City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 244Smith’s most famous sire, Wallace, was son of the great Carbine. Douglas Barrie has correctlydescribed Wallace as:Undoubtedly one of the greatest sires – whether colonial bred or imported – that has ever stood atstud in Australia. In his twenty-two years at stud Wallace begot sons and daughters who betweenthem won 949 races worth £ 246 145 in stakes.Wallace’s grave is next to the stables at Bundoora Park (Healy 2007:29-37).In 1920 the Commonwealth Government acquired the property for use as BundooraConvalescent Farm, one of the first repatriation facilities in Australia. In 1930, the BundooraPark estate was sub-divided in an agreement signed by the Commonwealth and StateGovernments. 456 acres of the former horse stud, which included the thoroughbred stables,manager’s brick cottage, a small timber hut and other outbuildings, were allocated for use as aRemount Depot by the mounted police. The hut was used as accommodation for Aboriginaltrackers (see Policing, 6.2 below). Some of these buildings are still part of Cooper’s Settlementat Bundoora Park. The Police stud occupied part of Bundoora Park until it moved toBroadmeadows in 1953 (Carroll, 1985:211-13; Heathcote; Healy, 2007:38-55).At the southern end of Preston, allotment 144 Parish of Jika Jika, a 320 acre (130 ha) propertybetween present-day Bell Street and Murray Road, was purchased from the Crown by JamesMitchell, a London speculator. During the 1850s, and probably earlier, the property was leasedto Timothy Shepherd for grazing sheep, and it became known as Shepherd’s Run. Shepherdbuilt a house of timber cut from the property for his family. In the 1870s the property wentthrough two phases of subdivision, and in 1894 107 small farming blocks were offered for sale.This was a typical pattern of subdivision that established Preston as a district of small farmersand market gardeners in the 1860s and 70s. In 1865 the Sands and McDougall Directorylisted 63% of Preston’s residents as farmers or (market) gardeners. Most of them farmed smallallotments of 10 to 40 acres (4-16 ha) and built small cottages (Carroll & Rule, 1985:27).DairyingDairying was a principal industry and Preston was a major supplier of Melbourne’s fresh milk.H. Bamfield ran a large herd of 260 cows in 1897 on the Strathallan Estate, which laterbecame part of the farm run by the Mont Park Mental Hospital. It is now part of La TrobeUniversity (Forster, 1968:47; Carroll & Rule, 1985:201). Another large dairy herd was Stott’sat Merrilands.Suppliers of town milk were required to be registered cow-keepers under the Milk and DairySupervision Act 1905, and their farms had to be correctly run. While some farmers sent theirmilk twice a day to dairies such as Thompson’s in Thornbury for cooling and distribution,others had their own cooling plants and distributed their milk directly to customers. From1911, some suburban farm dairies had brine coolers, which kept milk fresh for longer than awater cooler. Rosehill Dairy in Wood Street Preston is recorded as having a cooling plant inthe 1920s. At that stage Preston had over 60 dairies. Preston dairymen were proud of the purequality of their milk and they distributed it throughout the neighbouring suburbs (Priestley1984:155, Jones 1994:1-28; www.dhe.darebin-libraries.vic.gov.au).In 1933, a new Milk Board raised standards in dairies and about half of Melbourne’s localdairies were de-licensed. Those remaining improved their technology and became bigger. TheTomkins family, who started a dairy in Thornbury in 1924, expanded into a ‘New ModelDairy’ on the corner of Shaftsbury Parade and St George’s Road in 1933. The dairy hadmilking machines and the latest refrigeration and bottling equipment. George and Agnes Cuttsbuilt the Centenary Dairy and Milk Bar in Heidelberg Road Alphington in 1934. It continuedin business until 1980 (Priestley, 1984:262; ‘Jubilee Celebrations’ 1933:8).Pasteurisation began during the 1940s, however as late as 1949 there were still farmers in thearea distributing milk directly from their farms. In 1949, Keon Park residents visited JackO’Rourke’s farm to buy their milk, presumably taking their own billies for filling (Jones,1994:93).