Hastings 3915

Hastings' Victoria Cross recipient

George Morby Ingram VC is commemorated with this memorial near the Hastings war memorial on the Hastings foreshore. George Ingram was born near Bendigo but died in his adopted hometown of Hastings on June 30, 1961 at the age of 72. The VC is the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces.

He was apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner and shortly after the outbreak of the first world war enlisted in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force. This was a small volunteer force of about 2000 men raised to seize and destroy wireless stations in German New Guinea in the south-west Pacific. After that service he re-enlisted in 1916 with the Australian Imperial Force.

George Ingram was decorated with the Military Medal for his actions in a bombing section during the attack on Bapaume, France, and he became Australia's final recipient of the Victoria Cross during the First World War following his actions during an attack on the village of Montbrehain in France. Leading a platoon during the engagement, he led several charges against a number of German strong points that eventuated in the seizure of 10 machine guns and 62 prisoners, as well as inflicting high casualties. He was commissioned as an officer in June 1918. He was decorated by King George V at Buckingham Palace in February 1919. Returning to Melbourne in 1919 he subsequently became foreman for a building company.

Enlisting for service in the Second World War, he joined the Royal Australian Engineers and achieved the rank of captain before retiring from the army in 1944. He is buried at Frankston Cemetery and is also commemorated by a street name in Canberra. His medals are on display in the Australian War Memorial at Canberra.

George Ingram's citation for the Victoria Cross appears in full on the Hastings memorial along with fuller details of his life.

Further details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ingram

Hastings Dog Club

Hastings Dog Club meets every Sunday morning at Hastings Athletic Track (behind Westernport Secondary College). Entry is from High Street, Hastings, through gateway facing the end of Villawood Drive. New members are at 9.30am.

The full name is the Hastings and District Obedience Dog Club and

Get full details from their web site at http://www.hastingsdogclub.org.au and there's a membership form to download. Cost is $50 including insurance, $60 for a family, less if you are already a VCA (canine association) member or if you have a concession or student card. You'll need to bring along your dog's vaccination certificate.

It's one of the relatively few web sites we've seen which are well organised and up to date, with details on forthcoming events and their recent newsletters. Unfortunately the links on their gallery page did not work when we tried them.

Hastings3915.info welcomes details from organisations based in Hastings. Use the email form in our righthand column to make initial contact.

Where the Hastings playgrounds are

Mornington Peninsula Shire Council this month (August) published a new playgrounds guide for the whole shire, which should be available at the shire offices or can be downloaded as a PDF file from:
http://www.mornpen.vic.gov.au/Files/Rec_PlaygroundGuide.pdf
It's a small file (53kb)

The eight playgrounds liisted for Hastings are at

26 Babington Park, Thornhill Street Mel 154 J8

27 Fred Smith Reserve, Marine Parade Mel 154 K11

28 Hastings Foreshore Reserve, Marine Parade Mel 154 J10

29 Rotary Park, Kurrajong Street Mel 154 H12

30 Tara Drive Reserve, Tara Drive Mel 154 D10

31 Villawood Drive Reserve, Villawood Drive Mel 154 F10

32 West Park Reserve, Kimbla Court Mel 154 E8

33 Westernport Lions Club Park, Gaskin Avenue Mel 164 J1

Many have tables, there are barbecues at Nos. 26 and 27, offleash areas adjacent to Nos. 29, 31 and 32, drinking water and toilets at No. 27

Another kind of pelican

We featured the live pelicans at Hastings in another post but there is another interesting group on pelicans -- this carved group near the Pelican Park Aquatic Centre.

Behind the pelicans can be seen the fence of the wheelchair access swing, a little known (and therefore under-used) facility which is available to locals and visitors.

For details of all services at the Pelican Park Aquatic Centre see
http://www.mornpen.vic.gov.au/Page/page.asp?page_Id=293

A reminder of industry

There's an occasional reminder that Hastings is an industrial centre, such as this picture of gas flaring from one of the flare stacks taken on August 17, 2009.

