1895 picture of the home of George Dodd built c1880. Shows the Selector's Road made in the 1880s from Pig Lane in The Basin to the road in front of the Mt dandenong Hotel.The descriptive text on the reverse of this photograph was hand written by John Lundy-Clarke.1895 picture of the home of George Dodd built about 1880 showing the road the selectors made in the 1880s from Pig Lane to the main road in front of the present Mt Dandenong Hotel near the present end of the Basin-Olinda Road. It was never gazetted as a road as the Bruces objected to it and landslides in 1891 closed it temporarily and later landslides closed it permanently.george dodd, dodd, mt dandenong hotel, selector's road, road, pig lane

James Alexander Robertson was born 14th June, 1855, at Pentridge. the Coburg area which was known as Pentridge at the time, and prior to the building of the gaol. His parents were James Thomson Robertson and Esther (nee Hale), At age 20 James became the first selector on the Snowy River at Lochend. He took up Lots 1, 2 and 3, in the Parish of Newmerella in 1875; with his selection being ratified on May 1st, 1876. The selection included hill and river flat land in the area near where Icy Creek enters the Snowy River. James gradually improved and farmed the property; he cleared and drained Icy Creek and constructed the first known flood-gate on the Snowy River. To meet his farming commitments he supplemented his income by working on the construction and maintenance of roads and drains in the Newmerella area. He gained a contract with the Bairnsdale Shire council to construct the first road cutting down Burn’s Hill at Newmerella. His tender was for £16 ($32), and it took him, with four others, two months to complete the contract. He was single, and, after his untimely death at aged 29, in 1884, his parents and surviving unmarried sisters and brothers moved from Sarsfield to take over his selection at Lochend. (more information Newsletter April 2013)James Robertson was the first selector of land at Lochend, Orbost.A small black / white portrait photograph, oval shaped with a white background. It is of a middle-aged man with a full beard and moustache.on front at bottom - typed in black -:"James Alexander Robertson, Late of Lochend, Snowy River"robertson-james-alexander lochend-robertson

This outfit belonged to Ethel May Robertson (nee Watt) b: 1879 in Jindiwick, Victoria, Australia. She was the daughter of John Alexander Watt. John Watt was an early selector who in 1879 selected land on the Marlo Road. She married Frank Edward Robertson on 4 March 1901 in Orbost.A black silk lace skirt and top. It has a petticoat attached. There is a black scarf with a cameo brooch attached.costume-women's lace robertson watt

Portrait of Johann Gottlieb Adler, farmer, c1880. Adler came from Silesia in Germany to Port Phillip in 1848. His story is recorded in the Uebergang family history (The Uebergang Families in Australia 1848-1985, pp.43-48) which includes a list of descendants.Black & white photograph of barded man in suit with bowtie, mounted in oval mat in brown frame with plaster decorations.uebergang, allansford, adler, johann gottlieb, germany, farmers, farmers, costume, male, portraits, selectors

Portrait of Johanne Christiane Adler, nee Uebergang, c1880. Christiane's story is recorded in the Uebergang family history (The Uebergang Families in Australia 1848-1985, pp.43-48) and includes a list of descendants. A companion portrait of her husband Johann Gottlieb Adler is also in the collection.Black & white portrait of woman wearing a dark top with pale jabot and a close-fitting bonnet tied in a bow under the left ear. The photograph is mounted in an oval mat in a brown wooden frame with plaster decorations.allansford, murtoa, penshurst, penshurst, germany, costurme, female, costume, female headwear, portraits, farmers, selectors, uebergang

Blueprint copy of Survey Map detailing original Selectors' names and property locations. List of Parish map references including property bearings, distances in Links, and markings on trees. Descriptive remarks include areas marked "Farmer's Common", "Poor soil thickly/moderately timbered with stringy bark", and location of water and firewood reserves."Surveyed and plotted by N.M. Bickford, Superintendant of Mr. Hodgkinson's Field Party". "The land comprised in this survey is of inferior quality, moderately undulating, and thickly wooded. It is watered by Dandenong Creek and Deep Creek." Inset map showing location of (*proposed) cemetery on southern corner of Lillydale Road from Melbourne and Sawmill Road, later Mount Dandenong Road. (*Cemetery did not eventuate.)

