Living memorials: Arbor Day at Lamplough State School, 1917 avocahistory.net.au/2026/06/19/l...

Dorothy Duff married George Tobin 13 June 1804 Today is the 222nd wedding anniversary of my 5th great grandmother Dorothy Tobin nee Skelly formerly Duff. Dorothy Skelly was born in 1768 in Yarm, Yorkshire to Gordon Skelly and Dorothy nee Harrison. She was the middle child of three children. Gordon…

Champion Lodge near Maldon, Essex Champion Lodge, formerly known as Woodlands, in Great Totham near Maldon, Essex, was built about 1877 for the local businessman Edward Hammond Bentall (1814-1898) as a residence for one of his sons. The architect was Henry Cowell Boyes (1846-1900). Bentall’s plans…

Confound the Phygalian Marbles! One of my 4th great grandfathers was a British naval officer, Rowland Mainwaring (1782 – 1862).  Rowland Mainwaring kept a diary all his life. He published several books based on his diary. One of these was ‘The First Five Years of My Married Life‘ (1853), a record…

Viola’s birthday picnic 1863 My second-great grand aunt Viola Julia Constantia Champion de Crespigny was born on 25 November 1855 at Daisy Hill (present-day Amherst). She was fourth of the five children of Philip and Charlotte Crespigny. At the time of Viola's birth Philip was a gold warden,…

A to Z 2026 reflections The A to Z Blogging Challenge is a friendly annual event where participants post every day of April (except Sundays), matching each of the 26 posts to a letter of the alphabet. This year, 2026, marked my thirteenth year taking part. My theme was the Victorian goldfields.…

Letters home from a light horseman in Palestine On 26 November 1917 my great grand uncle, Philip Champion de Crespigny (1879--1918), enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force.  He was aged 38 years 5 months, a journalist, married with four children. His brother, my great grandfather Constantine…

Z is for “Zealous gold diggers” by S. T. Gill Samuel Thomas Gill (1818–1880) was born in Somerset, England, the son of a Baptist minister, and educated in Plymouth. Trained partly by his father, he worked in London as a draftsman and silhouette artist before emigrating with his parents and…

Y is for yields Gold on the Victorian diggings was weighed by the troy system, the standard for precious metals. The smallest troy unit was the grain, nominally based on the weight of a single cereal seed. Then came the pennyweight (24 grains), the troy ounce (20 pennyweights), and the troy pound…

X is for Xin Jin Shan In the nineteenth century a great many miners on the Victorian goldfields were Chinese. They called the diggings ‘Xin Jin Shan’ (新 金 山), New Gold Mountain. The Californian gold rush, in decline by the 1850s, became known as ‘Jiu Jin Shan’ (舊 金 山), Old Gold Mountain. The…

W is for women on the goldfields In Australia from early European settlement to the time of the gold rushes there were many more men than women. In 1867 William Henry Archer (1825–1909), Registrar-General of the Colony of Victoria, published The progress of Victoria : a statistical essay. On page…

V is for Eugene von Guerard Johann Joseph Eugene von Guérard (17 November 1811 – 17 April 1901) was an Austrian-born artist, active in Australia from 1852 until 1882. Eugene von Guerard was born in Vienna, Austria. His father was a painter of miniatures at the court of Emperor Francis I of…

U is for goldfields in the United States Before the gold rushes to Australia there was a rush to California in 1848. The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. Sutter's Mill was a water-powered sawmill on the bank of…

T is for tents Temporary housing in Melbourne and on the goldfields was in tents. Melbourne Canvas Town In November 1852 a canvas town was established south of the Yarra near Princes Bridge in Melbourne. It accommodated newly arrived immigrants who had nowhere to stay. Canvas Town, Emerald Hill,…

S is for schools on the goldfields Following separation from New South Wales education in Victoria was provided by two separate bodies. The Denominational School Board oversaw state-funded religious schools, while the National School Board (later the Board of Education) provided secular…

Q is for quartz mining By the late 1850s easily-found gold was beginning to give out. Shallow alluvial deposits that had drawn thousands to the Victorian gold fields were becoming harder to find. Quartz is one of the most common minerals of the Earth's crust. Most quartz veins do not carry gold,…

