Name/TitleMallee Meanderings
About this objectThe major part of this document, which could be subtitled ‘Pioneering in the Mallee district from 1923-1956’, is a detailed account of the author’s life on a Solder Settlement block in the Mallee district of Victoria in the Parish of Patchewollock.,Mrs Carter is a member of a large family, pioneers, whose ancestors, the Powell family from Ireland and the McArthur family from Scotland, settled in the Portland area in the mid-19th century. Biographical details of these two families and their descendants, as well as the Williams family from Wales, are provided at the beginning of the document. In meticulous detail Mrs Carter, at 79 years, recreates the pioneering of the Patchewollock district from clearing the scrub, fencing, building a wattle-and-daub dwelling, enduring the heart, dust-storms, lack of water, plagues of mice and ants, loneliness and difficult living conditions to the gradual establishment of a township.The Soldier Settlement Scheme, by which returned service men from WW I were granted uncleared and remote areas of the district (Mallee), is discussed with reference to the success and failures of many of these settlers. Hardships and difficulties included: the problem of water supply and efforts with catchment and channel systems; serious mouse plague in 1917; the clearing of Mallee scrub and the harvesting with primitive methods and materials. There is a description of wheat stacks at local railway siding before the building of silos.,This document was written in 1973, and the ABC used some of Mrs Carter’s notes in its programs.NB: See also MS 001603. Keywords: Hotspur (ship),Mary Malcolm (ship),Ticonderoga (ship),Areegra,Bent, Sir Thomas,Bullecourt, France,Carter, Harriet,Carter’s Hill,Caucasian’ (ship),Farms and farming,Mallee,McArthur, McIntyre,McLeod, J.N.,Millan, G D Captn,Montgomery, James,Patchewollock,Pioneer Life,Powell family,Sheep Hills,Soldier Settlement,Turriff,Williams families
MakerCarter, Muriel
Measurements66 pp bound typescript
Named CollectionManuscripts Collection
Object numberMS 001601 (Box 272-4)
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved