Fruits of Our Labour

By Roditch

This book is a history of the Goulburn Valley Fruit Industry. It includes the orchardists, factories, irrigation, and immigration. The Goulburn Valley which includes the City of Shepparton is one of the major fruit growing areas in the world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roditch
• Release date: Apr 6, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463643044

Roditch

I am a retired Photography Teacher, Refugee Settlement Manager, and Builder. For the past 10 years, I have been teaching part-time, writing books, taking photos and doing lots of research.All the books I write come from experience and research. Yes, in my life so far I have worked with refugees, taught art, built houses, studied herbs, and health. I have also studied astrology spirituality including meditation, animal welfare, and poetry.I sincerely hope that you can gain valuable information from my books (usually short and sweet introductions) to different facets of life I have visited.

Book preview

Introduction

Before the Fruit

Bangerang

Squatters

Selectors

Irrigation Settlement

THE ORCHARDS

The Turnbull Brothers

The Greenwoods

The Youngs

The McNabs

The Pickworths

FACTORIES

Ardmona Fruit Products

Kyabram Preserving Company - Henry Jones IXL

Rosella - Unilever

Tatura Cannery

IRRIGATION

Echuca Waranga Waterworks Trust

Goulburn Weir

Waranga Basin

Lake Eildon

THE FRUIT

Stone Fruit

New Varieties

Grapes

Tomatoes

THE WOMEN

Bertha Smith

Loudie Noonan

Rosa Cricelli-Van Demolen

THE WORKERS

John Pleming

Laurie Plumbridge

Slim Savage

IMMIGRATION

The Darvenezia’s

The Lenne’s

The Feiglens

The Albanian Families

TECHNOLOGY

The Tatura Trellis

The Tatura Research Station

The Dethridge Wheel

Merrigum Inventors

Introduction

The Goulburn Valley Fruit Industry is an important part of Victoria’s economy and contributes to the region’s cultural diversity. This book is a collection of personal stories by people working in the fruit industry as well as some researched historical information. Many people and businesses were approached to tell their stories and most were happy to participate. Many stories have been lost in time so we were lucky to get the ones we did. Some stories have been missed because we didn’t know they were there or who to ask, but we hope the ones we have are representative of most orchards, workers, women, canneries, and business’s which have made-up the Goulburn Valley Fruit Industry.

BEFORE THE FRUIT

Bangerang

Kevin and David

The tribal country/culture of the Murray/Goulburn Aboriginals Shepparton.

The Bangerang Nation consisted of the Moirathban, Toolinyagan, Wollithiga, Kailthban, Ngarrimowro, Angootheraban and Pikkolatpan tribes.

The Bangerangs were river people as the Murray, Goulburn, Campaspe, Edwards, and Broken Rivers, and Broken Creek flowed through their country. Each tribe of the Bangerangs looked after and cared for the country within their tribal boundaries, but when war threatened from other Koorie nations, they united nation. Red and white meat was the favorite, including possum, emu, kangaroo, birds, fish, grubs, eggs, snakes, ducks, larvae of ants, wild fowl, fruits, and roots from the reeds. The Bangerang loved the fat from the animals, this was used to rub into their bodies to protect them from the cold and mosquitoes. Living on and near the rivers was like living near a supermarket. Food was sourced from the rivers, and the river provided a water source that attracted the kangaroos and emus, so they were easy to catch. It is customary for the Bangerang that the Elders of the tribes meet and make decisions if tribal laws are broken or when war threatens, and anyone who breaks the law receives a penalty.

When the Bangerang needed to trade with other nations, they would send a man who could communicate in many languages and had the ability and reputation of being a strong and powerful man. He'd bring back the most recent news from miles away. When the settlers started taking the land around the Goulburn Murray area about 1840, the Bangerang people went through a rough time. They were living around the townships in bad conditions. A man by the name of Daniel Matthews bought land on the Murray sand hills around 1875 and encouraged the Bangerang people to leave the townships and live with him and his wife at Mologa. Here he educated the Bangerangs and other tribes, and Mrs. Matthews taught the women household skills. When Mologa was closed because of government policies, another mission was established called Cummeragunja, which means our home. Around 1909, the NSW Aboriginal Act was introduced, giving the Aboriginal Board control over the lives and movements of the Koorie people living on and off the missions and reserves. The new policies and powers included the forced removal of some Koories. Around 1939, the people of Cummeragunja went on strike over bad living conditions and inadequate rations. Many people moved to the Victoria side near Barmah and then to the Mooroopna flats to work in factories or pick fruit. The Victorian Government established the Welfare Board about 1957, and in 1958 the Welfare Board started to house Koorie people at Rumbalara. Today, the Goulburn Murray Aboriginal Community has many projects and support organizations in the areas of education, culture, health, welfare, sport, Koorie legal service, and the Koorie Court. In Victoria, the largest numbers of Aboriginal people live in the Goulburn Murray region.

Squatters

New land in the Port Phillip District (later Victoria) was settled as available land in New South Wales was occupied, and a government unable to halt its advance gave squatting legal recognition in 1836. The first squatters reached the Goulburn Valley in 1841. Edward Khull came to Tallygaroopna, Gregory McGregor to Arcadia, and James Cowper to Ardpatrick. This latter run stretched west from the Goulburn River to the Kyabram District, north to Wynna, and south to Toolamba, and took in the future site of the township of Mooroopna. For an annual license fee of 10 pounds and an obligation to satisfy the authorities that he had the stock to properly utilize the land, Cowper acquired approximately 160,000 acres. Despite this, squatting was not an occupation for the penniless. These were boom years; stocks were expensive, as was labor. He had to supply his own small community with all its needs, however spartan they may have been. He risked losing his sheep to scab, foot rot, catarrh, or the depredations of the local aborigines, and would have seen much of the value of his investment diminish in the depression of the 1840s.

It could be a year before his (Mooroopna to 1988) sheep could be shorn; the wool would have to be taken to Melbourne by bullock dray before being transported to London by ship. Cowper, some think, built his hut on high ground near the river just north of the Mooroopna cemetery, although a remaining post or two of the Ardpatrick stockyards could still be seen in Mooroopna itself as late as the 1930s. The hut appears to have been a single-roomed construction with a lean-to attached. In true pioneering fashion, the furniture was made from logs and bark, and Cowper and his men seemed to subsist on boiled meat, damper, and tea, the eating arrangements being, according to McLennan, altogether charmingly simple. Cowper was, of course, enormously dependent on his workers, who tended to be the unsavory remnants of the convict system. They were, as a breed, independent and lacked the deference expected of