Mountain Tales: Issue 05

MOUNTAIN TALES Old News from the Dandenong Ranges July 2025 No.5 The Mount Dandenong & District Historical Society aims to collect, preserve and share the rich history of the district. The society is especially interested in the communities of Mount Dandenong, Kalorama, Olinda, Sassafras, Ferny Creek and Tremont. These are the ridgetop villages on the mountain range clearly visible from metropolitan Melbourne. The society welcomes new members with an interest in local history and meets each month. It maintains a small collection of significant local history material. We have some limited volunteer capacity to assist with private research. Many of the stories here have previously appeared on the society’s Facebook page. If you would like to learn more, please contact the society’s Secretary via email at mtddhs@gmail.com Before Sky High, there was the Observatory Tea Rooms (and before that there was a pavilion and a rock and timber trig point). The road to the summit of Mt Dandenong was opened as a public thoroughfare to allow for motor traffic in 1935, before which it was already a popular destination for visitors. At 622 metres, it marks the highest point in the ranges. (Photo courtesy Nick Gruzevskis) Names A creek and a girl: How Olinda got its name A throw-away line to the effect that Olinda was “named for the daughter of Victoria’s Surveyor-General” is oftrepeated but never further explained. The township was named for the Olinda Creek, the headwaters of which rise nearby. Surveyor John Hardy (18341916) renamed Running Creek (of which there were several in the colony) as Olinda Creek, it is presumed as a reference to the daughter of his boss, Clement Hodgkinson (1818-93) who was then, if fact, the Deputy SurveyorGeneral. Alice Olinda Hodgkinson (1848-1906) was born in England. She was the eldest ofPfiicvtuerecChaipldtiorne:nTboomranketoyouHr ododcgumkiennstolonokby professionally produced, Word provides header, footer, hicsosveercpoanged, awndiftee,xtAbomxedleisaign(1s 8th2at9c-o5m5p).le(mHenist each firostthewr.ife, Matilda, had died childless in England and he would marry a third time, to Annie Smart, and father another four children.) Hodgkinson had earlier distinguished himself as a naturalist and explorer in north-eastern NSW. The Clement Hodgkinson (SLV collection) family moved permanently to Australia in 1851. Alice Olinda would have been about 10 or 11 when the creek was named for her. The next we hear of her is in 1886, when there are announcements in the Melbourne press of her marriage to Commander Frederic Bushby Warren RN (1851-1906) at St Mary Abbots Church, Kensington, one of London’s most fashionable. Commander Warren was the son of the late Admiral Richard Warren (1806-79), a senior British naval man who had seen action the Crimea. Alice was given away at the wedding by her uncle, the already famous Sir Everett Millais (1829-96) and the guests entertained by his wife, Lady Effie (who had scandalously divorced the celebrated writer John Ruskin in 1854). Millais was Clement Hodgkinson’s half-brother, and had been made a baronet by Queen Victoria the previous year. Alice Olinda would give birth to four children of her own: Effie (b.1887), Frederic (1888-1908), Clement (1890-1969) and Elsie (1891-1931), Two of her children Clement (in 1908) and Elsie (in 1911) emigrated to Western Australia where they remained for the rest of their lives. Alice Olinda Warren died in Dartford, England in 1906 at the age of 58. A brigade demo back in the day Back in the “olden days”, it was thought perfectly normal for a local CFA brigade to light up a fire in the middle of the Village Green in Sassafras to demonstrate their skills. This demo on Sunday 20 October 1974 would have coincided with Fire Prevention Week, a public safety initiative owing its origins to the US. That handsome young fellow on the branch in the front left of the photo is Richard Cromb AFSM, still active in the Sassafras-Ferny Creek brigade half a century later. A couple of helmets seem to have gone west in the excitement! It is interesting to note the blank allotment in the background next to the kindergarten. This was where the Sassafras Mechanics Institute (built 1895) once stood, destroyed by fire a couple of years earlier and later replaced with the hall from the nearby Methodist church. (See page 4) Page 1 MOUNTAIN TALES July 2025 No.5 Fairy Tales Of fairies and songs in the Dandenongs … Dorothea Agnes (Ernst) Waller (18881972) was a Melbourne teacher and writer best known as an early “fairytaler”. As Olga Ernst, according