AV0018 - Denise Moorhouse talk 10-02-1996

Talk by Denise Moorhouse to Nunawading Historical Society on 10 February 1996
Valda Arrowsmith’s Introduction

This is Denise Moorhouse. My job was made very easy in introducing her to you by the Gazette, I hope you have all seen that which has given some background on Denise where she is from now
From Buln Buln out of Warrigal and lived in the Heatherdale part of City of Nunawading for a few years and was the first person that looked into the history of our area and the background of our area and was the first person to put together that information. We are very pleased to welcome you today and we are looking forward to hearing that information.

Introductory remarks by Denise
I have got some things to remind me of things I want to say and I have also got a some excerpts to read to you and even though I hadn’t read it for 33 years, and I hadn’t. When I got the letter and I found a copy. I got the same sense of thrill to find that these people that were our forebears were such real people and came across over a hundred years.
How did I come to write it. I had not planned to write it. I had a column in the Mitcham Advertiser and I also did all the Council reporting. It seems that the Councillors said this was a young person who looks on our work with kindness. They were very good men and they really were working very hard for what was then the City of Nunawading.

Of course newspapers always get things wrong and when I pulled this out this morning it was preservation of historic Mitcham trees they had put the heading on it and it was Schwerkolt cottage that I wrote about. I feel a little of pleasure in that I have seen a few plaques and I know a few people have worked very very hard to get this Cottage saved.

We had already lost the first post office that was in opposite the church of the latter day saints. That was our first post office and someone said that it was being pulled down. I raced down there and it was there with its shingled roofs and it was rage that it would be pulled to the ground for a block of flats or something. So I got in touch with Cr Barelli and he was a very active young councillor. Apparently there were problems because the title was entailed or there was some problem with the title.
I stopped writing because I was young mother and I was 7 months pregnant with the baby that Dorothy Perkins is now mother-in-law to. And she was the perfect baby she never cried and I was able to leave her with my mother and go off and do my research. But I never had any intention of working mother but money was so short. It was very nice to do my journalism and write for the newspapers and do the occasional freelance journalism. Then my husband was a banker and had a busy life and if he could make management he would be made. And when he was offered management, and not just any management but it was in Papua New Guinea for three years. I said to Nunawading Council that that was it I couldn’t continue my work. It wasn’t a contract for any specified time but probably if I hadn’t gone I would probably have kept working on this, with the research because there was an incredible amount of research involved and I think that was what I had to say to myself. Where do I start? There was so much to do.
Councillor Willis was another Councillor who was very interested in this project had so much to do with this and coming here today I had a little tinge of sadness when I saw the Willis Room so I assume that was named after Councillor Willis. And he was a really a fantastic Councillor, working on the buses then and he would come into Council and I was privileged to see him as a reporter in the Press Gallery you could see he was exhausted but he was in there actively. Anything that was a good idea he would say yes let’s go for it. He wasn’t a knocker. I don’t think any of the Councilors were knockers. I don’t know if they are today – I don’t know any of them today. But they were wonderful men – and yes they were men. Not women. I must be honest. Why did they pick me? I think they must have just liked my style.
I didn’t have any professional training as a journalist but I had a father who was a journalist and his father before him and I think from the day I started to speak I was being automatically corrected. That’s not the right tense you never use a double negative don’t split an infinitive. In other words, I really did grow up knowing my grammar, my syntax and what tense I should be using. And because we were a close family Dad would often talk about cases and he would say you can’t say that – that’s libellous. You must never say anything libellous; and the other one was you must be able to prove your facts. Don’t think it’s an idea and say it– you have to prove it. These things were just as I was a kid. I loved writing and it came very easily so when I had an opportunity, I went on to do that.
I also had worked with Professor Buckland when he wrote the history of the ANZ Bank. I was in the Bank then working in the Economics Department, halfway through a Commerce Degree, when ANZ Bank, I think they were called Union then, we would be happy to give a Scholarship or a part time study and time off if anyone would like to come into our Economics Department. And this was good I could earn some money and still go to Uni and the great part was it wasn’t a boring old bank job it was fascinating because we were collating and putting together all the history of the ANZ Bank and he was an excellent man to work with and he taught me respect for documents and how they had to be handled, looked after and regarded as something very, very precious. And please remember this was before micro processors and before photo copiers when all you had was the original or you had to write out what was called a Fair Copy – that didn’t mean a neat copy it meant that you had got the salient points and that it was a copy and you had to sign it as such.

