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Birregurra
Historical and geographical information
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Introduction
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
Headlines of the history of Boosbeck are in brown.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Contextual history is in purple.
The Farndales of Birregurra
Matthew Farndale was the first Farndale
to emigrate to Australia on 8 October 1852. Matthew Farndale, aged 59, his wife Hannah Farndale,
formerly Thompson, aged 45, his daughter Elizabeth Farndale aged 19 (FAR00323) and his daughter Mary Ann Martin
(nee Farndale) (FAR00313) aged 23 left Southampton on ‘The
Argo’ (967 tons) on 8 Oct 1852.They arrived in Melbourne Australia on 19
January 1853, a journey of 103 days or some three months. They settled at
Birregurra and established the Birregurra (Australia
1) Line.
For whatever reason they ended up at Birragurra and selected land. Their first task was to build
a house which they did made of earth, grass and water.
They must then have planted crops and collected animals, in particular sheep.
Sometime later, perhaps a year or two, they built a small house of timber with
a tin roof. They called it "Hawthorne" from the hawthorne
they had planted on arrival. Hawthorne stills grows there
"Hawthorne", Birragurra, "The Garden of Eden"
As the years passed the farm grew.
William Martin would take their produce to Ballarat and Geelong and buy
provisions; a long cross country journey lasting many
days. Cows and pigs were added and the farm buildings
extended in size until it resembled a Yorkshire farm house. Sadly
the whole property was destroyed by a bush fire in 1901 when all Western
Victoria was set alight
In 1870 the railway reached Colac and
Birregurra in 1877.
Matthew died at Birregurra on 8 August
1884 aged 90 and Hannah, his widow, died on 9 December 1892 aged 85 years.
Their memorial stands today at Warncourt, Birragurra, Australia. But they also have a memorial in
Yorkshire, England when their nephew Charles added Mathew's name to the
memorial of his twin brother William. In a letter Marion Hall wrote:
"Matthew Farndale died on 8 August 1884 at his home in Birregurra aged 91
leaving his widow of half a century, his faithful loving wife to lament his
loss, and his friends to tell of his earnest and gentle Christian life.”
See also
the Farndales and their descendants of Australia
You will
also find details of the descendants who settled at Birregurra and south
Australia at the Martin Family.
Birregurra
Birregurra is
a town in Victoria, Australia approximately 130 km south-west
of Melbourne. The town is divided between the Shire of Colac
Otway and the Surf Coast Shire. At the 2016 census,
Birregurra had a population of 828.
Birregurra is an
Aboriginal word thought to mean ‘kangaroo camp'.
In 1839,
the Wesleyan missionaries and colonial government established the Buntingdale Mission Station in the area. This was Victoria's
first Aboriginal mission.
A Post
Office opened in the area on 1 October 1858 and was renamed Mount Gellibrand in
1894, a few days before another office nearby was opened as Birregurra.
The railway
though the town was opened in 1877, as part of the line to the south west of the state. A branch line to Forrest left the
main line here, opened in 1891 and closed in 1957. The local railway
station is served by V/Line passenger services on
the Warrnambool line.
