Maryborough Midlands Historical Society Inc

15/04/2026

AN IMPORTANT HISTORY TALK, on WED. 22 APR, @ M’BRO ART GALLERY.

THIS COULD BE VERY USEFUL for the MARYBOROUGH DISTRICT TOURISM ECONOMY, because there is evidence that growing numbers of people with connections to China are interested in what they can learn from visiting/reading about the relevant history of the Central Goldfields, especially the large number of people who, whether they have road vehicles or not, are more used to using public transport on their recreation days.

The evidence includes
1) that the Melbourne-based Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria (CAFHOV) group were the catalyst which enabled the funding for the first decade,1857-1867, of surviving “Maryborough & Dunolly Advertiser” newspapers to be made available online for reading and research. ( They’re at TROVE www.trove.nla.gov.au, Considerable years of experience by historical groups across Australia show that having the local historical papers online increases both the quality of research outputs and the quantity of visitation to the relevant area. The 1857-67 Advertisers, plus the Great War years papers, funded by Canberra, make up the total of the historical information newspapers that the Shire area has online).

2) the number of fairly recent immigrants to Melbourne, from mainly the Guangdong/Hong Kong area of China, who are curious enough about the experience their earlier countrymen had on the Victorian Goldfields to make day-tripper train journeys to Ballarat, Ararat, Castlemaine and Bendigo, all places which have made unique attractions for modern day-trippers, and material to share back home.

Locally, only Avoca with its Chinese Gardens, new Historical Society Blog, and huge percentage of historical newspapers online, and Dunolly with its relevant Museum artefacts and Chinese Gold-seeker history publications, seem to be geared up, (but unfortunately not reachable by train day-trippers).
I guess that because I train day-trip from Melbourne TO Maryborough, I see things differently from most locals, who trip OUT. Every time I train it to Maryborough on a public holiday, there’s at least one person, more often a couple, of Asian background who, (seeing me warming up my aged pins by pacing the aisle), asks me something about what’s relevant in Maryborough. Yes, it’s very surprising, and I’ve discovered they can also give me good information.

Most of them are interested in the experience of the Chinese gold-seekers, and tell me they have already train day-tripped to some/most/all of Ballarat, Bendigo, Castlemaine and Ararat, and have shared their experiences with others, usually by phone text, video and photos.

For Maryborough information, because on-the-day they’ve been on foot, I’ve been able to share only visual and verbal descriptions of the Cemetery’s Chinese section, and of the initial Chinamans Gully (s.w.Bristol Hill 1854/5), and the chain of locations of Upper Chinamans, Chinamans Flat, Central Chinamans and New Chinamans (all now part of Bowenvale), with a mention that the road connecting them to Maryborough is (still, thank goodness) named Pekin. It’s all very primitive and I wish I had better local mobility and publication skills.

On the train, these days I carry a list of suggestions, for Maryborough’s historical Chinese presence, to look up https://www.cafhov.com , and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timor,_Victoria for Bowenvale,
https://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/20316 as the link to the aerial photo in the State Library of the now long-gone Chinese market gardens and buildings in the centre of Maryborough, now roughly in the area where the Aldi supermarket now stands, and yes, there were market gardens further down the Four Mile Creek.

https://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/45364 as an intro to the precious 75 photos now in the State Library, taken by the amazing Dunolly-born, Majorca, then Maryborough businessman, William Henry Wong Ying “Billy Ying” whose red brick motor garage with his name on the parapet, where quite a few Maryborough lads learnt their trade, still stands in Alma St, just north of Nolan St. I’ve no idea why, locally, his skills aren’t more widely acknowledged and shared with potential and actual visitors.

And for the Pipedream Department, there’s the futuristic idea of Ballarat, Ararat, Maryborough, Castlemaine and Bendigo working together to create an online guide for a week-long (or lesser segment) experience for users of either road vehicles, or the trains plus the coach on the scenic road from Maryborough to Guildford to Castlemaine to complete their tour. Of course, it would work much better if Maryborough had much more, more relevant material within walking distance of the Station than it does now.
For implementation of any of the above, thinking as someone who works online with, amongst others, this Maryborough Midlands Historical Society and who is a member of the Maryborough Family History Group, I’m sure that by now, one or the other group would have implemented at least some of it, if they had the capacity, rather than the current looming opposite, so where to now? It seems both a tragedy for Maryborough District History, and a considerable local economic loss if the Community can't make more of the history interests of its increasing number of Chinese visitors. Perhaps Wednesday's gathering at the Art Gallery, on such a focused topic, will have some ideas.

