Avoca and District Historical Society
The Avoca and District Historical Society is dedicated to preserving, collecting and researching the history of Avoca, Victoria, and the surrounding district
The Solomon of Moonambel – Reynell Everleigh Johns – By Merri Hogan with Noreen McAdam
Opium, diamonds, the judiciary and taxidermists – a fascinating story of a colonial magistrate’s years in Moonambel
This latest book about the district is available through the Avoca and District Historical Society Inc. Download Order Form here.
In 1998 Denis Strangman published an index of names associated with the Lamplough Rush. He also made available an article on the rush to Lamplough that he first published in 1987.
With the creation of the new website the website addresses, the URLs, no longer work for the previous website. However the content has been migrated.
The Lamplough names index can be found at /lamploughnameindex/ and the 1987 article can be found at article-the-gold-rush-to-lamplough-1859-1860/
A later article also written by Denis Strangman and published in 1989 in the Victorian Historical Journal by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria can now be found at http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/116585 – navigate to page 3. The Victorian Historical Journal has been digitised by the State Library of Victoria.
Neither Denis nor I have found any images of Lamplough during the 1859-60 rush. This photograph from about 1920 of the Lamplough Post Office is in the collection of the Avoca and District Historical Society. The Society’s collection, most of which is not on-line, also contains more information about people associated with the rush.
Anne Young
Webmaster for the Avoca and District Historical Society
28 May 2017
(Updated again in December 2025 as the State Library of Victoria ceased providing its hosting service)
As of 16 May 2017 we have a new website.
Many thanks to Denis Strangman who maintained the previous version for about 20 years
Some links have been broken in the migration. We will aim to fix these as soon as possible.
Report by the President presented to the annual general meeting held on 12 November 2016
President’s Report to ADHS Inc 2016 AGM
In my 2015 Report I made mention of the digitisation of the “Avoca Mail” newspaper, for which this Society paid the National Library of Australia several thousand dollars to prepare and upload the first five years (1863-68) to Trove. This went live eighteen months ago, and has been very well received by many researchers into our local history. From their own resources the NLA also digitised the Avoca Mail from 1870 to 1900 and 1914-1918, plus the Avoca Free Press 1914-1918. Some researchers who have visited the Courthouse in the past year have commented that they did so to follow up on items of interest they had found on Trove. Unfortunately the budget cuts imposed by the Federal Government on the NLA have resulted in an inability to digitise any more years unless we pay for it. We are therefore continuing to seek donations to our Digitisation Fund.
During the past year we have experienced a downturn in the statistics for the numbers of enquirers using the ADHS Inc website. This has been our major source of new members, sales of our publications, and enquiries about paid research to be done by the Society. In consultation with Denis Strangman, our webmaster, we reached the conclusion that the format of the website needed refreshing, and that we needed a back-up person to assist Denis and eventually take on the responsibility of administering the website upon his retirement. Our long-time member Anne Young rose to the challenge, and in recent months has been assiduously working on transferring the content from HTML to WordPress and refreshing the appearance and layout of the data. Anne has been collaborating with Denis and believes that it will be ready to go live any day now. Please look out for it and let us have your feedback about how it can be further improved.
Our Op-Shop/Garage Sale at 182 High Street continues to be our third largest source of income, and we must thank Glenys Allen, Elizabeth Williams and Dorothy Robinson for their efforts in managing that enterprise. We also thank Peter Howell for having agreed to our use of the house rent-free “for at least two years” and we are still there seven years later! It is certainly much less labor-intensive than the old method of running the event at the Court House, and produces more income.
Our newsletter editor, and soon-to-be committee member Margaret Pilgrim recently did a great job on organising the celebration of the Avoca Railway Station’s 140th anniversary. Around 150 persons (including pupils and teachers from the Primary School) attended an event conducted in what was the goods yard of the station. It could not be held at the actual station building because that is fenced off as a construction site, with work in progress. Margaret also mounted a display in the Avoca Visitor Information Centre of photos and artifacts and the story of the Official Opening in 1876.
Edna Jarvis has been a long-time supporter of ADHS Inc in many capacities too numerous to mention, and retires from the Committee today. At the recent Committee Meeting it was
decided to award Edna with a “Certificate of Appreciation” for her efforts.
Tony O’Shea
12/11/2016
30th Anniversary Celebrations of the Avoca and District Historical Society – 18 May 2014.
The Committee and members of the Avoca & District Historical Society Inc were delighted that the Society’s 30th Birthday was attended by some 50 people, including many we had not seen for a long time. These included our Speaker, Helen Harris OAM (founder of the Society), our Webmaster, Denis Strangman from Canberra, and Margaret Oulton. Mayor Robert Vance and Avoca Ward Councillor Ron Eason were also present, along with representatives from neighbouring Societies. Our President, Cheryl Mallinson presented Denis Strangman with a framed “Life Membership” certificate, which included the following explanation: “….. recognition of his work over the past two decades in maintaining the Society’s Website., which has been the major source of new memberships, paid research jobs, publication sales, etc., and as such he has made a major contribution to the fact that the Society is in such a strong position, financially and otherwise, as it reaches the Thirtieth Anniversary of its foundation this month.”
Helen spoke about a list of things which were newsworthy in 1984, the year of our foundation, and about the necessity to continue working towards getting more female representation in positions of influence in each level of government. She also alerted us to the possibility of working with Trove to get the early Avoca local papers digitised in a form that rendered them more accessible, and searchable by key words, rather than reading every page on a film reader. Helen believes that this will inspire many more people to use our archives to research their ancestry. She made the offer to partly fund this process, if we decide to use it, and the Committee will no doubt discuss it at our next meeting. Maybe other members may like to emulate Helen’s generosity.
Mrs Cheryl Mallinson, President of the Society, chaired the proceedings.