The Long Island Point Plant completes the final stage of processing LPG prior to distribution to customers by ship, truck and pipeline. Crude oil is stored and distributed to refineries in Australia and overseas by ship and pipeline.

The company's information sheets states that process gas (primarily methane and ethane) is combusted under controlled conditions in flaresto protect personnel, the environment and plant equipment whenthere is an interruption to normal operations or as a last option for disposal during irregular customer demand. Gas flared off in this way has generally reduced year by year except in December 2008 when an increase followed the rupture of a pipeline in Port Phillip by the anchor of a non-exxon ship.

Based on information from the company website at www.exxonmobil.com

Statue honours John Coleman

Much of what makes Hastings as a town is seen here: the John Coleman bronze statue, the war memorial and park, beyond that Western Port bay and the industry which is the backbone of the economy.

The John Coleman statue unveiled just before the grand final in 2005 is a centrepoint of the town of Hastings.

John Coleman was among the greatest Australian Rules full-forwards and started with the Hastings Football Club before going on to play for Essendon. He was honored by the Coleman Medal, given to the AFL’s greatest goal kicker each year.

The other player in the statue is Tom Meehan of Fitzroy.

Among those who played major roles in getting the statue made and in place were local newsagent Peter McCullough, Jim McGrath from the Hastings Club; former councillor Brian Stahl, businessman Rob McCarthy and Vic Jeremiah, who wrote the book The Great Coleman.

See more on John Coleman at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Coleman_(Australian_footballer)

Sculptor Steve Glassborow whose works are seen in many parts of the world also created the statue of cyclist and politician Sir Hubert Opperman in Rochester and this year one of former world boxing champion Lionel Rose is to be erected in Warragul.

Pelicans at Hastings

A funny old bird is a pelican.
His beak can hold more than his bellican.
Food for a week
He can hold in his beak,
But I don't know how the hellican.

— Dixon Lanier Merritt*

The Australian Pelican is seen every day at the Hastings Jetty -- and they don't store food in that huge beak.

Though these are common birds in all parts of Australia where there is water, they still draw many visitors to Hastings as a place where they can almost always be seen close in to the land, thanks to a steady supply of fish from local fishermen and the fish shop on the jetty.

They are social animals and look ungainly until you see them fly. The Australian pelican is among the largest of the seven or eight species around the world.

Pelecanus conspicillatus is a large bird, 1.6 to 1.8 metres long, 2.3 to 2.5 metres wingspan. Colouring is predominently white with black markings and a pink bill that is used to strain water to gain small fish and crustaceans. They eat fish and whatever else is around, including turtles, and have reportedly been known to drown seagulls before swallowing them headfirst when food is short according to the Australian Museum. They will work together to herd fish into shallow water ready to scoop them up.

Contrary to legend the bill is not used for storage, but is sometimes extended in gathering water containing food or even to gather rainwater.

Numbers reportedly decreased in this area in early 2009 but that may be due to so many pelicans gathering in the Lake Eyre region during one of the few periods when that lake was filled with water as a result of high rainfall in northern Australia. That is what happened in the mid-1970s -- only a few remained around the coast. When the lake dried up, they returned.

Pelicans do not fly for extended periods but they can travel large distances by rising on air thermals and then gliding. Reputedly some seen at Lake Eyre were later seen at Christmas Island.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Pelican 

*US poet and humorist, 1879-1972, who was at one time editor of Nashville's morning newspaper, the Tennessean. He wrote the limerick in 1910, and in other years as there are several versions.

Safeway/Caltex service station to become Coles/Shell

Most real estate pamphlets which arrive at our home go straight into the round file but one which came this week from Century 21 had more news than we've seen in some editions of the 'local' newspaper.

For example, there was the inside story on the closure of the Safeway/Caltex service station due to the end of its lease on July 31, and its current renovation into a Coles/Shell service station which should be open by the end of August.

For a long time it was Coles' customers who had to travel to use their 4-cent discount vouchers, now it will be Safeway/Woolworths customers who cannot take up the fuel offer locally.

And though the Century 21 newsletter states that Caltex have bought the service station at the corner of Graydens Road and the Frankston/Flinder Road (one of more than 300 Mobil stations they've bought across the country, subject to ACCC approval), that will be surrounded by the new Bunnings development -- and Bunnings is part of the Wesfarmers group, as is Coles.