But I had always loved Australian History. Some people love all sorts of history but Australian History was the history for me. I loved my grandparents very dearly and they had a big sheep station and during the war when things in Sydney got a bit hectic and they did. Now we can read in the papers that they were under more threat than the government at the time thought we should know about. Anyway, all of the grandchildren, my father was overseas in the Middle East, went up to grandma and grandpa’s place. It must have been hard from my grandma who suddenly had an influx of young children around the place. And my grandpa used to tell me all of the stories of his times when he was a little boy and he would take me out to show me the bridges that had the convict marks in. Whenever there was a bridge over a creek even a tiny creek on a property, the convicts would put their broad arrow into it. And all the trees that had been surveyed to mark the boundaries to mark where they had been settled they had got them at ridiculously cheap prices as they did in what was then Nunawading. I heard your discussion earlier. Nunawading was a good name. Nunawading Roads Board was the first form of local government that we had. The land then was opened up at very cheap prices. One other little point before I get on to the exact local history of yours. As a child I was absolutely fascinated with Burke and Wills and the explorers. I don’t know whether they teach children about explorers to the same degree that I was taught it but they were heroes. Burke and Wills were particularly fascinating story so much so that when Jack, my husband retired, we actually went on every camp that Burke and Wills had camped at from starting in Melbourne, the Menindee lakes and right up to the very top one on Burketown on the top of the Gulf of Carpentaria. And the big tree where the terrible tragedy happened and then I went to the Coolabah tree where Burke was buried under. And it was very moving to see that he was there. I do not know if they took him out later but to me he did.
I approached this task with enormous enthusiasm. Some of the difficulties were that I needed to be my own PR. The Councillor said you are going to have to get in touch with all the local groups. The local newspapers, Melbourne newspapers and television – it wasn’t big then – I don’t think we had one then. Will have to get on to television. I was able to do that. I would go along and talk to any group that I could get into. Your group – if you had been in existence then – I don’t think you were. And I think I shocked a few people because in those days if you were 7 months pregnant you really should have been at home. But today nobody would mind, but there it is. We only had the public library had photocopying. And I think then, oh right, because I had taught at Ringwood High School before I decided to have my first baby, I was very into the need to have an education. That’s why, once I decided to do research, it was education that I kept going back to because I felt that it was so fascinating and the man, of all men, if I was asked who you would like to write a biography of it would be a man called David Boyle. I don’t know if any of you know David Boyle but he was really ten feet tall in my eyes.
But there were also people like EE Walker, who was the Tessellated Tile Company. Now without him there wouldn’t have been a Mitcham because he employed over a 100 people. In those days it was nearly all men and yet there was one man who worked for him called henry Alderton. I don’t know if you have heard of him and he, it was quite fascinating, because he started to work for the Walkers, or Tessellated Tile Company, it was fifteen shillings a week but he had to have his own shovel. Then in the area that they were sorting the tiles, it was a skilled job, his wife, I say this off the top of my head, she was earning 16 shillings a week because there was more skill in separating the tiles.
Then there was a man called Miser Kay, I don’t know anything more about him except he sounds a fascinating man, and the owner of a shoe shop called Burns, have you heard of Burns? Because I have a little bit in here that you might be interested in. And then the Bennetts of course the Bennets were the more Box Hill end. Bennettswood. (Some background discussion)
He had a shop up on Mitcham Road and Whitehorse Road. He could be family (more background discussion)
When this lass rang up and she said she was from the Whitehorse Gazette. It was unbelievable it was in Nunawading District Roads Board and then Box Hill broke away, Blackburn and Mitcham became a Shire and the City of Nunawading and now it is all back into one. So, it's fascinating.
I think I will go onto my little bits about education. I am not going to bore you to tears. If you start if you think I am going too long just cough or something. If you all start coughing. I will forgive one or two coughs.