P is for police on the goldfields The first police force in Victoria comprised the constabulary attached to the Police Magistrates, the first District Constable being appointed in September 1836. From 1837 to 1853, in addition to the local District and Rural Constabulary, there were a number of…

O is for officers on the goldfields In 1867 William Henry Archer (1825–1909), Registrar-General of the Colony of Victoria, published The progress of Victoria : a statistical essay. From page 19 the statistics concern occupations. A table of occupations for 1854-61 gives the percentage proportions…

N is for Navarre In late 1861 Richard Daintree, a field surveyor with the Victorian Geological Survey photographed the diggings at Navarre, south of St Arnaud and northwest of Avoca. Daintree's photograph is a well-known and widely reproduced photograph of Victorian goldfields mining clearly…

M is for mining licences The first gold rush in Australia began in May 1851 after prospector Edward Hargraves with others claimed to have discovered payable gold near Orange, New South Wales, at a site called Ophir. Hargreaves managed to publicise the find before authorities could control the…

L is for Lamplough gold rush In 1987 Denis Strangman, a member of the Avoca and District Historical Society, published an article about the 1859-1860 Lamplough gold rush. First published in Familia Ulster Genealogical Review, Strangman's article has been republished on the Society’s website. Denis…

K is for Kalgoorlie In the last decades of the nineteenth century gold was discovered in Western Australia. Among the rushes were: 1885 "Kimberley gold rush" near Halls Creek 1887 "Yilgarn gold rush" near Southern Cross 1891 "Murchison gold rush" near Cue 1892 gold was found at Coolgardie. 1893…

J is for James Curtis and his syndicate James Curtis (1826–1901) was a Ballarat pioneer and one of the city’s more notable citizens. My husband Greg wrote a guest blog post about him in 2015. James Curtis James Curtis was born in Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England. He trained as a compositor (a…

I is for Inkerman "Battle of Inkermann - Arrival of Bosquet's division" by Adolphe Bayot (1855)From Wikimedia Commons The Victorian gold rushes, which began in 1851, coincided with the Crimean War (1853–1856). With patriotic fervour miners and settlers named new townships, gold leads, and…

H is for hospitals on the goldfields In the first decades of the gold rushes hospitals were established on the goldfields. The Maryborough and Amherst hospital admission records are intact, and from time to time family historians have found them very useful in their research. Maryborough…

G is for goldmining techniques In 1851, when the first diggers arrived on the Mount Alexander goldfield near Castlemaine, it was said that nuggets could be picked up without even digging. When this ran out fossickers then looked for alluvial gold in creeks and rivers or deposited in silt on river…

F is for Four Mile Flat My husband’s family has a connection with the mining hamlet of Homebush in the goldfields of central Victoria; just under 120 miles north-west of Melbourne; 50 miles north of Ballarat (where I live); and six miles north-east of the town of Avoca. Four Mile Flat, later known…

E is for Eaglehawk  In April 1852 while searching for stray horses Joseph Crook found a gold nugget a few miles north-west of present-day Bendigo. Within a short while 20,000 diggers had rushed to the district. Eaglehawk was a particularly wealthy goldfield. Joseph Anderson Panton, Assistant Gold…

D is for dogs on the goldfields The artist Samuel Thomas Gill loved dogs, and they often appeared in his sketches of life on the goldfields. Dogs were useful on the diggings; they could keep you warm at night and guard your tent while you were off prospecting. "Fossicking" by S. T. Gill

C is for churches on the goldfields Goldfields miners did not work on Sunday, which was widely observed as a day of rest and worship. Most miners were Christian; many of them attended religious services. These were initially held in the open air. As the diggings grew church buildings began to be…

B is for Ballarat Within months of the Colony of Victoria separating from the colony of New South Wales in 1851, gold was discovered near Ballarat in the Central Highlands 110 km (68 miles) north-west of Melbourne. Within days of the announcement of the discovery of gold, a rush began, bringing…

A is for Amherst Amherst, site of a former gold-rush town of that name, is 180 kilometres northwest of Melbourne. In 1849 gold was discovered there by a shepherd, Thomas Chapman, on the Glenmona Run. He sold some of his find to a Melbourne jeweller named Brentani. On 31 January 1849 the Melbourne…