Sadly, my octogenerian health just now prevents me from being there, so I hope you have a great time on the day. Tom Woolman, page. ed.

LECTURE: 10:30am Wednesday, 22 April 2026

Maryborough’s Chinese Communities:
The gold rushes and beyond
Lecture by Dr Sophie Couchman

Dr Sophie Couchman is a Professional Historian and Curator who
works closely with communities to tell their stories. She has researched
and published in the field of Chinese Australian history for many
years and has been working very closely with the See Yup Society
since a major fire at the See Yup Temple in 2024. She enjoys sharing
history through a range of mediums such as exhibitions, walking tours,
oral histories and online resources.

$10 per person/$8 concession, refreshments provided.
Please book online see link below or in the linktree link in our bio above call the Gallery on 03 5461 6600

https://events.humanitix.com/maryborough-s-chinese-communitiesl-the-goldrushes-and-beyond

This lecture is part of the Australian Heritage Festival and the Gallery’s Art
& Engagement Series. Presented in conjunction with U3A Maryborough Inc.

Image: Dr Sophie Couchman giving a guided tour.

14/04/2026

Visit Maryborough & Surrounds Page has recently shared this postcard of "The Lawns" at Princes Park, from the times when a walk around the Park, and even around Lake Victoria and/or the Botanical (now Phillips) Gardens, was a common thing to do, especially if you were in your best clothes and didn't want to ride your bicycle.

If you look carefully, you can see the Band Rotunda, built in 1904/5 a commemoration of the beginning and naming of Maryborough further down the Four Mile Creek valley in 1854.
Unlike the two rotundas in the main street of Ballarat, it was strategically placed between the Lawns and the Oval to better accommodate musical accompaniment for events on either or both! Its intricate cast iron work was made by Robinson’s Foundry (located where the Highland Society is now), and gas for the luxury of lighting came from the Gas Works at the bend in Burns St.
On the far left of the photo, the tall white "pole" is the concrete base and column of one of the seven concrete Art Deco spherical "street" lights the Borough Council had installed to "modernise" Maryborough.
The other Art Deco lights were at the four corners of the High-Nolan crossing and two where the original Station Street left the Burns-Cambridge (now Nolan) Street junction. In later years, after frequent damage to the spherical shades, the lights were removed. tom w.

'Throwback Thursday' 1940 at Princes Park, when the white posts surrounded the grassed area.

Today the precinct is our main recreational location, full of historical significance.

27/03/2026

VICTORIA’S RAILWAY GAUGES EARNING THEIR CONVERSION

Thank you Schony747YouTube&DVA for the video.

A railway line gauge is how far the two track rails are apart. In the Nineteenth Century, Australian Colonial Railway main railway lines were built to different track rail gauges of 1,600 mm apart for Victoria, 1,435 mm for N.S.W., and 1,067 mm for Western Australia and Queensland. Since 1962, the larger and smaller gauge ones are being replaced with only that of N.S.W’s, so that train carriages and wagons can be used all over the nation.
Recently, the very long Indian Pacific Sydney-to-Perth train was prevented by floods from taking its direct route through Broken Hill, but due to the completed gauge conversion between Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, was still able to reach its destination in Perth.
If you’d like to know more about the history of the Australian railway gauges saga, Wikipedia’s 26/3/2026 entry “Rail Gauge in Australia” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_gauge_in_Australia is O.K. but what A.I. is putting out is heavily ignorant.
Actually it’s important for Maryborough people who come in contact with tourists and Mallee people, to know how the Mildura to Melbourne railway line has been converted to get the grain harvest to the ports at Portland and Geelong (Hint: The Mildura line now goes via Ararat, not Ballarat, making a trip to Melbourne an extra seven+hours).
The map in the Wikipedia link shows the routes of the three main Australian railway lines system, with Grey being Standard Gauge lines, Yellow being the early Broad 1,600 mm apart Gauge lines, and Blue being the Narrow 1435 mm apart Gauge Lines, (but not the Narrowest Gauge, rails 762 mm apart, Puffing Billy line, so important for Victorian Tourism.)
Thank you again to Schony747YouTube&DVD for the video. tom w. Page ed.

10/03/2026

Here's one for BOWENVALE & TIMOR Residents, a GREAT idea for a great DAY.

