Hey xxx, Tulla Primary are having a back to school day on the 1st November 9.30-11.30. Wasn't sure if you are aware of it. THAT'S NEXT FRIDAY!

How do you write thousands of pages of history in half a dozen pages? Well, I'll give it a try. Any pioneers mentioned can probably be found in itellya's journals on Family Tree circles by googling the surname and Tullamarine. e.g. Parr, Tullamarine.

THE PARRS OF "THE ELMS" AND "ANNANDALE" AT TULLAMARINE, VIC., AUST.
Journal by itellya
PARR
With the Nash and Wright families, the Parrs were mainstays of the Tullamarine Methodist Church. The family also gave great service to the Keilor Shire Council with James Henry serving as President six times and his son, Bill, four times. James and his wife were known by locals as Da and Ma Parr. James and later his son, Sam, farmed "The Elms" (5,F/10) and Bill lived n/w of the west end of Sharps Rd (15, D/1) on part of Annandale which was not absorbed into the Arundel Closer Settlement, keeping the name of grocer Annand's grant for his farm. The Parrs left England in 1853, going to New Zealand before arriving in Australia with Ann Parr seeming to have lost her husband during that time. The family lived in Tullamarine until The Elms was bought for Airport Purposes in about 1960. More information in my "Before The Jetport".
The success of the Back to Tullamarine reunions of 1989 and 1998 was chiefly due to Winnie Lewis, daughter of Sam Parr (the first beardless man one oldtimer ever saw.)
EARLY DAYS.
The first school in our area was supposed to have been running at Springs in 1850. This could* have been near Tullamarine or Keilor Rd, because both areas were given the same locality name. Imagine going to the wrong one! Soon the area near Keilor Rd was called Springfield.
(*POSTSCRIPT 3-5-2020. Isaac Batey married a Winter girl who attended Mr Trimmer's school and told Isaac it was behind the Beech Tree hotel; this hotel being opposite today's Melrose Drive Reserve.
BATEY Isaac, Marriage, WINTER, Lydia, 1877 reg. no.173/1877)


The 1850 school was most likely near the "Governor's house" on Spring Creek between Beverage Drive and the Western Ring Road.(Wrong. See postscript above.) J.F.L.Foster owned the land between Keilor Park Drive (formerly Fosters Rd) and the river and his older brother William owned land on both sides of Sharps Rd as far east as Broadmeadows Rd. William went home and John became owner of the lot.

When Governor Latrobe became sick and retired early, John Foster and then the son of merino breeder,John Macarthur, acted as Governor until Governor Hotham arrived. The Fosters had been squatting near Tullamarine by 1840 when they were issued a lease for Leslie Park; John called his grant near the river "Leslie Banks."

The first long-lived school in Tullamarine , Wesleyan School 632, was on an acre donated by John Foster near the bend in Cherie St. and started in 1855. Seafield School, on the south side of Grants Rd right where it would cross the north-south runway (if you could still drive to McNabs Rd),and the Tullamarine Island School (west side of Glenloeman Rd) were started in 1859.

The land between Broadmeadows Rd and the Moonee Ponds Creek became Camp Hill, owned by Eyre Evans Kenny after whom two streets were named in Broadmeadows Township (Westmeadows.) It went north to Camp Hill Park (across Mickleham Rd from the 711 service station.) Kenny sold the triangle west of Melrose Drive and soon Gretna Green was being advertised for sale in lots of about 20 acres (actually 26.) A little girl who grew up on Camp Hill in the 1860's was Pattie Brown who married Alfred Deakin, the father of Federation (with Parkes.) In about 1940, a fellow called Scott renamed the farm as Gowanbrae.

The land on both sides of Melrose Drive between the Derby St corner and Melbourne Airport was granted to John Pascoe Fawkner and John Carre Riddell. They swapped bits of their grants cut off by today's Melrose Drive (Macedon/ Deep Creek/ Bulla/ Lancefield Rd over the years) so that Fawkner's land was on the Keilor side and Riddell's on the Broadmeadows side. Riddell and his partner,Hamilton, called their land,which went east to Mickleham Rd, the Camiestown Estate which they divided into small farms and acre blocks in Hamilton Terrace, which was bounded by Derby St as far north as Greenhill St (now Mercer Drive.)

Just south of the Derby St. corner was the Lady of the Lake Hotel and a farm called Broombank (Millar Rd/ Tadstan Drive area.) Two little O'Nial girls watched Robert O'Hara Burke's expedition in 1860 through the Cape Broom hedge as it passed by. These were east of Bulla Rd on John Foster's land and by about 1867 the Junction hotel was built; it was closed in about 1929 because of the antics of such as Squizzie Taylor and less criminal drunks, later becoming Cec. and Lily Green's Green's Corner shop and petrol station,the Mobil Service Station and now 711.

