Incorporation No. A0032629K

ABN 40 208 018 755

PO Box 723

Lakes Entrance 3909

(03) 5155 3939

40

Volume 4 Issue 3

Editor: Judy Davies

The Carpenter connection 3

Postcards from the Pawseys 6

Inside this issue:Inside this issue:Inside this issue: On Anzac Day this year we will commemorate the 100th anni-versary of the Gallipoli cam-paign, which is a time to reflect on the loss of so many young men from Lakes Entrance who did not return from WW1 ...

Algernon Francis BELL - private in the 59th Battalion. Wounded in action at Pozières in France and died of gun-shot wounds to the right thigh and shoulder on 24 July 1916.

Thomas George BELL, a signaller in the 6th Battalion died at Gallipoli on the first Anzac Day – 25 April 1915. His grave is in the Lone Pine cemetery.

Arthur John BENNETT - left a wife and three young children when he enlisted in April 1916. He died on the Somme on 7 May 1917 from wounds to the head and chest.

William Cleave CARSTAIRS whose parents ran Heyfield House, came down with dysentery in the trenches at Gallipoli and died on 18 October 1915 at Mudros on Lemnos Island.

Harold George CLEMENTS - a teacher at Kalimna School, was a corporal in the 59th Battalion. He was killed in ‘no man’s land’ at the Battle of Fro-melles and his body was never found.

George John CROFT, a local fisher-man, was wounded in action in June 1918 but returned to his unit. He was

killed a few months later on the Somme.

Joseph Augustus DUFFY enlisted at 18. He was acting as a runner when he was shot and killed by a sniper at Polygon Wood on 26 September 1917.

William Alfred FISH was a Lewis gun-ner with the 29th Battalion. Holding the line near Ypres, his gun place-ment was hit by a shell on 9 October 1917, killing him instantly.

Albert Roy HARBECK sergeant with the 39th Battalion was hit in the back

by a shell dur-ing a German raid on the trenches at P l o e g s t e e r t Wood in Flan-ders in May 1917. He died before reach-ing the Dress-ing Station.

Arthur Per-cival HARBECK, whose parents had the general store, saw action at Gal-lipoli. He suffered serious shrapnel wounds, including a compound frac-ture of the skull, and died on 22 May 1915. He was brother to Albert.

Francis Robert HEANEY, a driver with the Imperial Camel Corps, was only eighteen when he enlisted. He was killed in action on 9 January 1917 near Rafa in Egypt.

George Ernest HENNING joined up at eighteen and was wounded in action in France twelve months later. He died in hospital in England of gunshot wounds and a septic abscess in the right lung.

Remembering our WW1 Boys Remembering our WW1 Boys Remembering our WW1 Boys

Thomas Patrick MOORE saw action at Gallipoli, but was hospitalised suffering from a nervous condition which kept him out of the war until August 1916, when he rejoined his unit in France. He died from multiple shell wounds just a few months later and is buried at Bernfray Wood, near Albert in France.

W i l l i a m J o h n MOORE, a sapper in the 10th Field Com-pany Engineers, and brother of Thomas, enlisted in October 1915. He was killed in action at Pass-chendaele (also re-ferred to as the Third Battle of Ypres) on 4 October 1917.

John Alexander ROWE joined up on 9 February 1916 and saw action in France with the 46th Battalion. Private Rowe was killed in ac-tion on 11 April 1917. He has no known grave and is commemorated at Villers-Bretonneux.

Charles SANDFORD gave his age as 21 on enlistment in November 1917 - not his real 18 years. Charles served in France with the 24th Battalion. He was wounded in action on 15 June 1918 and

died the same day. Charles is buried at Vignacourt near Amiens.

Harry THORPE - Harry left Australia with the 7th Bat-talion in April 1916 for France. He was wounded in action twice: on 19 Au-gust 1916 and 29 April 1917, but quickly returned to his unit. Promoted to Corporal follow-ing action around Ypres that Octo-ber, he was subse-quently awarded the Military Medal for courage and

leadership. In Au-gust 1918 he was wounded for a third time and died hours later. Corporal Thorpe is buried at Harbonnières on the Somme.

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Harry LESTER - another of ‘our boys’ who enlisted at 18 and died at 19. Harry was attached to Battalion Headquarters as a runner when a sap at Glencorse Wood was destroyed by artillery fire on 26 Sep-tember 1917. He is recorded as being killed in action on the Menin Gate memo-rial at Ypres.

Dugald McDOUGALL enlisted in August 1916 and saw action in France. During the course of his service he was gassed, suf-fered trench feet and slightly wounded. On 31 January 1919 he died of influenza and bronchio-pneumonia and is buried at Le Havre.

Christopher James McNAMARA, Lance Corporal with the 59th Battalion, was reported missing in action following an advance on German lines at Hazebrouck near Ypres on 19 July 1917. His body was never recovered.