I thought the Society could be a little cheeky, and, while knowing that we don’t have enough volunteers to do what we otherwise could for the area, in recent years we have been trying…….. So I’ve posted the following, currently waiting for the approval of their host platform, in the hope it may be both informative and even a conversation starter for a shy one.
“Our Society wishes the Bowenvale-Timor Community members a great meet-up, whether your patch in the sun was earlier known as one, or over time, more of "of the Bet Bet", Timor (by the surveyor, but ignored), Butcher's Bridge, Cox'sTown/Coxtown, Chinaman's Flat, Upper, Central, or New Chinaman's, or Leviathan Reef, Timor Creek/Lower Alma, Lime Kiln Plains/Timor West, Dwyer's Bridge, Bowenvale (named after the Governor of Victoria who later became the Governor of Hong Kong), or Timor (finally liked enough to be used).

In recent years we’ve tried to gather and clarify more of the great history, in sections of the two volumes of the History of Maryborough 1854-1904 and 1905-1961, and online at Wikipedia “Timor Victoria” Facebook “Lost Timor-Bowenvale”, and by supporting the Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria Group in getting the first 10 years of the surviving Maryborough & Dunolly Advertisers online at www.trove.nla.gov.au tom w. Mmhs page ed. “

07/03/2026

Just a reminder for those in the vicinity of NEWPORT,
VICTORIA's HISTORIC RAILWAY WORKSHOPS and the RAILWAY MUSEUM are
OPEN THIS WEEKEND -
including the fascinating WORKING MODEL of the former HISTORIC MARYBOROUGH STATION and GOOD MARSHALLING YARD (as seen on YouTube.)
Wandering amongst the great range of indoor and outdoor experiences make for a great day.
It's all within walking distance of the Newport Metro Station, on the line from Footscray, with road vehicle parking along and off to the side of Champion Road (but sorry, for different reasons, no accommodation for water craft or airplanes) .
Whatever, the weather is fine, so please ENJOY!!! tw page ed.

WE ARE OPEN for the first day of the 2026 Newport Workshops Open Days!

GET YOUR TICKETS - http://www.steamrail.com.au/opendays

02/03/2026

AVOCA and CHINESE NEW YEAR 17 FEBRUARY- 3 MARCH 2026
This Chinese/Lunar New Year, the page of the Avoca and District Historical Society, thanks to their years of work in getting 38 years of their local papers online in TROVE, and the research of the Webmaster, Anne Young, has a series of very interesting articles, complete with illustrations, which you can see on that Page.

Unfortunately, although the Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria Group generously enabled our Society to have 10 years of the Maryborough & Dunolly Advertisers online, I didn’t have the time to add to what has been posted for previous years for our area.
I did write a piece for the Avoca page (my McVicar, McNab, Glover & Hoy gggrand parents lived in the area). It’s here..

WILLIE AH HON, A BANANA CONTRACT, and ME

When our family moved from M'bro to Ararat in 1950, I was surprised to learn about Chinese market gardeners and house-to-house sellers. I'd never heard about M'bro's, probably because they had retired. However, in Ararat, Willie Ah Hon, in his flimsy sandals and baggy old clothes, pushed his squeaking barrow, with its thick rope from the handles around his bent shoulders, along the gravel footpaths, laden with both vegetables and fruit. When he saw me for the first time, in the front garden, he gave me a delicious banana, making sure from then on I told Mum when he was coming along.

Later I learned the location of the extensive gardens he had shared with his departed kinsmen, with their rows of vegetables, and, in the distance, the compulsory sewered toilet (something M’bro was yet to have) and behind it, about only thrice the size, plus chimney, Willie’s tiny unpainted weatherboard home. I can’t remember where those of others may still have been.

Sadly, Willie’s home caught fire in September 1953, and aged 89-93 years (depending on the reference) he died. Surprisingly, I’ve just found a report of the fire online, in the 15 September 1953 Melbourne Age, which revealed that Willie was married and had a son in “South China,” most likely the Guangdong Province of current times.

Also, Findagrave online shows that in the Ararat Cemetery, Willie’s grave has a new headstone, with an illustration of a Chinese hawker/seller carrying his goods in a traditional pair of shoulder baskets, devices Willie, according to the local historical society, used before he started coming along with that wheel barrow, I remember from before I started school. Tom W. page ed.