Blueprint copy of Survey Map W27 detailing original Selectors' names and property locations between Yarra Yarra River (Warrandyte) and Mullum Mullum Creek (Ringwood). List of Parish map references including property bearings, distances in Links, and markings on trees. Pound Bend area of Warrandyte marked as Reserve For Aborigines. Descriptive remarks include areas marked "scrubby, flat, sandy soil". Several other references faded and illegible.(Map) by T.H. Nutt Feb 3 1841.

Newspaper clipping"Note attached to image" Ringwood Bowling Club, 1959 Team selectors. Left- Gil Aird.

Battery operated radio which only operates when lid is open. There is a volume control and station selector. The inbuilt aerial is directional and the receiver should be oriented for maximum volume. This is a brown metallic radio with plastic strap.Operating instructions inside bottom cover (as described above). Front: "TASMA"tasma, radio, battery operated

A history dealing with the Otways from Barramunga to Lower Gellibrand by R.H. Knox, the son of an original selector, and his wife, the daughter of another original selector.Yesterday on the Otway Ridge. R.H. Knox. 1st ed. np; R.H. Knox; nd. ii, 192 p.; illus. Soft cover.otway ridge; r.h. knox; history; settlers; timber; sawmilling; farmer; transport;

George Sydenham was appointed as Colac Shire Valuer and rate collector in 1890 which threw him into direct contact with the Otway people at a time when the first selectors were suffering badly. He would have heard their frustrations and grievances in great detail. When Secretary to the Colac Committee for the Railway Extension to Beech Forest he used his magic lantern slide shows from 1896 to support his case for a railway, by lauding the place and its potential, both for settlement and for timber production.The Otways through the magic lantern: commentary and glass slides of George Sydenham - lecture held in 1896. George Francis Sydenham. 1st ed. Colac (Vic); Colac and District Historical Society; 2013. iv, 118 p.; illus., map. ISBN 9780 6469 122 02 Soft cover.colac: otway ranges; history; coasts;

In 1955 staff numbers were reduced to an absolute minimum with one track gang at Beech Forest and one at Colac, one of whose members resided at Gellibrand. No new sleepers were issued to the track gangs after 1955/56, cut down ones being used instead. Albert Denning, the son of a Gellibrand selector, worked at Driver's planing mill and Hitt's Lardner mill before joining Victorian Railways in 1928 as an engine cleaner at Beech Forest and Crowes, the last one in both places. He later became a track repairer at Gellibrand and worked with this and the Colac track gang until 1962. Bill Jamieson was a track repairer on the Colac-Gellibrand gang from the 1950s until 1962, and witnessed the official policy of minimum maintenance in the last years of the line.B/W. 201mm x 254mm. In c.1950, the Colac track gang near Kawarren, featuring, from left to right, Bill Jamieson, Albert Denning, and Don Loury on an NKS motor trolley..colac; kawarren; railways; track gangs;

Originally named 'McInnes' after a local selector, this station opened during construction of the Crowes railway on 1 May 1911. The name was altered to Weeaproinah, the second station of that name, on 9 December 1912, after the parish in which the station was situated. (The original 'Weeaproinah' on the railway became earlier 'Dinmont' in the Olangolah Parish.) The station comprised a passenger shelter and a loop siding with a ramped platform for a sheep and pig race. A departmental residence was built for a track repairer based at the station, but no station or caretaker staff were employed there. The residence was burnt down during the 1919 bushfire but it was replaced and remained in use as a departmental residence until 1930. Weeaproinah became an unattended crossing station in December 1927 under the Train Section Order system.B/W. Weeaproinah mallee shed. In the shed there are five large wall-mounted posters and a cream can. An unlocked door with a "Skins / Hides" poster gives access the inside. A tree trunk stands to the right.weeaproinah; railways; shed;

