Pause in any country town in Victoria – try not to hurry through, but rather, enjoy the peccadilloes of the journey as you hasten to your destination – and you will see vestiges of old 19th-century Victorian Victoria. To the left, perhaps, an old and all-too-often dilapidated Mechanics’ Institute; to the right, mayhap a Masonic Hall, badged by a fading insignia of a set of vertical dividers [a ‘compass’] perched over an inverted right-angled ruler [ a ‘set square’]; and yet further on, a country hall, serving as a meeting place for the local scout troop, for town meetings, and for the much-anticipated Saturday night square dance. Inevitably tucked away – often in some remote corner of the town – will be ‘The ‘XXXXX” Historical Society’ … all-too-often regarded as “just a musty old collection of photos, journals, records, and memorabilia” that records the fading heartbeat of the local community.
What, then, are these anachronisms? And are they simply sentinels to a time past?
Mechanics’ Institutes formed a peculiarly Victorian-age institution. Beginning in Edinburgh in 1821, they spread to all corners of the English-speaking world, serving as a hall, a library, or a school – whatever was needed – but have now all but disappeared from ‘the social map’, despite that many remain as disused, dying buildings. While over 1200 Mechanics’ Institutes were built in Victoria alone, just over 500 remain today, with only six still operate their lending library services.
Masonic Halls – at least in the minds of some – have a more ’sinister’ connotation: they were the meeting halls for the Freemasons – a ‘secret fraternity’ often loosely considered ‘a religious order’ or even ‘a cult’ – which arose in the Middle Ages, often in opposition to the Catholic Church, but which by the 19th century had directed its focus to personal development and community contribution. By the end of the 1800’s, there were more than 100 Masonic Halls across country Victoria. However, most now lie abandoned and in decay – or have had the Masonry insignia removed and have simply become the area hall.
Historical Societies – unlike the Mechanics Institutes and the Masonic Halls – are alive and well. The Royal Historical Society of Victoria lists 429 active sites [https://www.historyvictoria.org.au/] with more than 100 towns in country Victoria continuing to collect, record, and support their area history.
True, some are “just a musty old collection of photos, journals, records, and memorabilia” … albeit important repositories of long-past families and events … but many are alive and well, living in and interacting with their communities in a vibrant, ongoing way. The Lorne Historical Society is doing exactly that!
Historical Societies have particular and current relevance, given our recent ‘annus horribilis’ [a phrase popularised in 1992 by Queen Elizabeth II who, when reflecting on the woes of the Royal family through that year, said “1992 is not a year I shall look back on with undiluted pleasure], for 2020 could be aptly described as a ‘globus horribilis’.
The long months of isolation appear to have stimulated a flurry of shoebox sorting; old photos and yellowing documents, stored for a rainy day in some dark corner ‘under the house’. Well, we scored more than just the odd rainy day … we were locked-in months! This, in turn, has led to a plethora of old photographs, family research, and record discovery, with many – especially the photos – appearing daily on Internet social media sites. Among the more active of these has been the ‘One and Only Lorne Community Noticeboard’!
‘Old Lorne’ has been on show. Photo-historians – like Wayne Wood, Jeannie Oborne Hunt, Daryl Babington, the ‘Great Ocean Road, Then and Now’ site, and the ‘Western District Families’ genealogy site – have all posted some wonderful examples of Lorne in its formative years, its forestry past, its 60s and 70s boom-years, and of the stunning Otway ranges that are its backdrop.
Though many – if not all – of these wonderful photo-records of yesteryear are already in storage archives at the Lorne Historical Society, at Trove, or at a variety of mass-storage museum sites in Melbourne and Canberra, seeing them come alive day on day before an appreciative resident audience on the Lorne FaceBook page has fired an immediacy to and identification with the past that has previously been dormant. “I know him” … “who was she?” … “where was that?” … “ah, yes, do you remember when …!” Comments, memories, enjoyment – all have studded the comments and responses, with ‘likes’ a-plenty. As I suspect may have others, I have been copying these priceless records to file with the yet-to-be-developed dream of creating an electronic touch-screen or time-scrolling photo-wall in the main street for passers-by to enjoy, and through which they may better appreciate the origins of the town they have grown to love.
The Lorne Historical Society is a wonderland of local historical lore: be it the little we know [but more we must try to learn] of the pre-settlement centuries of the Gadubanud, their land management, their fire management, their culture, and their dreaming; the earliest years of the Mountjoy family and the first settlement years; the shipwrecks; the timber men and the fishing industry; the coming of the squattocracy and their great houses on the golden mile; the germinal days of tourism and the heyday of the guesthouse; the resurgence of youth in the glorious 60s with its nascent surf culture – both club-based and board-rider oriented; and most recently, the impact of cuisine on Lorne as a year-round national and international destination.
This story, told in and by the many guises of record-keeping, is the story of the Lorne Historical Society. Unlike the Masonic Halls or the Mechanics’ Institutes of country Victoria, our Lorne Historical Society is vibrant and alive. For those with an eye for history, a slow, absorptive visit will prove enthralling.
As for our up-coming year: a display – assembled by Will and Frank Beale – that follows the timber industry will be running throughout 2021 at the Society’s room at Lorne Community House – Friday & Sunday, 10am till Midday.
“Fishy Tales” a look at the fishing industry in Lorne is on display at the old Co-op building at Point Grey – Saturday & Sunday, 10am till midday.
“The Story of the Road” tells the story of the epic feat of construction of the Great Ocean Road and honours the WW1 returned servicemen, over 3,000 of them, who literally dug the road out of the cliff face. This exhibition is at the Lorne Visitor Information Centre.
Then, opening in March at Lorne Community House, will be T.A.L.L [Tales of a Lorne Lockdown] – an evocative view of the town ‘in lockdown’ as told by the students of Lorne P-12 College and collated by the 11 VCAL students of 2020. These exhibits will not disappoint … so, please come in, browse, and enjoy.
John Agar
