HOME updated Aug 2010
INLAWS and OUTLAWS
WHILLANCE
SHORT
HISTORY OF
BAIRNSDALE / ORBOST,
Victoria, Australia
pages from the booklet from Gippsland were most interesting – but related to the early postal system and then telephone. The only ref to Whillance was
John Whillance and his son Les who were long serving drivers on the motorized run for the postal service.
excerpt taken from the - Bairnsdale Historical Museum and Regional Resource Centre
The Historical Museum and Regional Resource Centre in Macarthur Street contains
artefacts of the past, including newspapers, machinery and other implements,
postcards, photographs and other memorabilia and research material. The
two-storey building was designed as a Presbyterian Church and, in 1891,
functioned as one of the first local secondary schools -Bairnsdale College -
later becoming St Andrews College. Direct sunlight flows down the stairwell due
to the architectural design of the museum.
Originally inhabited by the Kurnai Aborigines, the area was explored by Angus McMillan in 1840. It was McMillan who named the Mitchell River on which the township stands. Two years later Frederick Jones became the first European settler in the area when he settled at what is now Lucknow, using the land to breed horses for the Indian market.
Archibald MacLeod was the first settler to take up land in the area now covered by the present town. He called his run "Bernisdale" after his birthplace on the Isle of Skye. Legend has it that the name was changed to its present spelling when MacLeod was surprised by the number of "bairns" (children) which had appeared in the settlement. However, it seems more likely that the spelling was merely altered to fit local pronunciation.
In the 1850s and 1860s the town grew as a result of its location on the river and its access to the sea. It became a supply port for the East Gippsland goldfields until the railways were established later in the century. Goods were shipped into Lake King, up the Mitchell River to Bairnsdale then hauled overland. Ships were then loaded with cattle products and wool from the surrounding area for the return trip to Melbourne. The hops cultivated in the Mitchell Valley between 1868 and 1916 were also transported to Bairnsdale for shipment to the hop kilns. A bridge over the Mitchell River was commenced in 1870 and completed in 1875. A lift bridge was originally envisaged so that ships could continue along the Mitchell River to the original wharf.
A post office was set up in 1856 and the township was surveyed and gazetted the following decade. A police station was established in 1862, a courthouse, school and post office were built six years later and the railway arrived in 1888. Barges conveyed wattle bark down the river to Jackson's tannery which commenced operations in 1876. A factory producing mining tools was opened the following year, an ice and butter plant in 1891, and a fruit cannery in 1907. Attempts were also made to develop an oil seed industry between 1890 and 1910.
In 1920 the town experienced a riot as a result of a visit by the evangelist and teetotaller, Tennyson Smith. Later in the decade immigrants from the south of Italy began to arrive and, as a consequence, the production of vegetables grew in importance throughout the region. In 1942 Bairnsdale won a national competition for providing the government with the largest war loan of any town its size. During the Second World War the RAAF also established a training centre in the area. The town itself, independent of the shire, was not proclaimed until 1967.
ORBOST
excerpt from
www.smh.com.au/news/victoria/
The Orbost area was first settled by Europeans in 1842 when Peter Imlay (one of the famous Imlay brothers) took up grazing land which he called the Snowy River Station. Three years later he sold the land to Norman McLeod, a Scot who named the area Orbost. There are a number of explanations for the word. Some sources claim it was the name of a town on the Isle of Skye, others claim it was the McLeod seat on the island, while others claim it is a Gaelic word meaning 'winged island' which was common on the Isle of Skye, the birthplace of McLeod.
The historical sources are similarly confusing. In their excellent book on the Aborigines of the area, The Kurnai of Gippsland, Phillip Pepper and Tess de Araugo describe the area in 1851 in the following terms: 'Archibald Macleod and his son John held a run of 24 322 acres in the fertile country of the Snowy River. The station was named Orbost and it extended from the Brodribb River on the east to the Snowy River on the south and west and about fifteen miles below the Buchan River junction to the north.' No mention of Norman McLeod.