William Thomas Patrick McNAMARA, brother of Christopher, was also a Lance Corporal. Thomas served on the Western Front and was wounded in the neck on 14 October 1916. Back in action with the 7th Battalion in Belgium on 4 October 1917, he was reported missing. With no known grave, he is commemorated on the Menin Gate.

A tribute to the fallen … A tribute to the fallen …

every year on Anzac Day we attend the ceremony organised by the RSL and place a wreath at the cenotaph, but this year it will have a special significance. One hundred years on, we still remember them.

Above: Sergeant Albert Harbeck, 39th Battalion - died at Ploegsteert

Wood in Flanders in May 1917.

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Page 3

The Carpenter name has been part of our history since great grandfa-ther John won the tender to build the artificial entrance in the early 1870s, but the last in Lakes En-trance to bear the Carpenter name, Mick and Una, have decided it’s time for a move.

Over the years the family has been a ma-jor benefactor to the community. Mick’s grandfather George donating the land for the Mechanics Hall to be built and leaving money in his will to establish the avenue of memorial trees in Church Street.

C a r p e n t e r Street, a well-trafficked thor-oughfare, leads to Currumbene the old family house, over-looking the North Arm.

While most of the land has been subdivided and sold off, the house remains. Although sold to local pharma-cists Mac and Margot Kerby, who lived there for some years, it has now returned to the Carpenter family, and is owned by cousins Ian and Diane Daniel.

Many holiday-makers have fond memo-ries of staying at Carpenters caravan park, from its establishment by Charlie and Betty Carpenter in the 1940s, and later with Mick and Una as hosts.

It was the end of an era when the land-mark Esplanade caravan park closed and the land, where Dahlsens hardware and

the Lakes Entertainment Centre now stand, was sold in the mid 1990s.

Mick and Una missed the people: particu-larly as many had stayed at the park over generations—and even today some still keep in touch.

Their family house remained on site for some years, at one stage run by Chris Fenner as Skippers Wine Bar. But it closed in turn, and the house was removed to a property in Hunters Lane, where it has been lovingly restored and is once again a family home.

Others will remember when they were kids, making the daily trip to and from school with Mick at the wheel of the C a r p e n t e r s bus.

The first bus was purchased in 1984 to run

activities for the caravan park guests, but soon expanded, with Carpenter’s Out &

About Tours operating for many years, taking sports, school, social and service club group on excursions.

Since selling the caravan park, Mick and Una have worked hard with the tour and school buses, and also running sheep and cattle on their farm at Johnsonville.

But the last Carpenters have decided it’s time to retire—to the north coast of New South Wales, for a well-earned retire-ment and ‘no grass to cut’.

Mick & Una Carpenter

contemplating a quiet

retirement

Carpenter’s caravan park in the 1970s

The Carpenter house on the Esplanade, as Skippers Wine Bar -1990s.

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The Carpenter House at the New Works c1870

Also moving on is Rob Gilder, cur-rent leaseholder of the iconic Car-penter house at the New Works.

Rob’s ‘day job’ has been running Glenfal-loch Station at Licola, a 4200ha sheep and cattle farm - another historic property that has been in the Gilder family for 102 years. But after two years of careful delibera-tion, Rob has de-cided to sell up and pursue oppor-tunities in South Australia with his wife and children.

While Rob will miss the farm with its century-old, brick homestead and ‘days of splashing about the creeks, fishing for trout and gazing up at wedge-tailed eagles’ no-one could blame him for leaving Licola.

A bushfire in the summer of 2006-07 tore through the farm, taking most of the fencing, a shearing shed and about 100 sheep and 20 cows, leaving just bare dirt and burnt trees–nothing to hold the soil. A month or so later, flash flooding caused devastating mudslides across the farm.

The Gilders worked hard and spent a lot of money rebuilding, then winter came and Glenfalloch was flooded – a raging Macalister River de-stroying recently replaced fencing, ruining paddocks, spoiling crops and washing away about 200 cows in calf.

Fortunately, the Gilders will retain their connection with ‘Carpentertown’ which began in 1934.

Rob Gilder at Glenfalloch Station

Will they miss Lakes Entrance? Mick says his philosophy is, ‘Don’t look back,’ but Una concedes that Lakes will always be special.

The Carpenters still have close family connections in the area, with a son in Bairnsdale and Una’s sister at Lake Tyers Beach.

Above: What remains of the memorial

avenue of trees in Roadknight Street,

established by the Council using funds

bequeathed by George Carpenter.

Left: ‘Currumbene’ in Carpenter Street.

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The Carpenter connection

Although John Carpenter is best remembered, as the builder of the Entrance, it was his son George whose legacy to the town is felt today.

The Carpenter brothers remained in Lakes En-trance following the completion of the entrance project, being involved in shipping, mining and other business ventures. They held large tracts of land, from the site of the family house on the North Arm down to the Esplanade, where the caravan park was located.

Following the death of his first wife, George re-married and it is the descendants of this marriage who maintain an active connection with Lakes Entrance. At his death, the land was divided be-tween his son Charlie and daughter Dorrie.

