Drouin West Primary turns 126

Drouin West State School is 126 years old this year. Its opening on June 15, 1874, was celebrated by past and present residents at a centenary weekend in 1974 and a history was prepared.

The Northern Junction Store and Hotel was the focus of the small community of Drouin West, but the same could be said of the school, the only public building in the area for some time.

Drouin West Primary School has been known as Brandy Creek, Buln Buln and Drouin. Built in 1874, it became Drouin West in 1878. The original school was an unlined wooden building, 24 feet by 26 feet, built at a cost of 431 pounds.

The enrolment when it opened was 39, but the average attendance was only 19! Perhaps the average attendance was a fair reflection of the difficulty of travel in those days. Perhaps too, it was a sign of the attitude of the local scholars.

Brandy Creek School, for instance, went up in flames, reportedly at the hands of one Frank Venables who had very definite opinions about schools.

The first head teacher was a Miss Margaret McLean. She opened the school on June 15, 1874 in wet weather. In fact the weather was so bad that no pupils attended for the first week.

Miss McLean went the way of so many of the young women sent out to small rural schools in those days. By April 1875 she was Mrs Margaret Skinner. They didn't stay single for long.

The school was used in the 1870s as a Court of Petty Sessions. Captain Edward Lintott, buried just inside the gate of the local cemetery, was one Justice of the Peace.

Another was James Copeland, head of a wellknown Warragul family.

It was a "land rush" which signalled the beginning of Drouin West as a community, but the town was situated on the old coaching road to Sale and this played a great part also, particularly after the road widening in 1865.

A whole string of small villages grew up along the road but most withered and died when the railway passed to the south and new towns were brought into existence.

The bank crash of 1892, and the subsequent depression, slowed development for a time, but Victoria was land hungry and the rich pastures of Gippsland were proof to new settlers that the land was worth clearing.

Using Lardner's survey marks, the Government sold 320-acre blocks for one pound an acre, sometimes on terms of 2 shillings per acre per year. Many of the buyers were horrified when they first saw their purchases. The eucalyptus forest stood 300 feet high and the undergrowth was virtually impenetrable and trackless.

The gold-seekers came first, but soon moved on. Early in the 1870s speculators made profits from a land boom. The Tarago and Gum Scrub Creek areas were the first populated.

Thomas Walton (1840-1911) came to Berwick in the 1850's. A typically hard-working Scot, he established a sheep-run, "Hollydale". In November, 1868, he purchased the Tarween Run, stretching from Bunyip to Shady Creek. He later bought another 600 acres further along the Old Sale Road. His was the first private home in the area.

Thomas Bloomfield, came to Brandy Creek in 1869 at the age of 16. He selected 171 acres. He was also the publican of the Buln Buln Hotel until 1887 when he moved to "Bloomfield", now Nilma North.

James Grant Young came to Drouin West in 1868 with two partners, Messrs Hampton and Watts. In 1869 he selected 170 acres. In May of that year he and his brother John settled at Whiskey Creek, on their selection. The Land Act at the time insisted that selectors must live on their blocks.

The two brothers also conducted a carrying business between Berwick and Whisky Creek. In 1863 James married Sarah Walton, Thomas's daughter. They had eight children.

John married Miss Morgan in 1877. They had five children. The eldest son was killed in World War One.

John settled on the land which was Ern Tomasetti's.

Edward Skinner and his brother Henry came to Brandy Creek as selectors in 1871. They made money by clearing land while waiting for an occupation licence. One block they cleared was of 30 acres and owned by James Hann. It was probably the first block cleared in West Gippsland.

The Skinners settled on Camp Hill, by Lardners track, and many members of the family have been on the property since.

The Victorian Creamery Company opened a creamery in 1888 near the corner of Jindivick and Neerim Roads. Gus Homan, Albert Gillson and Jack Clement were three of the managers.

Farmers from as far away as Labertouche brought their milk in to be skimmed. The system was that the milk was brought in by cart and then placed in large open dishes. When the cream rose it was skimmed off.

Sometimes the creameries sent the milk to Melbourne by rail, but this particular plant apparently made its own butter. Butter fetched between 4d and 7d a pound in those days.

The coming of hand separators spelt the end of the creamery with its large steam-powered separator. It closed in 1903.

When the creamery closed, milk was taken to Drouin or Neerim South Butter Factories. For some years it was the latter, because the Drouin Butter Factory was one of the last on the scene.

Harry Stephens was the milkie, collecting on his four horse wagonnette. Baden Lacey and Joe Gates operated the round in later years.

Those old-timers would still recognise much of Drouin West today, and that isn't bad things. Progress marches with a measured tread in Drouin West, and they land they knew has not changed. It is still a place of deep soils, clear water and distant views.