Two farms were north of Camp Hill,Viewpoint,to the Lackenheath Drive corner and Stewarton, to Foreman St,the southern boundary of Broadmeadows Township. Edmund Dunn of Viewpoint was a Wesleyan Trustee but felt no guilt about leaving his farm in different ways to avoid the toll gate, which had earlier been south of Gretna Green,near Sharps Rd. Edmund sued the Melbourne Hunt for trampling his crops and terrifying his ewes.

One of the first occupants of Stewarton was Peter McCracken, there 1846-1855 before moving to his Kensington Park dairy (later occupied by W.S.Cox as Kensington Park racecourse until subdivision in 1882 caused his move to Moonee Valley) and then Ardmillan at Moonee Ponds. Stewarton was renamed Gladstone circa 1893 and is now the northern 777 acres of Gladstone Park/Gardens.

Exact locations and extensive detail of the hotels near Tullamarine are given in itellya's journal about HOTELS NEAR TULLAMARINE. They were the Travellers' Rest,Lady of the Lake,Beach Tree and Inverness.

Early pioneers on our side of the Moonee Ponds Creek included James Sharp(1867) and Maurice Crotty (1860) south of Sharps Rd on The Springs, the Williamsons (Fairview, 400 acres of Foster land across Sharps Rd, Camp Hill, Arundel Closer Settlement block and the Keilor Park Recreation Reserve), Anderson,Parr, Wright, John Cock (my great grandfather) who arrived in 1864 as a servant indentured to John Hall ("Southwaite Gill", i.e. Strathmore Heights) Spiers (Peter committed suicide), McNabs and Grants (of Oakbank and Seafield) of Ayrshire breeding fame, Malcolm Ritchie of Aucholzie and Gowrie Park (I named Gowrie Park Drive in the airport, this farm was west of Payne's triangular pig farm "Scone" now occupied by the terminal building), the Mansfields near Mansfields Rd,Duncan and Thompson,grantees of Gowrie Park, James Lane,on Gowrie Park when it was first used as a landing field etc. On the west side of Mickleham Rd,was the Junction Estate ( poultry farm owned circa 1970 by the family of horse fanatic Katie Butterworth, one of my Tulla students.)

Oops, I've slipped into the 1970's so I might as well stay there after I get to the Westmeadows Footy Ground. The Junction Estate, traditionally linked with the Junction Hotel, now includes North Edge, and Andlon and Londrew Courts. The land from just south of Freight Rd to the creek was Chandos and in 1902 John Cock subdivided it into three parts, Wright's Strathconnan, Bill Lockhart's Springburn and Percy Judd's Chandos Park. Bamford later bought Judd's farm and built a timber house that is now surrounded by brick houses.

THE 1970'S.
At Kensington, I used to ask my students observation questions such as where the nearest grass was. Most came up with a logical answer: Bellair Street. It was in the school spouting! There wasn't a blade on the ground and with so many students any grass with the strength to germinate in asphalt would have been soon trampled.

Having bought a house and land package at Tulla for $13 000, I applied for transfer to the school there. I fell in love with the school at first sight; all that grass,with a tree-lined perimeter. In my first year I saw one of the LTC (Light timber Construction) clad with bricks and then the other. The LTC'S were probably installed at Conders Lane during the 1950's when many migrant families joined Leo Dineen, Ron Langtip , Ron Gregg and Sid Hedger on Mansfield's Triangle. School 2613 teachers such as Tom Dunne, had to deal with overcrowding as well as language difficulties. The old 1884 school house was obviously not considered to be worth transporting to Dalkeith Avenue in 1961.

Two activities regarding teaching at Tulla are fresh in my memory. One was team -teaching the grade 4's with Graeme Knott (who took Kevin Taylor's place) in 1973. I suggested the idea soon after Graeme arrived and we decided just before Easter to give it a go. It worked a treat with one supervising about two thirds of the double grade, and helping individuals as they did set work, while the other took small groups for Spelling and Maths etc, where discussion was necessary. Our roles reversed frequently.

The other involved The Sun's 1034 road safety program. With stopwatches and intricate calculation by yours truly,groups could sit a certain distance apart (176 yards) outside the school, and as a car approached, a hand would be raised and then dropped swiftly as the car drew level at which point the stop watch would start at the other end. In this way we determined the speed of each car, did graphs, averages etc. The comments made by the children as they watched two bus drivers having a drag past us showed that the road safety message had got home. The only danger to the children was choking to death because of clouds of dust from the road shoulders when two vehicles passed each other.

