who tragically died on the same day. Their eldest daughter Mary had married Keith Robinson in 1930 and had just moved to Heatherdale Toolern Vale with their year old baby son. Bon the eldest son was 22, Edgar 18, Tom 16, Horace 15, Jessie and Joyce 10 and Jim 8 years old. A heavy burden of responsibility fell on the shoulders of the two eldest children, Mary particularly for her mother and Bon stepped in assuming head of the family for his mother, brothers and sisters living at the Darlingsford homestead. In the early 1930’s the three eldest sons took on many of the Civic and Church commitments which their father had held. This community involvement extended well into the 1980s. In 1941 Bon married Edna Myers and they moved into a house shifted from Harkness Lane to Harkness Lane on the eastern section of the Darlingford property. Edgar married Margaret Hodgkinson a Primary school teacher at Melton in 1949 and they lived in the Darlingsford house. Earlier Tom married May Ferris and lived on the eastern side of Ferris Lane in the Ferris home. Bon , Edgar and Tom often operated as a team effort, in particular at harvest time when a larger team of workers was needed. The three farms cultivated wheat, barley and oats and supplied the Mill with sheafed hay. They continued using horse teams until mechanisation in the 1940’s made the horses redundant. By the 1960s their five sons continued with farming. Many loads of hay were transported to the Mill in Footscray. Well into the 1960s hired harvest hands along with agricultural university students were involved in bringing in he harvest. Stacking was an art form in itself and Tom held the expertise for building and shaping the sides and roof. The stacks built in the district each had their own unique shape and could be recognized by their builders. The Barrie brothers developed a mechanical fork lift for picking up complete stooks and moving them to be loaded to the elevator to build the haystack. The prototype built by Bill Gillespie was attached to a Bedford truck. Later refinements in a collaborative effort with the Gillespie brothers a multi pronged fork was attached to the front of tractor which was hydraulically operated to raise each stook onto trucks to be transported to the site of the haystacks. This method of handling sheaves significantly reduced laborious pitchforking individual sheaves. This invention was soon taken up by farmers far and wide and was a common sight in the district at harvest time in the stacking season. I recall visiting farmers calling in at the house at Ferris Road farm to inspect this break through invention. The Clydesdale horse teams were used into the 1940s but by the 1950s the Barries’ farms were fully mechanised. When the demand for sheafed hay declined other crops were introduced these included barley, lucerne, wheat and peas. Sheep were added to the mix in the 1950s in an attempt to keep the farms more viable. In the 1970s part of the Barrie’s farms were facing a major disruption with the impending compulsorily acquisition of a strip of land for the construction the freeway bypass, which divided access between the Darlingsford homestead with those on Ferris Lane. Charles Ernest Barrie and Jessie May Lang's children: 1. Mary Ena BARRIE was born on 07 October 1907. She died on 29 April 1999. 2. Ernest Wesley BARRIE was born on 29 April 1909 in Ascot Vale, Victoria, Australia.He died on 25 December 1985 in Melton, Victoria, Australia. 3. Cecil William BARRIE was born on 23 February 1911.He died on 25 May 1916. 4. Charles Edgar BARRIE was born on 01 June 1913.He died on 06 October 1975. 5. Thomas Lindsay BARRIE was born on 25 November 1914.He died on 14 September 1990 in Melton, Victoria, Australia. 6. William Horace BARRIE was born on 11 October 1915.He died on 19 December 1950. 7. Jessie Maud BARRIE was born on 06 November 1920 in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia.She died on 26 February 1994. 8. Dorothy Joyce BARRIE was born on 06 November 1920 in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia.She died on 18 March 2003.. 9. James Edward BARRIE was born on 17 January 1922 in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria, Australia.He died on 23 August 2004Family Photo with Edgar, Tom, Mary, Ernest (Bon), Horace, Jim, Charles Ernest, Jessie and Joycelocal identities

1950 decade HAY FORK - A local invention. Bill and Arthur Gillespie and Bon Barrie In the early 1950’s Bill Gillespie of Bulmans Lane had been experimenting in developing a machine to improve the collection of hay sheaves at harvesting and stack building time. The ripened crop was cut by a reaper and binder which bundled the storks into sheaves tied with binder twine. The reaper and binder was towed by a tractor by the mid 1940s previously teams of draught horses were used to pull the reaper and binder. A photograph taken at the Barrie farm shows three binders the first being towed with a tractor and the others with horse teams. Two workmen were needed to operate the binder when cutting a crop. The sheaves collected on the binder and released onto the ground and were scattered across the paddocks. Using a conventional two pronged pitch fork the harvest hands collected the sheaves and placed each one cut edge on the ground in an upright position and layered with about 15 sheaves into an apex shape to form was is known as a stook. The shape of the stook allowed for drying and draining of water if rain had occurred. Prior to the invention of the mechanical hayfork this was a laborious task requiring each sheaf to be pitched onto a tray truck and moved to the location of the haystack. The mechanised HAYFORK was operated by one person on tractor greatly reducing the need for gangs of labourers. At harvest time farmers had relied on itinerant teams of workers