Place Names.
When Victoria was first settled, then later, with the finding of gold, it was left to our forefathers to distinguish one place from another by giving it a name. These area names grew from reference to a geographical feature or a single hut to a township. The names used sometimes came from Aboriginal descriptive terms, other times a place was named with pangs of homesickness, remembering what had been their home twelve thousand miles away. It was not uncommon to name a place after the settler, important people of the time or a battle won and lost. Other place names were quite naive or primitive, even to the extent of lacking imagination. When the early settlers to the Buninyong district arrived in Victoria, it was usually at Geelong and making their way ‘up country’ these are the place names, they became familiar with.
GEELONG: from the Aboriginal word ‘Jillong’ meaning either “Place of the Cliff” or, “ White Sea Bird”.
BATESFORD: John and Alfred Bates travelled from Tasmania and took up land along the Moorabool (q.v.) River. This spot became an easy crossing or ‘ford’ across the river.
MOORABOOL: Aboriginal for ‘Cry of the Curlew’ or ‘Ghost’.
GHERINGHAP: Aboriginal word for (i) ‘a kind of white gum tree’, (ii) ‘Black Wattle Blossoms’.
BANNOCKBURN: Robert (the) Bruce a Scottish warrior defeated Edward II at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Erroneously, the nearby Bruce Creek is said to be named after Robert Bruce, instead it was named after James Bruce an early settler.
LETHBRIDGE: Previously named ‘Muddy Waterholes’. Lethbridge was named after one of the officials who superintended the building of the Geelong - Ballarat Railway.
MAUDE: Joshua Maude Wooley settled in the nearby Anakie Hills in 1836/37.
MEREDITH: Settled by Charles Meredith who came from Tasmania with the first settlers.
ELAINE: Said to be from the poem by Alfred (Lord) Tennyson ‘Lancelot and Elaine’. The area was also called ‘Stoney Rises’ and ‘Mt Doran’. Mt Doran is the name now used for the settlement to the north of the present Elaine. (I have never been able to find any reference to support the often quoted reason for naming Elaine, Meredith and Maude; as being after the daughters of a surveyor!)
CLARENDON: During the Crimean War) Lord Clarendon was the British Governments’ Foreign Minister.
LAL LAL: From the Aboriginal “A clashing of the waters” in reference to the Lal Lal Falls and the roaring torrent it sometimes becomes after rain.
SCOTSBURN: Originally called ‘Burnt Hill’, then later ‘Scott’s Marsh’. Settled by Andrew Scott in 1838. The Scottish word for a small stream or brook is ‘Burn’. Therefore the name could be a corruption of Scott’s Burnt Hill or Scott’s Burn (Stream).
BUNINYONG: Buninyong took its name from Mt Buninyong. The Aboriginals called the Mount, Bonan-yong meaning “Man lying on back with raised knees”. Being; that when viewed from a distance the Mount has this appearance.
DURHAM LEAD: The lead comes from the gold lead found by deep shaft mining. Durham after the City of Durham in England.
GARIBALDI: Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807 - 82) was an Italian Patriot who led the Red Shirt Legion in the fight for Italy’s Independence in 1860. Many Italian’s were on the gold fields and sought to recognise Garibaldi’s efforts concerning the unification of Italy into a Kingdom.
CAMBRIAN HILL: Named by Welsh Miners - Cambrian is the ancient Latin name for Wales.
NAPOLEONS: Napoleons’ Lead was so called because of the nickname given to its discoverer - a portly, yet dignified miner who his associates of the time called Napoleon. This explains why it differs from Napoleon (of France), the ‘s’ denoting an abbreviation.
MAGPIE: More correctly Magpie Gully, after the proliferation of the bird by the same name.
GUMS (The): Very rarely heard of now days. This was the flat area where the Sebastopol - Buninyong and the Sebastopol - Cambrian Hill Roads meet. Named because of the stand of uncleared Gum Trees which once stood at the corner.
COBBLERS: Again, a place name very rarely, if ever, mentioned today. It was an area situated at the Cambrian Hill end of Sebastopol (q.v.). Cobblers, “clumsy workma(e)n”, or an English slang word for a ‘ a load of old rubbish’ or more than likely in this case, “a drink of wine”; because of the sly grog shops in the area. In this general district the name Cobblers appears several times near places such as Creswick, Yandoit, Mount Egerton, Sebastopol &c.
SEBASTOPOL: The anglicised name of SEVASTOPOL, a Russian Fort finally captured by Britain and her allies in 1855 during the Crimean War). Other references to the Crimean War as place names include, Inkerman, Balaclava, Redan &c.
