What does Jindivick mean?

Does Jindivick mean “the hunted one”? Does it mean “burst asunder””. Does it mean something else altogether? If you have any real idea please let me know too.

When Drienegott (or Drenegott) Huebner had his land claim registered in 1873 it was in the Parish of Drouin, but shortly after this was crossed out and replaced with Jindivick.

By the end of 1874 there were enough settlers for there to be a Parish of Jindivick. This seems to have been the first official use.

“It is said“(and I have used that phrase so many times) that the name first arose when a surveyor named Upchat was working on the Old Sale Road and one of his packhorses lost its load.

The load had been poorly secured by an Aboriginal assistant who, fearing Upchat’s anger, bolted. Upchat caught him for a moment but he got away into the bush, shouting ”Jindivick! Jindivick!”.

Later, when required to name that part of his survey he thought it appropriate to use that word. That might be just a good yarn, but it might be true. We’ll probably never know.

According to Bunce’s “Language of the Aborigines of the Colony of Victoria”, published in 1859, Jindivick is an Aboriginal word meaning “burst asunder”. That does fit the Upchat story to some extent.

Before I go further let me return to Huebner for a moment. He deserves a place in our local history. I don’t know quite when he came to area as he ‘squatted’ on the property but he applied for the selection, of 99 acres, in August of 1873, the first selector registered in the area.

His selection was on Jackson’s Track and he’d built himself a paling-clad house about four and a half metres square. He stayed about seven years and even in that short time he saw the population grow dramatically.

The Government Aircraft Factory confused the issue a little in the 1950s when it developed the Pika and then the Jindivik target drones – radiocontrolled aircraft to be used as targets for training. It is generally agreed that Pika means “flier”.

The Jindivik, though, is supposed to be named ”the hunted one”, which fits its role as a target drone. It does not have the ‘C’ in it and the given meaning does not match “burst asunder” (unless it is hit!) but none of the aboriginal languages were ever written, so the spellings are always only a white man’s interpretation. Who knows now which aboriginal language provided the name.

It is possible that Upchat’s Aboriginal assistant felt like “the hunted one” as he took to his scrapers. Upchat had a legendarily bad temper. Of course, it seem likely that the poor aborigine was saying something that had a different meaning altogether.

The Postmaster-General’s department did not help at all, either. The first Drouin Post Office opened on April 5, 1876, was renamed Jindivick in 1878 and Drouin West within months. A Jindivick Post Office opened again in 1880 but was renamed Tarago in 1888.

The third Jindivick Post Office opened later in 1888 and closed in 1994. At least it kept the name in one place for more than a hundred years.

Like many of the early post offices the Jindivick PO started in a store. Tyandberg’s.

To understand those name changes we need to remember that the main road into Gippsland was what we now call, at least in most places, the Old Sale Road.

The line of this road left the Princes Highway just west of the freeway, at the Robin Hood, and travelled through Drouin West and on to Brandy Creek, and thence eastward more or less along the northern edge of the la Trobe Valley. It linked up again with the Princes Highway route just north of Rosedale.

According to my reading for this story the name Drouin was first used at Drouin West and was then moved to the railway line settlement in 1876, which settlement had, in turn, begun a little west of the current site.

The railway caused new towns to spring along the line and caused many along the (Old) Sale Road to wither and, often, die. If the Drouin PO was really at what we now call Drouin West, and should call Drouin North because Drouin West was more toward the Robin Hood and that area was also called Whiskey Creek, then that was the first use of the name Drouin in the area – let it go. I’m supposed to be focussing on Jindivick here.

Regular readers will not be surprised that I turned to Vision and Realisation, the 1972 history of state education in Victoria. It is a constant fallback of mine and it does provide very accurate information on the rise and fall and most Victorian settlements and townships.

State School 1951, Jindivick opened in September 1877, in a portable building on Isaac Ramsden’s place. It was moved a little later to another spot on Ramsden’s property and the portable building stayed until 1910.

A school was moved down from Neerim South to replace the portable, and that transplanted building remained the main room for the Jindivick school over many decades. Now, you only got a school if your district was regarded as

Figures released by the Country Fire Authority highlight the need for smoke alarms to be installed in most parts of houses and for residents to make sure they work.

The CFA’s chief officer Steve Warrington said that of more than 17,000 residential fires attended by brigades over the past 10 years one-quarter had started in sleeping areas.

However, only 16 per cent of houses had smoke alarms in bedrooms.

Lounge areas were not far behind bedrooms as the most likely places for fires to start.

They accounted for 23 per cent of the fires while 15 per cent started in kitchens.

As part of a joint campaign “Silence is deadly” being run by the CFA and Metropolitan Fire Brigade Mr Warrington stressed a number of “need to have and do” steps for home owners regarding smoke alarms. reasonably established with a sufficient number of children, so we can say, I think, that the name Jindivick was formally in use in the present township in 1877.

The name was used over a fair area, too. In 1888 the Jindivick South State School, No. 2882, was opened about where the Noojee railway was to cross the Old Telegraph Road East (it later moved a short distance) so local readers will know that this became Rokeby State School

State School 3152 was Jindivick North and it had a difficult time of things. It was opened at Collins’ sawmill in 1892 and was moved in 1902 and 1905 as the mill moved. For most of the time it shared a teacher with Longwarry Saw Mills State School or the Labertouche State School.

It seems that Jindivick, as a name, became established in the area in the 1870s and the people who moved into the area were too busy to make copious notes for historians to look at later, so I still don’t know exactly where the name arose, or what it means. It annoys me not knowing these sorts of things.

Importantly alarms installed in various parts of a house should be inter-connected so that when one activates all will sound.

Ensure there are alarms in all bedrooms and living areas where most fires start.

Test alarms each month.

Clean all alarms each year and, for those that run on batteries, change the batteries annually. (Smoke alarms fitted with a 10-year lithium battery are recommended to avoid changing batteries each year).

Replace alarms every 10 years regardless on their type.

Mr Warrington said that without properly placed smoke alarms the chances of surviving a house fire are greatly diminished, especially when people are asleep.

He said over the past 10 years 400 Victorians had died or been seriously injured in house fires.