In 1862 there was a glimmering of a new light in education when the individual boards were abolished and board of education came into existence. There were two boards – a national board and a denominational board and they fought. They disliked and distrusted each other. The National school Board refused to allow aid to be granted to the school if in the application it could be found that the buildings or grounds, were used on any occasion could be used for religious purposes. However, the Denominational Board were equally pig-headed in their actions and would often open a denominational school even when a national school was operating. They were definitely at each other’s throats. Teachers had a pretty rotten time in those in those days. 130 Children in a room 40 x 20. That’s terrible.
The Living conditions 24 ft long 30 foot broad 8 and half feet high: this was at Harkaway and the parents had wanted to build a school. I don’t think they have changed to parents today. We have all wanted to give our children the very best. The better the education than we had the happier we are. And don’t forget very few people were educated. Some of them couldn’t even read or write.
The furniture in the room comprised three desks with forms attached which could seat 24 children or 15 if they wanted them to write. So, what happened I don’t know. They must have said you’re over here standing reading and you are sitting down writing.
In 1864 16 children were attending this school. Of these 16 children 9 had farmers for fathers, 5 were wood cutters and one was brickmaker and one was a publican.
We were a very rural area.
It was difficult to begin a school, any school, public subscription was to build a room and after the school room the teacher had to be found. Teachers were a dedicated tribe and lived and worked under deplorable conditions. One example is given from a letter by Richard Hurry from Wesleyn School Nunwading but it was still under the education board. It is dated 1858. Mister Hurry was writing to the Secretary of the Denominational School Board, Mr Cain, Asking to whom the house allowance was paid, the Teacher or the Committee? It was a very small allowance and some schools gave it the Committee and some schools to the teacher.
“I have lived with my family in a room, the school room part was curtained off, 16 feet by 9 feet 8 inches”. There was no chimney or lining. He lived with his family. What did his wife do all those days while he was teaching? “I have built a chimney and I have lined the walls and now the Manager demands the allowance for me “– the Committee asked me to pay them! That was a bit tough.
Coming now to Vermont school number 1022 which was up on Mitcham Road and Canterbury Road.
Background discussion.
The birth of Vermont School was painful and prolonged fantastic complications developed and no sooner than one complication was solved another came along. Perhaps it was the birth of Vermont School but the dangerous infant Mumps which caused so much concern. On the 6th June 1865, John Winter, an unqualified teacher commenced his duties in the Wesleyn Chapel in Mt Pleasant. This was still the beginnings of what was to be the Vermont School. They agreed that until such time that the school be brought under the direction of the board of education. In September of that year, the school unsuccessfully applied for aid. A little single room building with its shingle roof failed to qualify chiefly because the room was only lined to the height of six feet. The desks, maps and blackboard had been bought by the teacher himself for three pounds 17 and sixpence and the long wooden desks and forms had been hand made.
Four years later saw the next application for aid but this time it would be refused by the board because the Inspector, actually showing astounding foresight felt that the position of the school was too close to the existing Church of England school which was only 2 and half miles away. And that a position on the corner of the two intersecting roads a mile and half further east would be better. Ie. The present (1963) position.
This was a blow to the Committee who had cajoled and offered land to have the school either side of the Wesleyan school but gave into the demands. Mothers felt very uneasy with moving to this rather than the lonely spot.
David Boyle, my hero he was the secretary or the Correspondent as they called it in those days wrote “Yes” but added clearing up all this confusion and complexity we have been in this locality for. Please write to us. He was a dogmatic man. That’s all I am going to read you from that one.
As early as 1875 the teacher at Burwood complained of the difficulty of teaching an average of 180 children in the one room. He also asked for a book press in the same letter.
Looking at these archives is the highlight for me because when I went into the Melbourne Library they couldn’t give me copies – no photocopies. I asked can I see the correspondence that was carried on? No, No You have no authority. So that was when I had to come back to the Council and say I can’t get into these documents I have to have a title. So, I became the official historian. It was a bit big for me. That’s how I did get in.
I was escorted down to these archives. Frankly I don’t think they were all that well kept because it was away from everywhere and you were locked in. You had to ring a bell and when you were ready someone would come up from downstairs and they would see you out.
I think it is time that we got on to the Heatherdale School. The Heatherdale School had an even worse time in getting started than Box Hill and Vermont. The first to get stated was North Nunawading or Heatherdale. This had a corner had progressed with a general store and houses. The site for the Nunawading North school was gazetted in the August of 1854 despite petitions and possibly by William Witt MP it was 1880 before the school opened its doors to children.
Ringwood was scared stiff that children would be taken from their school and sent to Heatherdale as was Vermont thought they would be poached as was Blackburn. They got paid the amount of money to teach these children. Petitions from each of the schools to protect their income. The teacher at Ringwood had parents that hated his school sign the petition for Heatherdale and those that loved his school signed the petition for Ringwood.

