Book to show historical value of Ranelagh
THREE authors have started a crowdfunding campaign for funds to publish a history of Mt Eliza’s famous Ranelagh Estate. Ranelagh was designed in 1924 by world-renowned American architects, planners a...
Category Archives: Local History
Remembering the forgotten heroes
They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them or the years condemn At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. On every Anzac Day it is cu...
Robert Bartlett Bates – Mornington’s stretcher bearer hero
OF the 120 listed on the honour roll in Mornington’s Memorial Park, a number were decorated for bravery under fire. One of those was Robert Bates of the Australian Army Medical Corps who returned hom...
Getting conditioned for the front
BEFORE moving to Mornington the Bates family lived in Frankston and Robert played for that team. The Mornington Standard of 7 September, 1912 carried a lengthy report of proceedings before the Franks...
Alfred Edward Bates
THE father of Robert Bates, Alfred Edward Bates was the son of Robert Jackson Bates, a leading English cotton manufacturer. Born in Manchester in 1850, Alfred Bates came to Australia in 1875 and work...
Hastings’ link with the silent Anzac
IN a quiet corner of the Tyabb cemetery in Hastings can be found the grave of Leading Signalman Albert Norman Charles Thomson. For decades the grave had no means of identification but about eight yea...
HMAS Goorangai – lost with all hands
HMAS Goorangai was the first Royal Australian Navy ship lost in World War II, the first RAN surface ship lost in wartime, and the first RAN surface ship lost with all hands. What makes this tragedy ...
The forgotten victims of war
IN his book “Those We Forget”, published in 2014, David Noonan comments on the “casualties” which occurred after the cessation of hostilities in 1918 amongst the AIF men who were wounded or ga...
Story behind Australia’s WWI VC that came just before war’s end
THIS recent publication, Great courage and initiative – The heroic life of George Ingram VC, MM, by A J McAleer, records the life of George Mawby Ingram who was awarded the VC for his actions a...
Historian dies at 88
SOMERVILLE historian and author Leila Shaw has died at age 88 after a short illness. Mrs Shaw founded the Somerville, Tyabb and District Heritage Society 20 years ago and material she donated became ...