descending on the district looking for work. The three Barrie brothers on their adjoining farms combined forces to cut their crop at its optimum time while the weather was in their favour. Up to many 20 workers at times formed a team in earlier times. Agricultural university students were also keen to gain practical experience in the field. Each of the brothers had a particular skill, and Tom Barrie was the expert on stack building. The district haystacks had a distinctive shape and could be recognised by their builder. Bill Gillespie’s first operational HAY FORK consisted of a large 13 pronged fork situated forward of the truck cabin. It was attached with iron girders and mounted on the rear of the cabin to the tray of his British Bedford truck. It was constructed in metal and iron and welded in the farmers work sheds. The mechanism was raised and lowered by the driver scooping along the ground to pick up a complete stook to raise high enough to deposit all the sheaves in one stook onto the stack or truck tray. The fork section was released by a rope and operated by the driver in the cabin. This model was trialled on the Barrie farm at Ferris Lane. It proved to be very successful and the Barrie/ Gillespie brothers went on to develop a HAYFORK which attached to a tractor and was operated with a series of levers and was raised and lowered hydraulically. It was detached from the tractor when stacking was completed. In its early days farmers travelling along the Western Highway called at the Barrie farm at Ferris Lane to inspect its construction and operation of the invention. It became a widely adopted by farmers throughout the State. It was being used on Wattie Palmer’s farm on Bridge Road Melton South in 1997. Farming in Melton, hay growing and stack building. agriculture, local identities

"A perpetual spring in the adjacent creek provided a steady supply of fresh water to the site on which the homestead is built. Although we can not be certain of the identity of the builder, the first stage of ‘The Willows’ homestead appears to have been constructed in the mid 1850s. The house is situated on Crown Allotment No.1 (No Section), Parish of Kororoit, an allotment of 5 acres 3 roods 4 perches. Although it had surveyed the land, the Crown did not offer it for sale until 22nd November 1861, at which time it was purchased by Charles March Williams. (Although the property is directly opposite and immediately adjacent to the Township of Melton, and was sold as ‘Suburban Allotment 33’, it was situated within the Shire of Braybrook rather than the Shire of Melton until 1917.) Considerable improvements had taken place on the land prior to the Crown sale. When CM Williams purchased the allotment in November 1861 he paid £23.5.0 for the land itself, and valued the improvements at £400. Even allowing for some exaggeration by Williams, this is an extremely high valuation for improvements, and must have included a house. Some local research has claimed that in 1858 Williams had taken over the interest of a Mr Parkinson in the property, and that Parkinson built the house upon taking possession of the land c.1855. It was definitely built by 1861, when a map shows a square building on the site marked as ‘House’. The property is important in the district for its association with the establishment of the pound. The district pound had been established in 1854, when George Scarborough of Mount Cottrell (Mt Cottrell Road, south of Greigs Road) was appointed pound-keeper. Scarborough resigned in 1857. The pound was moved to Melton following agitation from local farmers and Charles March Williams appointed pound-keeper on 26th April 1858. Williams, the son of a doctor, had been born in London. Reminiscences of local residents of the time, as recorded in the Express newspaper, note Williams’ success in breeding horses on the property. Sales of up to 60 guineas were noted. Whether this was from Williams’s own stock or from unclaimed pound stock is not made clear. Williams appeared before a government inquiry in 1860 and advocated registration of all stock brands in the State. Williams died in 1862 leaving a widow, Catherine, and five living children aged 15 years to five months. At the time of his death Williams had entered negotiations with one Matthew Devenish and had a mortgage of £100 on allotments 1 and 2, Parish of Kororoit. Catherine Williams was appointed pound-keeper on 2 September 1863, with her eldest son Charles as her assistant. Her tenure was short for on 22nd March 1864 George Minns senior paid Matthew Devenish £135 for allotments 1 and 2 Parish of Kororoit (considerably less than Williams had claimed the property was worth in 1861) and on the same day paid William Tullidge £45 for the adjoining allotments 3 and 4. In April 1867, James Ebden Minns, the newly married son of George senior became the owner of The Willows property having entered into a mortgage arrangement with his father to the extent of £200. At the time George Minns was residing in Kaarimba having left Melton in 1867 for a short trip to England and upon his return having taken up a selection in the Kaarimba district with his son Frederick who had a hotel licence there. James paid out the mortgage on 2-1-1873. James Minns was appointed pound-keeper in 1872; in 1885 the pound was moved elsewhere and Minns purchased the old pound site and added it to his farm. The Willows residence underwent a major change about this time. A two room extension, similar in style but with a lower elevation was added to the original rear of the house with a chimney matching the distinctive originals. Window arrangements did not match the original but became a feature of the façade when the new addition became the front of the building. Six buttresses were attached to the east and west walls of the old building, two