01/03/2026

A NEW ISSUE of OUR NEWSLETTER “DIGGINGS” for February 2026
is now on our website at https://mmhs.net.au/about
-
More great research from our Editor, President, Curator, etc.,Barb Nielsen has resulted in Articles which continue the theme of the previous issue, which focused on Maryborough Hospital Staff who served in the Great War.
In this new issue, topics include:-
A report of a successful wood bee in 1914, an annual event required to supply the forest wood to heat the boiler to make the steam for medical, cooking and some heating purposes. Further into the past, another article relates to the cost of supplies in 1857.

In acknowledgement of International Women’s Day on 8 March, a biography of the amazing Marta Tobler, one of the co-founders of the Maryborough (White Works) Knitting Mill, along with George Cuttle. It’s a great read.

A snippet on the repairs to the 1950s former wash-house at the Worsley Cottage. (I had to smile at Barb’s referring to a major piece of equipment as “Cement Tubs”, when in Maryborough all I ever heard them called was “wash troughs” or “wash-troves” - the latter another piece of local dialect disappearing over time).

OUR ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING, is on Wednesday March 18, at 2pm, at our Research Rooms at Palmerston St., Maryborough, as usual, followed by the option of a tour of recent building, exhibition and garden improvements, which reminds me that I need to acknowledge our webmaster, Craig Roberts, for all his work our website. It now includes his photos of the development of the garden, following its near obliteration during the rebuilding of so much of the Worsley’s Cottage, plus a video of the most mature section, which can be seen on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSWb-Kbyjp4
Best regards, tom w. page ed.

The new garden at Worsley Cottage is progressing.

27/02/2026

MANY OF US HAVE CONNECTIONS WITH MEN & WOMEN WHO SERVED in the FORCES assembled for WARS, and now rest in the Maryborough or Carisbrook Cemetery. Should you wish to let their closest kin know of this initiative by the NextGen sector of Maryborough Rotary, please pass this on ASAP. If you're not sure whether they served, try a name search on www.naa.gov.au For Cemeteries try https://www.findagrave.com for graves which have been located, or do an online search for a range of information for Maryborough or Carisbrook, such as https://map.chronicle.rip › maryborough-cemetery. You never know, you may end up talking to someone you only ever see at funerals. And to the NextGen Maryborough Rotary Members, we say congratulations and thank you for this great new initiative.

This ANZAC Day, the Rotary NextGen Club will be placing Australian flags on the graves of service men and women to honour their memory and service.
Maryborough and Carisbrook cemeteries will be participating in this year’s project.
If you would like your loved one remembered in this way, please complete a consent form.

Consent forms are available:�• On our Rotary Club page�• [email protected]�• Maryborough Library

Let us help you honour and remember those who served.

12/02/2026

This is FOR those who would like to experience a little of the ATMOSPHERE of the VICTORIAN GOVERNMENT RAILWAYS, in which the MARYBOROUGH JUNCTION played such a BIG PART.

The flyer refers to "Melbourne's 140 History,” the huge former Victorian Railways Workshop at the south western suburb of Newport , BUT all the massive indoor and outdoor museum contents, both static, and moving around the huge yard, will be open on the days.

Maryborough was connected to the Victorian railway network 151 years ago, via both Castlemaine, for a fast trip to Melbourne, or via Ballarat and Geelong, for a much slower one, due to the steep slopes between Ballan and Bacchus Marsh, which took another 15 years to overcome. (Plenty of evidence of that on YouTube. Look for the Ingliston Bank.)

In the Museum at Newport, there's a wide range of locomotives and train rolling stock, and last time I went, a huge photo of the Maryborough current Station Building, without any label on it, so I could hear others passing by asking "where was that?” Apart from the size of the building, there was no clue as to Maryborough's 300 staff, large train marshalling yards, maintenance and repair workshops, servicing, re-fuelling and watering facilities, administration and safety responsibilities right to the borders with South Australia and N.S.W. Nor its regular sending off 43 trains per day, with 4 around mid-day, to the four points of the compass - Ararat, Ballarat, Castlemaine, and Dunolly for the Mildura or Inglewood lines.

Sadly, gradually the history of the great Centre of State, Maryborough Railway Junction disappears, so if you manage to get to the Workshops, and feel up to it, ask someone on duty, what’s in the Museum about MARYBOROUGH!! It all helps to keep the whole works, not just the Station building, in people's minds. Yay!!
tom w. page ed.