The Education Department wasn’t truly convinced that a school needed to open a school and they flip-flopped. The parents, not the Department, opened the school. In 1879 it was recorded that the following children would be prepared to attend the school on its opening. Names you may have heard William Witt MP, Alfred Rawlings had 5 children, John Hammel had 4 Andrew McKenzie had 4 Moses Dickson had 5, Katherine Falconer had 3 William Wilson. Thomas Brown 5, Margaret Emery. That’s another well- known name. When I went to teach at Vermont High, when I came back from New Guinea, I was fascinated to find the names I had read all about, There they were –their grand children and their great grandchildren. Lisa McGlone. Thomas Dalt 3, Philip Cummins 3 and Henry Young. A total of promised 50 children and the school opened in 1881 without any provision for drinking water and without toilets. The toilets were provided the next year and the tank later. There were difficulties as there was no spouting and there was no guttering. Learning of the lack of toilets and tanks the department decided it made a mistake opening it and You must close it. However the school continued and the children attended at the shabby little mud cottage. The Department did not want to provide a school and as the residents wanted it, it was up to the residents to find a building they could use. And this is a description of the building they thought might be better. Erection of school building the Secretary of Education Directive North Nunawading School August 1882
As I understand it the Education Department has decided to build a school house I would most respectfully urge that the present cottage is unsuitable and unsafe. The building is wood and rubble and has a brick floor. The walls are of clay, with wood here and there to support it. In many places the clay has been washed away by rain thus leaving great holes on all sides in which the wind whistles right merrily. The floor consists of such bad bricks that they grind into powder at the slightest touch. Consequently, the floor is full of hollows, ruts and the children’s clothes, especially the girls’ dresses are constantly dirty with brick dust. The chimney which is a wooden slab and paling is not only inconvenient but also unsafe. As it is leaning on one side now to such an extent that I expect it will shortly fall down. Should this take place it could not be rebuilt as a chimney as well as the rest of the building it is in such a dilapidated condition that any repairs would not be possible. To add to our discomfort when the wind is from the south, the coldest of all winds, the chimney smokes to such as extent that fire has to be extinguished. As there is no spouting around the school when rain falls the water falls down in front of the fireplace inside, not in drops but in a perfect stream. Within 10 yards of the school there are two large waterholes, one of which is 20 feet square is full of water to depth of at least 5 feet. These are highly dangerous to the children. The children have no playground. The School is surrounded with fruit trees and in the midst of a garden on a steep hill. The letter went on to mention the dangers of the railway crossing. The letter goes on and I feel that this school must have been at Heatherdale Road where there used to be a railway keeper's cottage. It must have been just up from Heatherdale Road. And then the whole thing was very difficult for that guy. That’s all I have on that one.

During the 14-18 war. One school had a much loved teacher who delighted in organising stalls to raise money. Stalls with rough saplings and calico sides decorated with gum tips. It was called Mr Steele Vogel of Mitcham. He was known as the teacher who kept sweets in his pocket and he would pop one surreptitiously into the mouth of a child who worked out all his sums correctly and the child would be equally surreptitious in popping his sweet out of his mouth into his hand. Of course Mr. Steele Vogel kept his tobacco pouch in that pocket and the sticky sweet would be covered in tobacco.
As the children loved him, they were anxious for him to be unaware of their rejection of his gift.