to the south wall and the whole rendered with mortar to give the appearance of dressed stonework around the windows. Galvanized iron was placed over the shingles and a verandah added on three sides. By 1876 The Willows was the homestead for a thriving mixed farm of 340 acres of which 156 was rented from a H. Ruck. In October of that year the Australasian travelling reporter visited and reported on the property. In common with the nearly every other property in the district the farm had ‘recently’ (generally within the last two years) abandoned cultivation of crops, and turned over completely to cattle pasture. Butter making was the principal occupation of the farm, which had about 50 head of cattle, a large proportion of which were milking cows. The reporter also noted that a ‘large number of pigs are kept upon this farm and are found to be very profitable stock’. Their manure was used in an orchard and garden in which ‘large quantities of lucerne and prairie grass are grown for the use of stock when ordinary feed is scarce’. Two bores attached to deep brick lined wells supplied water for the house in addition to the farm. A commodious timber barn and necessary sheds had also been constructed. Access to the property was improved following the construction of the bluestone ford across the creek c.1887, when the recreation ground came into use. Prior to this date it may have been that the crossing referred to as ‘Mr Minns bridge’ was used. This appears to have been a flimsy structure and has but two references in Council reports in the Melton Express in the 1880’s. It is believed that in the late 1890’s a timber building was added near the rear of the building to house a kitchen, ablutions and laundry rooms and rooms for seasonal workers. This was attached to the house by means of a trellised walkway using the original front entry to the house (long since the back door). A photograph of this building appears in a local history of Melton. This was demolished in recent decades during the period when the house was tenanted (after the Minns family had left). James Minns son, George, took over the property following his marriage to Alice Walsh in 1903. James and Caroline moved into a house on the former JH Games property at the eastern end of Henry Street. George held the position of Shire Secretary for Melton for 40 years. He was a most prominent member of the community being Secretary to, among others, the Melton Coursing Club, the Shooting Club and the Cemetery Trust. He also rode with the hunting parties who sported across the Plains and were entertained at Mount Kororoit. George and Alice had one son, Norman who followed his father into local government and became Secretary of the Shire of Werribee completing a record term in this position. George retired to Werribee in 1951, where he died in 1965. The National Trust records note that James Ebden Minns and his sons were ‘leading men of the district, Justices of the Peace, and Shire Councillors’. It claims that Sir Thomas Bent was a frequent visitor. The Willows passed into the hands of George’s grandson, Bruce Minns and the property was let for a number of years. In the 1960s it became vacant and was subject to vandalism. Major structural problems arose with the part demolition of the roof, the loss of windows and doors and holes dug into and under the floorboards. The outbuildings were particularly targeted. Following widespread public support, the Shire of Melton purchased the house, with 3.75 acres of land, in 1972. In 1975 the Shire of Melton and the Melton and District Historical Society were successful in nominating the building for National Trust classification, and then the Australian Heritage Commission’s Register of the National Estate. The AHC particularly noted its ‘townscape importance’. It was envisaged that the farmhouse would form ‘a picturesque centrepiece to Melton’s planned … historical park, along with Dunvegan bluestone cottage … and similar structures as they become available.’ In a time of great Melton’s ‘satellite city’ development the Council spelt out its broader vision in its submission to the AHC: ‘Melton is destined to become, by the end of the present century, a city of between 75,000 and 100,000 people. Significant relics of the past, such as ‘The Willows’, regrettably will be rare in that situation. It is essential that sufficient tangible links with Melton’s pioneering days remain to promote in the new community a sense of history and continuity’. Under the direction of ‘The Willows’ Restoration Committee and consultant architect John Hitch, all outbuildings, with the exception of the garage and toilet, were demolished and the dwelling house restored. Finances were provided by the Shire of Melton and the National Estate Grants Program, and considerable amount of voluntary labour was provided by the local community. The orchard was removed, and remaining wooden buildings were relocated to provide an open vista for visitors to the Park. The property was furnished with donations from district families keen to preserve this example of pioneer life in the area. The Willows became the headquarters of the Melton and District Historical Society". Invitation to the family reunion at the Willowslocal identities, pioneer families

Murray Comrie Collection. This photograph is a reasonable copy created from an older original. Some areas faded. Copy probably made by Murray Comrie in the 1970s. Monochrome photograph depicting a group of men wearing work attire, some seated, some standing, with a tall white building in background. In foreground are (left) firewood and (right) a wooden crate. Same as image THA-2019.0053Handwritten on reverse: 'Orig from J A Renshaw... One shift at Yorkshire Mine Tarnagulla, Renshaw far left back'.tarnagulla, mining, industry, yorkshire mine