1954 Naples to Amsterdam Part 3 by Rafe de Crespigny Continuing the journey from Australia to England in 1954. For the previous instalment see 1954 Naples to Amsterdam Part 2 We travelled by bus from Innsbruck through Salzburg to Munich; and the first thing to notice was the bomb damage. I had…

2026 A to Z challenge theme reveal 2026 will be my thirteenth year of the ‘Blogging from A to Z April Challenge‘, where participants post  twenty-six times, a letter a day for every day of the month except Sundays. This year I will be writing about the gold fields of central Victoria. Many of my…

1954 Naples to Amsterdam Part 2 by Rafe de Crespigny Continuing the journey from Australia to England in 1954. For the previous instalment see 1954 Naples to Amsterdam Part 1 One thing we did before leaving Rome was visit the American Express office and collect our mail. At that time, of course,…

1954 Naples to Amsterdam Part 1 By Rafe de Crespigny Continuing the journey from Australia to England in 1954. For the previous instalment see Betting on sea horses When the  Oronsay docked at Naples, passengers leaving the ship were received into an ocean terminal. A substantial concrete hall,…

Eliza Crowhurst (1844-1919), a devoted mother avocahistory.net.au/2026/03/01/e...

Last month I enjoyed researching the Chinese heritage of the Avoca district avocahistory.net.au/2026/02/28/c...

Betting on the sea horses By Rafe de Crespigny Orient Line postcard of the Oronsay On 7 July 1954, at the age of eighteen, I boarded the Oronsay at Adelaide for passage to Europe with my mother. I had left school at the end of the previous year and had been accepted by Clare College at Cambridge…

The Phipps family during the reign of terror On 21 January 1793, 133 years ago, Louis XVI  of France was executed. The anniversary reminded me of a terrifying experience for some of my ancestors during the period that followed. After France became a republic, fear and uncertainty led to waves of…

I am webmaster for the Avoca and District Historical Society whichovers the area around Avoca in the Central Highlands of Victoia. do you have family history links to the area? avocahistory.net.au

Accentuate the Positive 2025 Blogger Jill Ball has again invited us to look back at the last year of our family history journey. Here is my response to her prompts. 1. I treasured the pleasure of researching and writing I continued to add to my material on Wikitree. I see it as a public repository…

The Seize Quartiers of Sir Claude Champion de Crespigny, 4th baronet Seize Quartiers means "sixteen quarters". In heraldry this indicates that someone's sixteen great-great-grandparents all held coats of arms. To prove Seize Quartiers you must show that this existed for yourself, for all sixteen…

A Family Coat of Arms : some applied heraldry Rafe de Crespigny Introduction: The traditional coat of arms comprises a shield, a crest, a motto and possibly supporters, though supporters are generally used only by members of the nobility: dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts and barons – and of…

Christmas at Eurambeen East 1902 My great great aunt Ada Champion Crespigny (1848-1927) saved family letters. Her collection was passed on to her nephew, my great grandfather, Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952). One of these letters written in 1902 is to Ada from her mother,…

Floods across Victoria in 1870. An image from the State Library of the Avoca River in flood. avocahistory.net.au/2025/12/30/a...

For many years the Avoca and District Historical Society's website was hosted by the State Library of Victoria. This month they discontinued their free web hosting services. The new website is at avocahistory.net.au

Silence, the presence of absence In December 1915, one hundred and ten years ago, all British forces, including Australians and New Zealanders, were silently evacuated from the Gallipoli peninsula, on which they had landed in April. Their withdrawal brought to an end a costly and controversial…

Parrot Pie for Christmas dinner 1890 My great great aunt Ada Champion Crespigny (1848-1927) saved family letters. Her collection was passed on to her nephew, my great grandfather, Constantine Trent Champion de Crespigny (1882-1952). Among them is a letter he wrote as a boy from Eurambeen East near…

Cherry Stones updated Family history is an engrossing hobby, a fascinating challenge to trace relationships, and an opportunity to discover how a family has experienced historical events. I am fortunate that quite a few of my forebears and their relatives were also interested in family history,…