Strathewen Public Hall, social and spiritual centre was later lost in the Black Saturday fires 2009. The Strathewen Community decided a community hall was needed in 1901. In 1902 locals built the hall with messmate trees. It was located on the Cottlesbridge-Strathewen Road. The first function was a Grand concert and Balll attended by about 120 people. Several denominations held Church services and Sunday School services in the Hall. It survived several bushfires until after this photo was taken when it was destroyed in Black Saturday, 9 February 2009. Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p89 Strathewen was settled late, largely because it was difficult to access.1 Early selectors found it a struggle to survive. They had to do everything themselves, from felling trees for buildings, to taking produce to market along bush tracks that they had helped cut. Small dairy farms were typical but fruit became the district’s prime produce. The first settlers east of Arthurs Creek were brothers John and Duncan Smith whose station Glen-Ard was probably operated as a sheep run. Other early settlers were the Mann family, who were to donate land for the hall, provide postal services and John Mann was an Eltham Shire councillor from 1916 to 1919.2 In 1873 James Mann, his wife Jane and their six children, settled on 207 acres (83.7) (Lang Fauld Farm) on both sides of Eagles Nest Road, from the foot of Mount Sugarloaf to the bank of the Arthurs Creek. In 1883 James took up another selection on Chads Creek. It was very hard work and at times he was well behind with his rent. However the family had a good social life, attending the Primitive Methodist Church at the Arthurs Creek Township and on New Year’s Eve throwing a party for all the locals. By 1874 James Mann’s younger brother, John, selected 311 acres (125.8ha) between Eagles Nest Road and upper Arthurs Creek. He called it Carseburn after his home parish in Scotland. Tragically in 1875 John drowned in the Yarra River, at Richmond.3 John Mann’s oldest son, also John, later purchased Duncan Smith’s land, which he named Violet Glen. He was to give one acre (0.4ha) of this land for the Strathewen Hall site. A Mann family diary written at Carseburn in 1897, tells how the district’s name was selected. Strathewen is derived from ‘strath’ meaning ‘broad mountain valley’ and from the name of Ewen H. Cameron, the local parliamentarian for almost 40 years. ‘George Brain came around to get a petition signed to get a post office up here and we had to vote for a name—Strathewen, Glen-Ard, or Headcorie’.4 It was at Carseburn that a public meeting in 1901, decided to build the Strathewen Hall on the Cottlesbridge-Strathewen Road. In 1902 the locals built the hall with messmate trees. The first function was a Grand Concert and Ball attended by around 120 people and several Protestant denominations took turns to hold church services and Sunday School there. Fortunately the hall has survived bushfires to be the town’s spiritual and social centre.5 The area continued to develop and in 1909 a post office operated somewhere at Strathewen and from around 1916 at Carseburn.6 It was not until 1914 that land was bought to establish the Strathewen State School on School Ridge Road. The residents paid £100 to build it on two acres (0.8 ha) while the Education Department contributed £30 and leased the building annually for £1. When teacher Miss Mary Golding opened the school in 1917, it had no equipment.7 But in 1921 the Education Department provided desks and a hexagonal shelter shed (now a rare style in Victoria) and took control in 1925.8 By 1917 Strathewen was booming.9 George Apted had built a coolstore in 1916, and local orchardists bought storage space until the 1950s. This allowed the area to supply the market in and out of season. Guesthouses catered for growing tourism. In the mid 1920s Mrs Eleanor Sparkes built the guest-house Singing Waters, which operated through the 1930s. Her daughter Mrs Vera McKimmie, ran it until the 1950s and the house remains in Chads Creek Road. In the Great Depression land was cleared for timber to be sold as firewood and there was small scale sawmilling. However the orchard industry diminished for several reasons including the 1939 bushfires and rapid changes in production methods. Today the Apteds still operate an orchard and farm at Glen-Ard, which straddles the border between Strathewen and Arthurs Creek. It includes the southern part of Duncan Smith’s original Glen-Ard selection.This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past. nillumbik now and then (marshall-king) collection, strathewan public hall