02/02/2026

OUR MUSEUMS and GARDEN are now OPEN Tuesdays & Thursdays 10am-noon, and Sundays 2-4pm. We will love to see you!

OUR RESEARCH CENTRE is OPEN Tuesdays & Thursdays 10am-noon, but CLOSED on Sundays. Yes, CLOSED ON SUNDAYS.

Because the best use of research time always requires us to pre-research answers for you, please contact us well before your visit to discuss your Research needs. tw.

10/01/2026

Thanks to the (great) Goldfields Information Centre (which is right on the Platform at the Maryborough Railway Station) for this great pic from the final year of the McIvor Hotel. It was the Maryborough Brass Band (stirring our English DNA) which played from the McIvor Hotel balcony on New Year's eve. On New Years Day, the procession down High Street to Princes Park and the Scottish Highland Competitions featured "Pipe" Highland bands from all around, as far as Melbourne, stirrring our Scottish DNA, with the Maryborough Brass Band in the procession as well. I don't know how, in those uniforms, they endured the heat on the hottest days, but year after year, they did. tw.

‘Throwback Thursday’ to the 1965 Maryborough Highland Gathering parade, marching proudly down High Street.

☝️Maryborough Highland Society hosted their 163rd Highland Gathering last week.

🥁One of Australia’s oldest events, continues to draw visitors to our region annually.
📸 Maryborough: A Photographic History

30/12/2025

OCH AYE, IT’S McIVOR and the HIGHLAND GATHERINGS.

It was inevitable that in what’s now the Central Goldfields and neighbouring areas, many manifestations of the Scottish culture were created over the decades, with many still surviving.

From the 1830s, fortune seekers of Scottish origins developed pastoral runs, and from the 1850s, gold seekers and immigrants, often displaced persons, from Scotland, and, from Ireland, those of Scottish (planter) descent, arrived in large numbers.
Scottish names for places and businesses, religious, educational, musical and social organisations, and activities can be found everywhere. In Castlemaine’s “Mount Alexander Mail” in September 1854, a Caledonian Lottery, with FIRST prize a “superb Highland Dress, including sporran, pistol and powder horn", SECOND prize, an imported carriage for two horses, and many more was advertised. See http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article202635961 Goodness knows where such luxurious possessions were to be paraded.

Maryborough formed up as a town in 1855, having begun in 1854 as a rush to the White Hills between what’s now Simson and Havelock. Newspapers began, but were affected by customers rushing elsewhere. It seems that for the early history of Maryborough, before the first surviving Maryborough & Dunolly Advertiser of 1857, (now online in Trove*), historical information must be found elsewhere.

The text book by Trenear DuBourg and Betty Osborn “Maryborough, A Social History 1854-1904” ** collects together what’s known of how, when and where the Maryborough Highland Gathering/Games/Sports began. It’s a very interesting compilation***. Unfortunately, the write-up is too long for this Page, and no other website seems to be giving details, so I will have to suggest to others how they may accommodate it. Maybe Maryborough’s Wikipedia entry?

NOTES:
*Always our thanks to the Chinese Australian Family Historians of Victoria group for their gaining the funding to get the early Advertisers on Trove at the National Library of Australia. www.trove.nla.gov.au
**. The second edition (2011) of this book has the same text and page numbers of the first, plus a greatly improved index. If you have the first edition (1985), ask the society for a copy of the new index. Ideally, it would be great to have it online, but we know that the enquiries and visitors it would stimulate would overwhelm our unfortunately tiny number of research helpers.
*** The Maryborough McIvor Hotel was the place of many Scottish and general community meetings, from raising the funds to build a Presbyterian (Scottish) Church, to establishing a reliable Maryborough newspaper, to beoming a Municipality, to forming a Mutual Protection Society to reduce crime coming from the nere-do-wells of "Alma" (an area much larger than now).

- While some old postcards suggest that "McIvor" was the surname of a publican, it was more likely from the McIvor Goldfield (Heathcote) which was named after the McIvor Creek, which was named after a member of Surveyor Thomas Mitchell’s expedition across that area in 1836.

Here's an Advertiser notice for a Meeting of the Highland Society Sub-Committee at the McIvor Hotel in November 1858, and yes, on 1 January 1858, there had been a Highland Gathering, including Scottish sports, at White Hills, following a procession "from the Glasgow Hotel" Maryborough - seems a long way to march, but it's there in the Advertiser.
tom w page ed.