So Safeway customers will have to go out of town to use their dockets (closest is Somerville). That's not good -- even if the average docket does save less than the real cost of travelling about 4 or 5 kilometres. Maybe they'll switch their custom to Ritchies IGA.

Hastings local government

Hastings comes within the area of Mornington Peninsula Shire Council and is in the Cerberus ward.

The council HQ is in Rosebud but there are local offices are at: 21 Marine Parade (Melway: 154 K11)
Telephone: 1300 850 600 (24 hours)  Fax: 03 5986 6696
Email: custserv@mornpen.vic.gov.au
Postal address is: Private Bag 1000, Rosebud 3939
Operating hours: Monday-Friday: 8.30am to 5.00pm

The local councillor is: Cr Reade Smith
Phone/Fax: 5977 4355
Mob: 0409 957 096
Email: reade.smith@mornpen.vic.gov.au

The chief executive officer of the Mornington Peninsula Shire is Dr Michael Kennedy, OAM.

The main web site is at http://www.mornpen.vic.gov.au/

And get planning and permit details online

Anyone can log in to a restricted version of the main Mornington Peninsula shire database at  http://gisweb.mornpen.vic.gov.au/penmaps/

Much of the information on planning, registration such as food and health, and animals, and even details of traffic counts conducted in the shire are also available online. In addition to the map view you can also see the shire from the air -- the aerial photo view is currently 2007 but that may be more up to date than the similar views available via Google Earth.

You'll need the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) filter for your browser but going to the shire's Gisweb website will lead you through the process of downloading that, from Adobe Software, and installing it. You may also have to disable any popup blocker you have installed (though some can tell the difference between nice popups, from the site you are visiting and nasty ones from sites you do not want to have forcing themselves on you).

Once that's done you can zoom in to Hastings on the PenWeb map and get the kind of information that previously required a lengthy visit to one of the shire offices or a library, inlcuding for example, being able to check whether that annoying dog down the road is registered or not.



 

Origin of Western Port and Hastings names

Hastings Jetty as it is today - it was first built in 1865

"Dad... why's it called Western Port when it's East of Melbourne?"

How did you answer that? We're sure you've been asked.

The true answer is that it is West of Sydney, the most westerly port in the colony when it was named by George Bass (yep, the man Bass Strait is named for) in 1798.

So that was the 18th century. By half way through the 19th, there were some fishing shacks in this area and the King family had built a homestead at Tyabb from which they ran their property around King's Creek. The township in the area that is now called 'Old Tyabb', the area on the northern edge of what is now Hastings, was also referred to as East Moorooduc. So, whenever someone tells you definitively that Hastings was originally Tyabb, or King's Creek, or East Moorooduc, smile and say "Is that so?" knowing that all those names have been used for bits of what is now called Hastings.

There are also multiple stories about who or what 'Hastings' refers to. Most common is that the name comes from the town on the southern English coast, but there is also the story that a member of the King family was on board the Marquis of Hastings, a ship which left Portsmouth, England, in April 1827 and arrived at Sydney Cove in July of that year. A Gilbert King was the surgeon on that voyage.

Could the origin from Marquis of Hastings explain why there is a restaurant in town called "MaQuay" (pronounced Marquee which is also how the title Marquis would be pronounced in French)? But Marquess, as the English title is usually spelt, has since the time of settlement been pronounced with the 's' sounded).

Also confusing in the idea of Hastings originating from a person rather than a town or a ship, is that the Hastings peerage suffered from being given to short-lived families or being given by the wrong side in a royal dispute. It was created at least four times since the original Baron Hastings in 1263 and fought over in court many times. See Baron Hastings in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_Hastings

We would welcome more definitive information.

We can write with some certainty that the Hastings jetty was built in 1865 and that there were some fishing shacks in the area and spread along the creek. My the mid 1870s there were churches and a school, and the railway reached the town in 1889. Check the Hastings Museum and also the newsagency for the books that have been published on the town and district.

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