School wants bell back
A HISTORIC bell listed for sale online is suspected to have been stolen from Kardinia International College a little over a decade ago.
The bell, believed to be behind the naming of Bell Post Hill, was reported as stolen from the school in 2009.
At the time, then-principal John Goodfellow pleaded for the return of the bell and said the school was prepared to offer a “large reward” for information leading to its return.
An identical looking bell, with Heritage Victoria certification, resurfaced this week after being listed for sale on Gumtree by Hamilton man Milos Durovic, who said he had found it in the dried out Cowies Creek about 15 years ago.
Kardinia International College principal Catherine Lockhart said if the bell listed for sale and the missing bell were the same, it should be returned to the school.
But Mr Durovic yesterday stood by his claims the bell was found long before the antique was reported stolen from Kardinia.
“I found the bell before 2009. I do believe this bell was thrown into Cowies during the late ’ 80s when Kardinia was Morongo Girls’ School,” the 27-year-old said yesterday.
“The inner part of it was rusted out, so it would have had to have been sitting in that water for a long time.”
When asked if he would return the bell to the college, Mr Durovic said he would be “willing to talk to the school to hear them out”.
College deputy principal Paul Dowie said the bell did go missing in 1953 but was found soon after.
School records state the principal Lucy Shaw received a letter saying, “have no fear your bell is near, it can be found hid in the ground”.
This sparked an all-school treasure hunt and the bell was dug up by students and reinstalled at its post.
There is no record of the bell disappearing again in the 1980s.
A Heritage Council of Victoria’s statement of significance for the bell notes it was hung on a post around 1837 and was “used to call the stationhands to meals and possibly as an alarm. It gave the name of Bell Post Hill to the area”.
Historian Dr John Cary said the bell was later displayed at the Geelong Mechanics Institute in 1926 before being donated to the Morongo Girls’ College, located on the homestead site, in 1927.
It was used as school bell and was inherited by Kardinia International College when its founders bought the site in the 1980s.
The bell has a long and complex history, with many accounts noting the bell was erected to warn pastoralists of approaching Aborigines.
Some claim the bell was rarely used and others suggest its ringing led to the deaths of indigenous Australians.
This has sparked recent conversations around the appropriateness of the suburb name Bell Post Hill.
Mrs Lockhart said the school would engage in conversations with indigenous leaders, local Wathaurong leaders and the Bell Post Hill community to work out the best path forward.