Burns shoe shop. Personalities. This one was William Burns. Famous for miles William Burns shop, Tunstall then at the turn of the Century. There was a shop on Whitehorse road where the customer could buy drapery, boots and indulging in any undertakings needing a commission agent.
In addition to selling shoes, he also repaired shoes; he bought shoes including second hand shoes. While there may have been some order in the arrangements of boxes and sizes of new shoes no system existed for the selling of the second hand shoes. To begin with the new shoes were either brown or black, men's or women's, boys or girls. There were regular sizes and no allowances for fractional fittings or half sizes. Women wanting fancy shoes to wear at their wedding had to travel to Melbourne. To advertise his wares, he had an enormous boot hanging outside. Second hand shoes were carefully inspected before purchase and a reduction in price was made if they needed to be repaired. Usually, the shoes were children’s shoes of course because outgrown by the child, and with perhaps no others to follow, the shoes were in good order. As cash was available for them, most mothers sold their outgrown shoes to William Burns. Another reason why the shoes were outgrown and not worn out was that many of the children went bare foot most of the time and only wore shoes to school and on the Sabbath. Once purchased the shoes were loosely gathered together or laced together if laces. If button ups, a string was put through the loops at the top of the ankle part. However, many shoes had no ankle loops and anyway the laces came undone and the shoes separated. The second hand shoes were thrown into large boxes and, if a customer was careless and the shoe fell into an adjoining box, the would-be purchaser had a 98 per cent chance of finding the partner to any shoe. The children viewed with mixed feelings the announcement that we are going to Burns to buy a pair of shoes. The delight of owning new shoes, even if they were only new second hand shoes, was weighed against the boredom of uniting and uniting and waiting for the shoes to be found. First mother or father had to find one shoe which would fit and then it was a desperate search to find its mate. There was no guarantee that the shoes did fit. Sometimes the youngster in an attempt to end the excursion would declare that the shoe fitted. If the child said the shoe fitted how could the mother be sure it was a good fit and not a chance. The first walk to Church it would be clear to all. The first sign of blisters and the child would be scolded for saying they fitted when they did not. When the journey was over the heel would be bandaged. The most common solution to this problem was to put the shoes back on, soak shoes and feet in a dish of warm water. Having been immersed until the water was cold, the wearer walked around for an hour or so wearing the wet shoes. More walking, more warm water until finally the shoes were packed tightly with paper rubbed with saddle soap and left to dry. If nothing else is left to comment, the quality of the workmanship in the shoes must be noted. Burn could not be blamed for non-fitting shoes but his sense of humour often caused some annoyance. Shoes brought to be repaired did not yield as much profit as the sale of new shoes or second hand shoes. Sometimes he tried to convince a customer it would be wiser to buy new ones. Money was scarce and while there was some life left in a pair of shoes most residents preferred to have them repaired. However, if the customer returned a second time with the same shoes he tried more subtly. One young workman brought in a pair of black boots to have a patch on the outside of the ankle. No comment from William this time, instead he sewed on a bright blue patch which made the shoes unwearable except for work and new boots had to be purchased for special occasions. Burns bootshop was famous and as the new Shire of Blackburn and Mitcham came into existence, that’s in 1925, Burns remained to sell boots and other goods. His shop was now as close to the centre of the Shire as possible.
(Discussion including mention that it was there until 1930)
Discussion who to talk on next? – Miser Kay – not heard of before)