The width of the sealed middle of Lancefield, Sharps and Broadmeadows Roads was about as wide as a car, so if two cars approached each other one side of each car hit the shoulder,producing a massive cloud of dust. Sharps Road had shoulders so steep that the above action risked a roll-over. It would have taken decades for Keilor Council to construct these roads but smart operator,Cr Leo Dineen, ensured they were made at little cost to the council and in very quick time, airport workers having threatened to strike.

Sport was big for the children, Marty Allison and Graeme Pearson coaching footy,the Dineens and Petersens taking little Aths, all sporting groups starting via the youth Club where Ken Boots, Trev. and Val Mason and Dave Axon were prominent.

The Kindergarten Association was active raising funds to get the kinder built, with the Paper Drive, which would not have been so successful without Noel Grist and his truck, the Balls at the memorial hall and the Gala Days on the unmade oval (women's footy match, bike-a-thon on grass etc.)

The Thomas family had been on James Sharp's Hillside since about 1940,calling it Carinya Park,and their Tullamarine Pony Club attracted many students from our school such as Katie Butterworth and Pam Gregg,the latter however becoming a teacher rather than a jockey.


OTHER SOURCES RE SUBURBAN TULLAMARINE.
THE KELLY GANG AT TULLAMARINE. (VIC., AUST.
by itellya on 2013-08-02 04:17:39. page views: 259, comments: 1

GREEN'S CORNER, TULLAMARINE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.
by itellya on 2012-02-20 07:54:14. page views: 475, comments: 0

TULLAMARINE, THE SUBURB, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA.
by itellya on 2011-12-08 13:20:02. page views: 849, comments: 2

DALKEITH AND PERCY'S COWS.(LOFT, DAWSON, HURREN.)
The 400 acre Fairview fronted Sharps Rd on the north side,west of Broadmeadows Rd and was bought from John Foster by the Kilburns in 1867 and leased to the Williamsons. James Harrick bought it about 1900, dividing it into two farms of 200 acres, known as Dalkeith* and Brightview. All the housing and the school are on Dalkeith whose owners were George Mansfield (*Queenleigh), Ernie Baker (*Preston Park), Tommy Loft (*DALKEITH, who had the Junction Hotel closed), Leslie King Dawson (after whom Dawson St was named) and Percy Hurren who arrived in 1951 after a stint as storekeeper and postmaster at Jones Corner, Moorooduc.

Tommy Loft subdivided the Eumarella, Gordon St area BEFORE 1943 but mainly his relatives such as the Exels and Scoones were assessed on the blocks. Gordon St was named after Tommy's grandson.

Brightview was the farm of Michael Reddan, from an early Bulla family. When the Reddans moved to Seafield, the Doyles took it over.

CONDERS LANE.
Conders Lane ran east-west across Fawkner's subdivision. State School 2613 was on its north corner,which is exactly the same spot as the north corner of Link Rd which runs just inside the west boundary of Sam Parr's Elm Farm. SAM WAS THE FIRST MAN HARRY HEAPS HAD MET WHO DIDN'T HAVE A BEARD!

THE CHURCH.
Most of Tullamarine's small-farmer pioneers were Methodists and theirs was the only church built in Tullamarine. It was just north of Trade Park Rd on land that Charles Nash bought from John Foster.

THE PIONEERS BOARD, THE WAR MEMORIAL AND HISTORY WEEK.
Any pioneers that I have forgotten will be on the pioneers board. Much of the work of compiling the list would have been done by Alec Rasmussen, teacher at S.S.2613 for 20 years and secretary of the Tullamarine Progress Association for 30 years. (2017 postscript. A plaque on a boulder was recently installed at the Melrose Drive Reserve to honour Alec's superb community work, especially his suggestion that the progress association should gain title to the reserve (by paying rates on the late Noah Holland's six acre blocks.)

The war memorial is at the Dalkeith Ave corner courtesy of W.V.Murphy, known as Major Murphy, who moved it from Conders Lane after the school was relocated. He also relocated the memorial at Westmeadows (which had become a traffic hazard) and St Mary's from "Woodlands" to Bulla Township. Only names of those who paid the supreme sacrifice were inscribed after World War 2. They were my great uncle, Alf Cock of Glenview and a Doyle lad from Ristaro (formerly Michael Reddan's Brightview, fronting Sharps Rd west of the Fisher Grove houses.)

It would be a good history week project for senior pupils to compile a short history about some of Tullamarine's pioneering families. The same could be done in relation to Anzac Day.