George donated land to the Shire Council on the proviso that it be used as the site of a Mechanics Hall, to benefit the entire community. He also left money for an avenue of trees to be planted in Roadknight Street, as a memorial to his father. Although it is doubtful whether today’s Council has any knowledge of the origins of these trees, many of them still remain.

George Carpenter: businessman and

benefactor to the Lakes Entrance

community.

SPECIAL

Carpentertown: A history of the New Works Cottages at Lakes Entrance

A limited reprint of the Society’s publication is now available at the special price of $15.00

Contact us on 5155 3939 or email info@lakeshistory.com to purchase.

Jemmy’s Point … by car Jemmy’s Point … by car

It’s sometimes interesting to look at our changing history from the same viewpoint.

Noting the Volkswagen beetle in the view of Jemmy’s Point—see ‘Postcards from the Pawseys’ on page 7—we have picked out some other images showing vehicles from different eras. How times change!

Top left: Jemmy’s Point c1925, model of car unknown

Above: The road is better, but the post and rail fence remains c1950

Left: A pull-off has been established for tourists in Simca Aronde c1960

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A recently donated collec-tion of postcards tells a story of family holidays at Lakes Entrance.

Clarence and Elaine Pawsey have left a charming record of their Easter holidays at Bellevue Guest House, their favourite place to stay. There are unwritten cards featuring Bellevue from the

1940s, but from around 1969 –71 they came annually, staying for a month at time.

We gather the Pawseys lived at 36 Fellows Street, Kew and Sylvia and Wilton ’kept an eye’ on their house.

Their story actually begins on 18 March 1918, with an old card from ‘Albert Park’ guest house at

Lake Tyers, in which other regular guests ‘stir’ Clarence about the number of fish caught in his ab-sence (card 5).

The end? A friend staying at Robin Street sends a card inquir-ing about Clarence’s health (card 6) and it would seem that Cla-rence may not have survived his stay in hospital (card 7) as this one is just to ‘Auntie Eileen’.

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Postcard 1 dated 9/3/1969: Clarence & Elaine are at Bellevue - ‘we have our old room facing the water and can see the world go by on the Esplanade’, Note the sand spit in

front of the Club Hotel and a waterway where the Fishing Club, car park and boat ramp are now.

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Postcard 2 dated 21/3/69: The Pawseys have extended their stay at Lakes Entrance until 12 April. Bellevue would be very pleased to have guests staying for over a month.

The ‘Fish Wharf’ referred to is Eastern Wharf with a number of trawlers and smaller boats peacefully moored.

Page 6

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Postcard 4 dated 28/3/71: Easter 1971 - to Sylvia & Wilton ‘This is the view from our room’. ‘This card shows the boat harbour, taken from the Glenara tower.

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Postcard 7 dated 3/10/80: A poignant

message from Wilton to just Auntie Eileen,

’we thought you would be interested to see

some pictures of the old spot’ on a folder

postcard.

Postcard 3 dated 15/3/70: Easter 1970 - to Sylvia & Wilton ‘with much love from us both, Auntie Eileen’. A wonderful view from Jemmy’s Point with classic period cars.

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Postcard 6undated :from L. Grey: ’So sorry to hear you are in a hospital bed … I am at Lakes Entrance, so I often think of you both.’ The end of Lakes holidays for Clarence?

The end of an era for the Pawseys, but perhaps Wilton and Sylvia had taken over the tradition of holidaying at Lakes Entrance.

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Our ‘Picnic at the New Works’ on 22 February was a huge success, with a full contingent of members and friends, with lots of food and drink, boarding the Stormbird on a warm and sunny Sunday after-noon.

Anne Macarthur conducted a guided tour to the Entrance and along the boardwalk for the more adventurous, while others chose to take the opportunity to view four of the heritage-listed cottages.

In addition to having ‘Breezy’, ‘the Crib’, ‘At Rest’ and the Carpenter house open for us, our generous New Works hosts also had made cake and brewed coffee

especially—and even brought out the good china!

A very happy crowd made the return trip across the lake, with the obliging Captain James Peel.

The cottages are listed on the Heritage database, as part of the New

Works Historic Precinct.

Above: Barbie Roche and Noel Matthews trawl through a treasure trove of

New Works history, including the precious Breezy visitor book.

Top right: Skipper James Peel helps passengers board for the return trip

to Lakes.

Right: A relaxed crowd picnics under a sprawling cypress tree.

Prefer to receive your newsletter by email?

Email saves the Society both time and postage, so if you would like to switch to this option, contact us on 5155 3939 or email info@lakeshistory.com

Apex Park redevelopmentApex Park redevelopment

The conversation about the upgrade to Apex Park has centred largely around the Shire Council’s requirement that the Aldi Supermarket chain contribute to the cost of pavements and public toilets.

This should not detract from redevelop-ment of the park area itself and how it affects the history of the area—in particu-lar the water bore marker placed by this Society.

The plan is to be made available for public comment very soon, and we would sug-gest that members take the time to view it and have their say.