Month: May 2025

Although the year of 1862 is taken as the foundation year of Saint Andrews Presbyterian Church Clunes there were services held in Clunes earlier.

An effort was made in 1859 but owing to a gold rush to Back Creek (now Talbot) the proposal was temporarily abandoned. Efforts in the following year were more successful and a group was formed.

A newspaper of January 1861 indicates that during that month a Rev. John Strongman (DV) took services in the Clunes Council Chambers and the schoolroom at Mount Beckworth followed on the next Sunday by Reverend Downes, then of Learmonth and later first Minister of the Clunes Charge. It was April 1862 before the church was built in Service Street.

Services in connection with the opening of Saint Andrew’s Church were held on Sunday the 13^th of April 1862 and the Reverend John Downes of Lake Learmonth preached morning and evening. A social gathering to further mark the opening was held on 14th of April.

John Downes was soon called to the Clunes charge and on Friday, 11^th May 1862 was inducted. He was the first permanent Presbyterian minister.

The Downes family lived at a temporary manse until 1864 when a permanent manse was built on the church land. The site was chosen in January 1864 and work began soon after.

John Downes continued as minister until his death at the manse on 29th of May 1866, aged 63 years and 10 months. He had been a minister for nearly 44 years.

Upon hearing of John Downes death, his friend John Geillie in Hobart wrote:

“He was ever solicitous about the welfare of the young, establishing a weekly Bible class at Saint Andrew’s. With him the Sabbath School was an especial one holding weekly meetings with the teachers for mutual culture, and seldom omitting to address the scholars on a Sunday afternoon.

“Some ministers endear themselves to young folk very quickly. Mr Downes did so. His memory will ever be cherished by this writer and others…”

John Downes was a very active minister and was very sympathetic towards the townspeople’s problems.

He and the congregation were ready to oppose transportation to Western Australia: “If necessary we will join in a voice of Thunder against the fearful perpetration of wrong”.

His son-in-law, Charles T Sutherland was First Mayor of the Borough of Clunes.

In 1877 the Reverend Dr Elder Gray BA DD became Minister and remained until his death in 1905. About this time alterations were made to the manse by the building of a large kitchen and other conveniences.

The Reverend Dr Gray was succeeded by the Reverend R M Legate who remained only 10 months before transferring to Suva, Fiji.

In 1907 the Reverend J Legge became minister and remained until 1916. During his ministry extensive additions and alterations were made to the church property.

In 1907 a large vestry was erected at the rear of the church. The Ladies Guild in 1908 provided a new carpet and pulpit carpet in the church and in 1912 completely refurnished the church

During this period the verandah was erected around the manse.

In 1907 the Reverend J Legge became minister and remained until 1916. During his ministry extensive additions and alterations were made to the Church property.

In 1909 efforts were made to build a Sunday school but for various reasons the work had to be postponed until 1912 when a large hall was erected at a cost of £400 and dedicated at the Jubilee celebrations that year. In 1913 the piano was purchased and in 1914 the Kindergarten Room was erected. This building was erected by voluntary labour.

In 1916 the Reverend R A Green became minister and during his ministry Coghills Creek was included in the Clunes charge, services being held there every Sunday afternoon. It is likely the church was rendered between 1922 and 1925.

The Church was painted both inside and out between 1953 and 1957 with new toilets constructed.

The first meeting of the session of the enlarged charge with Clunes, Talbot, Evansford and Coghills Creek was held in November 1965.

A meeting of the Presbyterian and Methodist congregations was held in June 1970 to consider combining the two congregations. Agreement being reached in the affirmative.

In March 1971 the secretary gave a report on the month about services with a combined congregations which was to continue during 1971 and was later reported that the union with the Presbyterian and Methodist congregations would officially commence on the January 1^st, 1972.

A congregational meeting was held in Clunes on July 25^th, 1974, to discuss the proposal to amalgamate the Clunes and Learmonth Charges. The current Charge of Clunes, Coghills Creek, Talbot and Evansford proving unviable.

A new Charge of Clunes, Coghills Creek, Waubra, Learmonth and Evansford was constituted in November 1974.

The Board of Management was informed in January 1998 of the proposal by the Wesley College to establish a campus in Clunes on Uniting Church Property and neighbouring land.

The new kitchen and toilets were completed in 1999 with financial input from the Uniting Church and Wesley College.

The foundation stone of the Wesley campus was laid on November 6^th, 1999, with the official opening of the campus held on April 16^th 2000.

The Reverend G Wells was inducted into the new Parish of Creswick, Scrub Hill, Miners Rest, Clunes and Coghills Creek on March 3rd 1999.

Following Rev Wells turn of Ministry, Pastor Joy Robinson was appointed to the parish in February 2006 and retired on April 29^th 2012.

The hero of this story is Richard Ford, arguably one of the town’s most well known and revered artists. He was born in 1875 the second son of a Cornish miner and a miner’s daughter, one might say he had mining dust in his veins.