Told to me by a very old resident. He was a very nice man but you judge for yourself. In first years of the Nunawading shire, a canny man bought a large tract of land in Tunstall. It fronted Whitehorse Road where the bullock drays bogged and bullockies cursed frightened the gentle women who hear their oaths. Surely no man could call down so many curses on his own head and not have the thunderbolts down on the people who happened to hear him, would reason one wife and mother. His curses and blasphemies could be heard for nearly a mile on a still night when the rain was in the air. The bullock trains often bogged and the flat stretches of Whitehorse road would turn into a quagmire. One night a good Christian man asked why it was necessary to blaspheme. The answer was that he had called his leading animal by a holy name and how else was he going to get him to move. The canny man was no bullock driver and he stood immune to worry of the boggy road. Sometimes he helped the driver by supplying logs to give pull to the wheels and he always charged a lot of money for it. In the first years after he took over the mortgage on the large tract of land it was necessary to be miserly with his money and the early years of habit made it easy to continue. And typically, he died with a fortune piled up for his heirs. Miser Kay, not Mister Kay as they called him as he drove in the buggy collected rent. He smoked a pipe of some mixture of weed and locally grown tobacco. Tobacco was cheap but matches were expensive so with strict instructions to his wife he would leave his wife gently puffing during the time when it might be necessary to keep concentrating on business discussions rather than keeping a pipe alight.
He, through convention, had to wear trousers but his wife was under no similar obligation to wear an apron and when she needed one it was his cast-off trousers that she wore. The legs tied around the waist and the surplus dangling at the back. Miser Kaye earned a living by grazing milking cows and selling the butter at Blackburn’s general store. Later at Burns (that must have been another Burns) and at Mitcham. Kay’s butter was renowned for its quality. Stores sold the butter produced by local dairymen. The shop holder knew which butter was Kay’s and Kays butter was always sold out first. It says a lot about the honesty of the store keeper that he never tried to sell someone else’s butter as Kays. Mrs Kay was perhaps more diligent in the making of the butter: not too much salt, enough to flavour, and did more washing than the other butter makers. The butter had to be washed and washed again to remove the smallest residue of buttermilk. Kay's cream was thick and rich and yet made the pale butter so sought after. When the butter first separated out into small lumps the blue and white butter milk appeared and it had to be drained off, the salt added and then followed the careful and numerous washing, the addition of water to the raw butter, pat squelch, pat squelch, pressing the butter hard against the side of the large basin and squeezing the last drops of moisture out. If too much buttermilk was allowed to remain the butter would be rancid in a very few days.
It was a local doctor who first told the secret of where Kay’s milk was left to rest until the cream came to the top and was skimmed off for butter. Obviously didn’t have a separator, it would have cost money I suppose – but that is beside the point. One night he visited Kay who was in bed with a heavy cold and accidently kicked something hard under the bed. Oh, the look of horror on Kay’s face. Don’t be embarrassed man everyman has the same thing under the bed. That they don’t said Kay. Of course, they do said the doctor and to show his sophistication and his inability to be embarrassed he nudged the container. It didn’t move. Intrigued he looked under the bed, and saw 4 huge shallow pans of milk. And this is where your heart goes out to poor Kay. The cottage is small, doctor, and there is no other place to put them . . . and we forget how tiny the houses were. Where else would you put these big pans? Except I wouldn’t want to put them there. But despite the doctor's knowledge and, whether he kept quiet or whether he told, Kay’s butter still outsold any other butter.
And when the trains came, he drove his sulky or walked so his fare was saved and in his later years he deplored the habit of taking a hansom cab. How horrified he would have been to see the hundreds of cabs from all over Melbourne which attended his funeral. He had a habit of walking the sparse paddocks between Tunstall and Mitcham. His coat was always slung over his shoulder and his head was bowed to look downwards. Others declared he was searching for sixpences he’d lost ten years before. He saved every penny he had ever been able to save, and he begrudged every penny he had ever been forced to spend. After his death his family had erected a most expensive and ornate headstone to mark the resting place of a man called Miser Kay. How typical.
(Discussion)
Some statistics I had from 1866 to 1963 which were taken from the municipal directory.
One other little thing:-
Our Council at the time I was doing this they really practised recycling to an extent you wouldn’t believe because, when I did my rough drafts, I was given the backs of old voters rolls and that was it. It was just accepted. You didn’t waste good paper on a first draft. And, of course, today we have word processors. And it is so much easier. Then it was first draft, second draft, third draft and maybe fourth draft and it was a lot (of) work. Any questions?
Discussion:- about 43mins mark
Dr LL Smith – I haven’t got much on him.
It’s more where his land was.
If you look at one of the very early Crown Surveys you will see LL Vale written on them
He was a doctor and he had his practices in Melbourne and he believed in advertising to the degree we don’t have today He had billboards, huge billboards