Built by artist and cartoonist Percy Leason in 1927 in what was then New Street but renamed Lavender Park Road in the late 1950s/early 1960s. Covered under Heritage Overlay, Nillumbik Planning Scheme. Published: Nillumbik Now and Then /​ Marguerite Marshall 2008; photographs Alan King with Marguerite Marshall.; p121 Said to be a genius, cartoonist Percy Leason’s career was at its peak when in 1925 to 1926 he built his home at New Street (now Lavender Park Road) Eltham. The Herald newspaper owner, Sir Keith Murdoch, had hired Leason for his newly acquired Melbourne Punch magazine at a salary of £1750, making him ‘one of the highest paid cartoonists in the world’.1 With this salary and financial help from Murdoch, Leason was able to build his lovely home in Eltham. At the crest of a sweeping drive, the home now two-storey in white brick with a gabled grey slate roof and dormer windows is flanked by an extension built by another owner in the 1980s. Leason lived in the home with his wife, Isabel and children, until 1937, when he left for the United States of America, where he lived until his death in 1959. The four-bedroom house and garden would have been well-suited to bringing up his family and to entertaining their friends in style. Large airy rooms have high ceilings with moulded plaster, timber floors and several are brightened with bay windows. Leason made friends with many of the artists and personalities who gravitated to Eltham. Around 1931 Justus Jörgensen, founder of the Montsalvat Artists’ Colony, helped Leason build his large studio at the back of the house. Another friend was journalist Mervyn Skipper, father of jeweller and sculptor Matcham, and artists Helen and Sonia. Leason’s teacher, artist Max Meldrum, also visited and rented accommodation in Eltham, opposite Wingrove Park. Punch folded in 1925, but Leason continued as cartoonist for Table Talk. In 1926 Leason began the cartoons of a mythical Australian town Wiregrass, which were inspired by Kaniva, his home town. The art gallery in Main Road Eltham was named Wiregrass in Leason’s honour. Leason completed 1000 drawings from 1919 to 1937, which author Garrie Hutchinson claimed, were technically unsurpassed and had regional and universal interest. Leason’s acute observations of country life stemmed from his childhood in Kaniva in Victoria’s western Wimmera, where he was born, the son of a selector, in 1889. Meldrum claimed that Leason could name every plant and the habits of every animal.2 Leason also painted 28 portraits of the last full-blooded aboriginals in Victoria at Lake Tyers in Gippsland, most of which are in a private collection. In Sydney Leason illustrated Henry Lawson’s Selected Poems and worked for The Bulletin. Leason had begun his career at 13 as an apprentice lithographic artist at Sands and MacDougall. He attended night classes at the National Gallery and the Victorian Artists Society. Leason first visited Eltham in 1910 to paint with fellow artist William ‘Jock’ Frater. They camped near Bible and Pitt Streets and along the Diamond Creek on the site of the present Eltham Retirement Centre. Despite his success as a cartoonist, Leason wanted to be recognised as a serious painter and for his anthropological work.3 He was also conservative and felt uncomfortable with the modern art scene in Melbourne.4 So he left for the United States of America to work as a painter. Ironically his time in New York saw the burgeoning of modern art, notably by artists such as Jackson Pollock. But Leason found his niche by running an art school, painting society portraits and illustrating books and magazines.This collection of almost 130 photos about places and people within the Shire of Nillumbik, an urban and rural municipality in Melbourne's north, contributes to an understanding of the history of the Shire. Published in 2008 immediately prior to the Black Saturday bushfires of February 7, 2009, it documents sites that were impacted, and in some cases destroyed by the fires. It includes photographs taken especially for the publication, creating a unique time capsule representing the Shire in the early 21st century. It remains the most recent comprehenesive publication devoted to the Shire's history connecting local residents to the past. nillumbik now and then (marshall-king) collection, landscape, lavender park road, percy leason, new street