to her biographer \ Dr Robyn Floyd, she was `one of a small group of writers who attempted to nationalise the fairytale towards the end of the 19th century, signalling quite clearly that they intended to affix the elves and fairies of Europe onto the Australian landscape filling a void that was keenly felt by the children of emigrants and the Australian-born children of emigrants’. At the age of 16, Ernst’s book Fairy Tales from the Land of the Wattle was published in Melbourne by McCarron Bird in 1904. A prolific correspondent with the local newspapers, Ernst’s literary output was relatively small. As a young teacher she worked at schools close to the hills including Croydon and Scoresby and her family had a long association with the Dandenongs. In 1939, under her married name of Olga D.A. Waller, she published a booklet of 10 songs set to music by the composer Jean M. Fraser under the title Songs from the Dandenongs. A keen admirer of the emerging potter William Ricketts (18981993) and his depictions of Aboriginal figures, her appropriation and characterisation of Aboriginal culture and legend in this work has like Ricketts’s been more recently contested. Floyd, ‘Olga Ernst’s contribution to the development of Australian identity in Children’s Literature’, Paper presented to the Australian Association for Research in Education Conference, Melbourne, 2010, https://www.aare.edu.au/data/publications/2010/170 7Floyd.pdf https://prov.vic.gov.au/about-us/ourblog/researching-teacher-and-author-olga-ernst Ilustrations: Samples of Olga’s publications Accomodation Sassafras House – domi ab domo In 1923, Sassafras House (which stood on what is now the Village Green in Sassafras) shifted gear for a short time from being a guest house to a “rest house”. Originally built around 1894 as a home by early settler William Jones, from at least 1902 it was run as a guesthouse. At its height it boasted 22 rooms catering for up to 50 guests. Fresh milk came from Jones’s own cows and fruit and vegetables from his garden. Jones subdivided his land in the main street and offered it and Sassafras House for sale in April 1923. It was still on the market in October the following year, following renovations in the latter part of 1924. But for around 12 months from early 1923, it was operated by Mrs Jessie Cowled as a place to “receive Ladies and Gentlemen in need of rest”. Mrs Cowled, “known to her old friends as Nurse Jessie Lamb” according to the society magazine Table Talk, advertised her status as an Adelaide Hospital Gold Medallist and promised that a doctor could be in attendance if required. The rest house was opened with some ceremony on 19 May 1923 by the retired Anglican Bishop of Bendigo Reverend John Douse Langley (18361930), an old family friend of Mrs Cowled, who said “a short but impressive prayer”. Despite entreaties to the Almighty and the promise of a domi ab domo (home away from home), the venture faltered within a year. By April 1924, Sassafras House was advertised as “under new management”. It was eventually purchased by Perce Lee and advertised as “the new 1924-25 guest house … modernised and refurbished throughout”. It became well known for an extensive aviary built in part for the amusement of patrons. Suffering the fate of so many guesthouses in the hills, Sassafras House was destroyed by fire on 7 October 1931, due to a suspected Page 2 Sassafras House in its heyday in gthe early 1920s. electrical fault. All of the occupants escaped safely. The loss was put at £3,500. Perce Lee went on to establish the Sassafras Cabaret (later the Hideaway) on the opposite side of the main road. MOUNTAIN TALES July 2025 No.5 Illustrations (l-r): Digger’s gravestone in Trinidad; `Digger Prince’ coat button (National Museum of Australia collection); The Prince and Digger, The Prince of Wales Book, Hodder and Staughton, London 1922. The sorry tale of Digger the wallaby Poor little Digger the Wallaby … although destined to enjoy fawning royal patronage, his brief marsupial life was not to have a happy ending. During his 1920 Australian tour, Edward, Prince of Wales was presented with a pet wallaby while on a horseback ride from Sassafras to Monbulk in the Dandenong Ranges. The small creature became a favourite of the prince and his travelling companion the then Lieutenant “Dickie” Lord Mounbatten (1900-79) and travelled with him on HMS Renown for the remainder of the tour. Edward’s visit was wildly popular with the Australian public. He earned the nickname “the Digger Prince”, and despite his limited World War 1 experience he was much liked by the returned servicemen his extensive tour was in part designed to thank. Shouts of `Digger!’ greeted him from the crowds across the country. Known even then as something of a bounder and a cad, the 26year-old heir to the throne was a noted philanderer. He also left a written record which showed him `privately contemptuous of blustering officials and profoundly racist in his attitude towards Australia’s Indigenous population,’ according to the National Museum of Australia. `The Prince tired of Australia long before the itinerary wrapped up.’ Writing home to his paramour late on 30 May, after complaining about the busyness of his schedule, he recounted how he had motored out to “some hilly bush country” with Prime Minister Billy Hughes, from whose farm in Sassafras the ride commenced. I’m a little cheered as 2 girls (both very plain, angel!!!) who met us where we mounted the horses gave me a baby wallaby’ (small species of kangaroo) which we brought back & which is such a sweet little animal & is only 2 months old!! He’s asleep on my bed now sweetie though I’m afraid he’ll have grown a lot before you see him if we can ever get him back alive!! If only he would remain tiny as he is now so as one can hold him in one’s arms… Dickie has gone crazy about him & he & I are going to keep him all to ourselves & not let any of the staff have anything to do with him. We’ve appropriately christened him ‘Digger’!! His then mistress, Mrs Freda (“Fredie”) Dudley Ward (18941983) was a married English socialite, and their entanglement lasted from 1918 until 1929 when she was ousted in favour of Lady Thelma Furness, who filled the role until 1934. Lady Thelma introduced Edward to American socialite Mrs Wallis Simpson, and to all the complications that followed. (Some of Edward’s extensive passionate correspondence with Mrs Ward, a cache of 263 letters, forms the basis of Letters from a Prince: Edward Price of Wales to Mrs Freda Dudley Ward, March 1918-January 1921, edited by Rupert Godfrey and published in 1998.) Besotted with the tiny creature, Edward reportedly set about teaching Digger the wallaby, of all things, how to jump. The story goes that in the evening, after the presentation, the Prince was found on all fours in a room, at Government House teaching the wallaby to jump over an improvised hurdle, and since then each day, in his idle moments, he puts the wallaby through its tricks, including jumping lessons. What the wallaby thinks about the performance has not yet been ascertained. (Daily News, Perth 5.6.1920) Meanwhile, another “pet” identified in the paper’s `Melbourne Tittle-Tattle’ column was `a breezy little brunette [who] has been the favorite partner of HRH at dances in Melbourne. The story goes that a lady was dancing at the first Federal Government House ball, when the Royal guest touched her on the shoulder, and asked if she would dance with him. Her reply was: “Oh, rather,” and many fox-trots followed …The girl in question comes from one of the squatting families, and can provide the Prince with ideal conversation upon his favorite subject, the horse.’ Digger was not the only creature entrusted to Edward’s care during his Australian tour. Apparently, he was also gifted all manner of birds including a cockatoo, emu chicks and parrots, a Tasmanian devil and a kangaroo held in what was dubbed the HMS Renown menagerie. But Digger was his favourite and there was much sadness when the special correspondent of the Australian Press Association aboard the vessel for its return voyage to England reported that the wallaby had died at Trinidad in the West Indies, then a British colony. Let out for exercise in the gardens of Government House, Digger expired after eating some apparently poisonous herbage on 18 September 1920. Despite the administration of castor oil, brandy and much care, the animal died that evening. In a letter to Fredie the following morning, Edward bemoaned Poor little ‘Digger’ (the wallaby) I was so keen to get home anyway for you to see, died while we were at dinner, also poisoned!! Some filthy grass or plant he must have eaten when he escaped into the bush for an hour this morning & we are all quite upset & shall miss him terribly on the ship!! He was such a sweet little animal & it’s so tragic that he should have pegged out only 3 weeks from England! Digger, the wallaby from Sassafras, was buried with some ceremony in the grounds of Government House with a commemorative plaque worded by Edward himself. A century later, the Office of the President of Trinidad and Tobago marked the centenary of Digger’s death with a Facebook post: `In commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the death of Digger. You were loved. You are remembered.’ Digger’s grave remains in the grounds of what is now President’s House just outside the presidential waiting room. See also: https://www.nma.gov.au/explore/blog/royal-tour-1920 The Office of the President of Trinidad &Tobago, Facebook 19.9.2022 Page 3 MOUNTAIN TALES July 2025 No.5 Community The Mechanics Institutes: rise and demise One survives intact, another was demolished and a third burned down The Olinda Hall, previously the Olinda Mechanics Institute and Library, is the last of three constructed in the early 20th century and which once graced the ridgetop of the Dandenongs. Two other contemporary halls – at Sassafras and Ferny Creek – have long since disappeared. Mechanics Institutes were first established in Britain in the 1820s to provide adult education opportunities mainly to working men. Almost invariably they had a library attached. More than 1200 were built in Victoria from 1839 onwards, of which fewer than half the buildings remain, with only half a dozen functioning as libraries. Most of the surviving buildings have been repurposed as local halls or some other community use. The first Sassafras Mechanics Institute was built in 1895, funded through the philanthropy of tea merchant James Griffiths, owner of the large Ferndale estate at The Basin. The Sassafras State School operated from it for some years and there was also a small library attached. A second larger hall was erected during World War 1 which became a centre for all manner of community activities including dances, theatre, films and religious services. That hall was severely compromised by fire in April 1972. The cause of the blaze was determined to be the spontaneous combustion of newspapers stored in an annex adjoining the main building. The burnt hall stood derelict for two years before it was removed. The current hall was relocated from behind the Methodist Church (now the Dine Divine Restaurant) after that church closed in the late 1970s. The Ferny Creek Mechanics Institute is largely forgotten. Opened in 1905, it too had a lending library attached and was for a time home to the One Tree Hill State School. Located Above: The Olinda Hall still stands c.1913. (Rose series postcard) Left: Sassafras Mechanics after the fire, 1974. (© John Schauble) on what became Old Main Road near the intersection of Belgrave-Ferny Creek Road. The hall was a hub of activities in the early years of settlement, with lectures, plays, dances, concerts and card parties. It served as the voting centre and a place of religious worship. It also had a library of 850 volumes in the late 1920s, with a lending fee of 1/6 per quarter. But according to Helen Coulson, “public interest waned as original settlers left the district”, its usefulness superseded by the more central log cabin and larger hall at the recreation reserve built in the late 1920s. Tenders for the sale and removal of the Mechanics Institute were called in January 1949, specifying a building 60 feet by 20 feet featuring hardwood weatherboards with an iron roof, tongue-and-groove lining and flooring. The land was not sold until many years later, with the proceeds going to other community groups and a house now occupies the site. (Any further information about this hall – and especially photos – would be greatly appreciated.) The last true survivor, the Olinda Mechanics Institute (now the Olinda Hall) was built in 1913, again with a small library attached. One habitue described this in 1928 as `a splendid library with over 600 books – a fair sprinkling of the classics, though good old books and some of the latest novels but the so-called modern “smart” book is banned. The small fee is only 1/6 [per] quarter.’ Supported by the Shire of Lillydale, land was reserved for the institute in 1907 and a committee formed. Like the other institutes, the hall became (and continues to be) a hub of community activity. Prime Minister Billy Hughes atop his favourite horse, Darkie, Sassafras 1922. (National Library Australia collection) Find us on Facebook About the MtDDHS Who are we? Our members are people interested in the collection, preservation and sharing of local history. Where are we? We maintain a small office in and meet at Farndon’s Hall, Falls Rd, Kalorama. When do we meet? On the first Saturday of each month (except January) from 10am until noon. What does it cost? An annual membership subscription of $20 is payable. Contact the Secretary: mtddhs@gmail.com Page 4