David Boyle
Was a Scot. He was born in Dunfries Scotland in 1821. He and his wife and one child arrived in Australia in the 1840s. He was here very early. His second child was born at Geelong in 1846. He was educated as a botanist and his drawings of plants and flowers shows fine artistic skills. His association with Baron Von Mueller further proved his ability as a botanist but Nunawading will remember him as the firey Scot who fought for Mt Pleasant school in the 1860s. Within a few years of his arrival at Mt Pleasant in 1860 he had the interest of all children as well as his own eight when he joined the committee in the interest of a school. Because of his persuasive powers of speech he soon found he was one of the leaders in the small community settling along Delany’s (Canterbury) Road at the eastern most end of the district. Although born a Scot, his religion had been Church of England and he settled in Mt Pleasant where the beginning of the Wesleyan Chapel influenced his religious persuasions. However, he had no desire to have a controlling interest in the managing of the Chapel and while he and his sons attended regularly and always helped when asked he was never a trustee of the church.
David Boyle channelled his interests in one direction only: the founding of a school. In this direction he provided an unstinting dedication. So strong was his leadership that the Committee felt lost without his presence. His letters filed in the Board of Education inward file from local school committee 1865-70 in the archives of the Melbourne Public Library reveal his character and personality. Old letters where the ink is fading and the paper is torn and crumbling on the edges, letters almost a hundred years old then. To the Board of Education to the matters of the Mt Pleasant school. Very few people could read or write fluently. Nunawading was known as the place of the woodcutters. And many an application to the school showed name and his mark with an s. Most of the school committees in Victoria recruited, asked, begged or coerced a minister or the school teacher to act as Correspondence Secretary but not Mt Pleasant. No, here the Correspondent was David Boyle. The irrepressible polite determined respectful but resolute Scot who became impatient with the delays in replies from the Board and voiced his opinions. And worked doggedly asked for aid from the Government for the Mt Pleasant school. On one occasion the Board had put it quite plainly that they wished to censure Mr Boyle. In writing to him they asked the local Committee to censure Mr Boyle. He wrote in phonetic spelling in reply: he stated that neither he nor the Committee felt it would be wise to do without his services as Correspondent. A politely expressed snub to the Board. Henceforth the censure was ignored, and he continued to take to task the Secretary of the Board of Education. He was a man of moods of extreme emotions, black despair and he would write, and you could hear, that he was heartbroken and desperate and it would come through . . . unless he was a great actor. He spoke and wrote with a Scot’s accent, and he wrote with one. His words raced in front of his pen and his words would come to the paper. When his patience was exhausted the letter was stiff with humble requests and then he would explode with an ultimatum . . . and, Oh what a man he would have been. I did meet a lot of the family of the Boyles and it was my great pleasure.
Some discussion
Any questions? A question. Some discussion on Abbey Walk Vermont.
You can pass on an old story but you can’t print it unless you can prove it.
I only have some pages the rest of it was in the Council. There were about two filing cabinets. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know what was done with them. They were pretty responsible people so hope they are still around somewhere. One was this beautiful illuminated address to a man called McGlone. It was beautiful.

I used to have a lot of elderly ladies and their fear of the aborigines. Whether they were in fact as present as they thought they were or whether they were just terrified. It would be terribly lonely left out there for weeks at a time and they were definitely – about three different women told me that they were always advised when they came to not put here pots outside because if they had shiny black pots – and they were nearly all enamel – they would be taken. Whether it was true or not I don’t know.

The aborigines even in my own family history – my grandfather used to say how, and this was a long time ago, the aborigines used to camp and they always tiny little fires. Because they never felt the need to have a huge fire and he would always see the aborigines' fires. They didn’t worry him and he didn’t worry them . . . and he had sheep. They never took many. And every now and again if they were hungry they would take a sheep and grandfather would say that’s alright but they walk on. We keep moving (further) out.

Discussion.
Behind the Council a house, wattle and daub. Council had prise Wilson out. On the corner behind the library.
When I first came here someone told me to go and see the shingle roof house here. There were people living in Schwerkolt’s Cottage and a whole big family of people living in there. Talking of shingles you know how – we got on to iron out here very quickly because of the bushfires – I just got back from California and most of the houses in this particular part they are all wooden shingles. And they have bush fires there, but they put irrigation pipes all over the top of the roof.


Any other questions? Discussions and comments
We will see if we can track your working papers (which would include the illuminated script) to Laverton. All Nunawading Council archives have been sent there. There have been so many changes down there.
I went to New Guinea, came back and into teaching. I never throw anything out, so I have these bits. I have just these -Some are first pages; some are second pages. I have notes see illustrations, see maps.
Kath Waugh (nee MCGlone) contacted Historical Society to get the illuminated address back from Society and Society said we don’t have it and the Council would have it.
Denise: Nial Brennan had access to everything – he took over the filing cabinets.
Mc Glone family lent it to me to have it photographed for the Herald – could find the date in the Herald archives. I remember getting in touch with the Herald at that time for a photographer. I wouldn’t let it out of the house. I kept it until I could take it the Council chambers. The McGlone family lent it to me to be used in the Herald.

Joan(?) - thank you and she recalls when she knew Denise as a fellow teacher. If you had finished it would have been more readable, entertaining and probably bigger. Presented with copy of book Windows on Nunawading by Diane Sydenham. Valda points out that Diane Sydenham quotes and references Denise.