Over the course of a long life he was a council foreman, horticulturalist and park curator. In addition to these many talents he was a prolific painter. Where Ford received his artistic training is unknown but his skills were considerable.

Richard brought his young family to Clunes from Dunach near Talbot in about 1910.

In Clunes, he established himself as a talented artist, producing several townscapes. He executed works of Clunes and its surroundings very much in the tradition of English landscape painting, casting the town in a soft bucolic light. (4) An interpretation which was in great contrast to the many photographs of the period featuring rickety shacks, industrial-scale mining operations and denuded hills.

He also painted still lifes and, in later life, created smoke-etched plates of scenes including the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings and Captain Cook’s Cottage. We recently received a number of these items from Richard’s grand-niece. Many of his artworks are in private collections in Clunes and elsewhere.

However, this particular story begins in about 1916, when he worked as Foreman for the Clunes Borough Council. In this capacity he was tasked with re-arranging the stage and décor of the Clunes Town Hall.

The Town Hall is itself a work of some significance, originally built in 1873, was designed by Percy Oakden, and features a decorative ceiling and lunette windows. Anecdotally, it is modeled on the Great Hall of the Melbourne Exhibition Buildings.

A century ago, town halls were one of the main spaces for regional dwellers. There, people would gather to dance, listen to music and watch plays. And the proscenium framing the stage was as essential as chairs and lights. Generally, stage decor featured a painted backdrop, movable wings and a physical proscenium arch.

Unfortunately, no images of the stage before Richard’s work have been retained.

With his artistic talent, Richard was ideally placed to carry out the work, and in collaboration with the Borough Engineer, he set about this task with a will, submitting an estimate of £14.16s.9d together with sketch plans to the Council, which approved the expenditure on 7th June 1916.

Work was carried out over several weeks, resulting in what we see today, (some 109 years later) a grand panoramic back wall, depicting a paved patio bracketed by neo-classical balustrades looking out over a sumptuous lake and dramatic mountains, side wings and a front oleo cloth. The duck cloth for the oleo drop alone was purchased for the then princely sum of £2.10s.

It was also around this time that the stage was widened and deepened, with the addition of a pressed tin proscenium arch, plus infrastructure to support the wings and arch. The new stage fittings were opened by the Mayor, Cr Rowe, in November 1916.

Needless to say the council and town loved the final result and many spoke in “..most eulogistic terms of the fine painting executed by Mr Ford,” as reported by the Clunes Guardian and Gazette. In response: “Ford said he could hardly express his feelings. He had done the work to the best of his ability and he was pleased to know that his efforts had been appreciated.”

The new décor featured an ‘oleo drop’ – an Oleo being ‘a vaudeville number, a short dance or song, or a set of same, performed as a filler, solo item, or encore after a performance’. By extension an oleo is any flown painted drop. In our case, the front, or oleo drop, is stored on a roller above the proscenium arch, and would have been regularly used as a roll backdrop for a solo performer – ventriloquist, magician, singer, etc, while the main stage was reset for the next act. The term is often applied to a decorative front curtain used in vaudeville. Without the luxury of a fly tower, the cloth is rolled up and brought in by pulley.

Popular during the heyday of Vaudeville from the 1880s to the 1930s, oleos were typically canvas curtains that were attached at the top to a tube formed from timber battens and at the bottom to a tail batten. An oleo drop – also called an oleo curtain, roll drop or simply an oleo – is designed with colourful murals or paintings. Oleos became a popular stage element in vaudeville acts and variety entertainment shows because of their simplicity and ease of use.

Ours is a particularly fine example, as Richard managed to squeeze in many landscape elements with his design, featuring a sweeping panorama of a presumably fictional landscape, with castles, a fishing village, tropical forest, white cliffs and a very tranquil seashore. The panel was made up of several pieces joined vertically.

Over the years, this cloth has been damaged through regular use and was taken away and conserved in 2010. It is now stored permanently above the pros arch and only very rarely rolled down as it is, understandably, quite fragile.

The side wings, or legs, are set on swivels, so that one may view either a continuation of the countryside panorama featuring sturdy oak trees thick with foliage or smaller vignettes of subjects such as native flowers and swaggies by water holes, complete with deer and snowy mountains. With the flick of a latch, the stage could go from a European theme to Australian theme in moments.

Several years later, on the side wall of the Town Hall, Richard also painted a magnificent Rising Sun emblem, commemorating the “…Glorious Part Played by Clunes and District Boys”, with no mention of the girls who also did their bit.

Clunes Museum recently engaged Neil Newitt Photographer to document these various decorations, so that we may have a permanent record.

In his retirement, Richard taught woodwork (called ‘Sloyd’) at the Clunes Higher Elementary School.

Throughout his life, Richard was a keen gardener and is seen in his beloved garden in Smith Street, Clunes where he died peacefully in 1961.