Category Archives: History

From Sorrento to Mudgee

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by  Peter Munro

It is an oppressively hot Friday in March as I stood beside the grave of Trooper William Croome in the Mudgee Cemetery. Beside me stood William’s great niece Helen Shearman. As we read the inscription on the headstone, my thoughts were with William’s five mates who were buried on the Sorrento Cemetery and of the ‘Drayton Grange’ that ill-fated, ill equipped troopship who through sickness and death is the catalyst for the connection between these two towns.

Helen Shearman with Peter Munro

Helen Shearman with Peter Munro

Sorrento to Mudgee is quite a distance, even by to-day’s standards with the comforts of plane and hire car. Back in August 1902, the trip would have been considerably longer for William Croome who made his final journey from the military hospital at Fort Franklin, Portsea, to his home town of Mudgee, N.S.W. This was a homecoming poor William would never see. Continue reading →

1913 In Review

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It was in 1913 that the name of Australia’s capital city was launched. Our first postage stamp with a kangaroo inside a map of Australia appeared, as did the first Commonwealth banknote the ten shilling note which, in that year, was considered a good week’s wage.

1d original-stamps

In Melbourne, with its population of 651,000, it was ‘the year of the dome’, with the opening of the domed reading room at The State Library of Victoria. For the first time, lost dogs had a home in North Melbourne, The Eye and Ear Hospital was completed, and the demolition company of ‘Whelan the Wrecker’ was starting to make its mark upon Melbourne’s skyline. Daniel Mannix, who was to become Melbourne’s Roman Catholic Archbishop for 46 years, arrived in Australia, and half a million people came to visit Luna Park in its first year of operation……..”just for fun”.

Sorrento in 1913 seemed to offer more subdued pieces of news than in the previous year, which contained a drowning, a shipwreck, a hotel fire, misplaced vice-regal property and a conflict of local judicial interests.

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1912 In Review

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1912 could be regarded as the ‘Titanic’ year of the 20th Century. All other international and Australian events were dwarfed in comparison with this epic maritime disaster resulting in the loss of 1500 lives.

Melbourne saw the price of milk raised to 5d a quart because of dearer feed to the horses. A bill was introduced in the Victorian House of Representatives for ₤5 a year maternity allowance for white women. Melbourne’s new amusement park, Luna Park was opened in St. Kilda and just down the bay at Geelong, the Hills Hoist rotary clothes line was invented. Continue reading →

1911 In Review

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1911 revealed Australia’s census to have a population of 4,435,000 people. Which bank was established? Of course it was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. In a personality and country race, Amundsen won the victory to be the first to the South Pole and for all those wanting to hum a tune, ‘Alexander’s Rag Time Band’ was the number one hit tune of 1911.

My three hours of Research at the State Library of Victoria into the events and happenings within the Sorrento community in 1911 was interesting to say the least. About ½ way through my research, I began to wonder just how many times George Morce, a local identity would be brought before the Sorrento Court. I had reached the month of August and already he had managed 4 appearances (3 for being drunk and disorderly with the usual fine of 10∕- or 48 hours’ default) and one for throwing a missile which turned out to be a beer bottle.

Mornington and Dromana Standard 1911

Here are a few further snippets of daily life in and around Sorrento in 1911 as reported in “The Mornington and Dromana Standard” of the day:

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