Sir John Monash Museum articles
MYTH, MEMORY, THE YALLOURN SIGN AND SIR CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH
For decades, one explanation followed the concrete YALLOURN sign on the reservoir hill: it was constructed during the Second World War to warn pilots that they were approaching…
YALLOURN, SIR CHARLES KINGSFORD SMITH, AND WHITE CITY
The case had been sitting in the open for decades, written in concrete beneath the Gippsland sky. It contained the name of a vanished town, a triangle pointing close to north, a…
WATERSKIING ON YALLOURN OVAL No. 1
The boat lifted at the bow as it crossed the forward line, throwing a low white wake across Yallourn’s No. 1 Oval. Water covered the cricket wicket, the running track and the…
YALLOURN RSL LIVES ON IN NEWBOROUGH
The morning after Friday night, the work of making a community begins again.
The Bridge That Fell Beneath John Monash
At 4.20 on the afternoon of 14 May 1901, a section of King’s Bridge in Bendigo broke away beneath a steamroller and a traction engine.
TRAIN CRASH AT YALLOURN
The day carriage No. 786 climbed over locomotive No. 113
THE POOL THAT OUTLASTED YALLOURN
In the final years of Yallourn, when streets were emptying and houses were disappearing, the swimming pool was still holding water.
THE YEAR VICTORIA COULD ONLY HEAT BATHWATER
And the decade that brought energy independence to Victoria.
THE APPRENTICES WHO POWERED VICTORIA
In 1972, six of eight first-year apprentices from the SEC’s Latrobe Valley Department won in the Victoria’s Annual Craft Awards.
TOP SECRET MISSION - BUILD YALLOURN BRIQUETTES
Every six weeks, for nearly half a century, Yallourn’s briquette factory produced the weight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in fuel.
Jock Lawson — Yallourn’s First Gardener
In 1929, twenty-eight-year-old John “Jock” Lawson established Yallourn’s five-acre nursery. It became the source of the flowers, shrubs and trees that would help grow Australia’s…
YALLOURN’S HIDDEN WAR
In Yallourn, the war arrived before the bombs did. It arrived in blackout curtains. It arrived in backyard air raid shelters that filled with winter water. It arrived in vehicle…
By Wisdom and Courage
Sir John Monash never saw Yallourn High School.
North Yallourn in June 1950 was a town still finding its shape.
It was not the planned garden town of Yallourn, with its careful streets and civic order. North Yallourn was rougher, closer to the work, closer to an open cut, and closer to the…
On Friday, 13 January 1939, Victoria burned.
It had been the driest summer on record. Creeks and rivers had dried up. Melbourne was on water restrictions. By 9 January, major fires already raged across the state — at…
He put down the riot. Then he investigated why it started.
On the night of 31 October 1923 — the eve of Melbourne's Spring Racing Carnival — 29 constables at Russell Street Police Headquarters refused to go on duty. By the following…
In June 1943, Gordon McCracken, General Manager of the Bank's Note Printing Branch
In June 1943, Gordon McCracken, General Manager of the Bank's Note Printing Branch, wrote to the Governor arguing that Sir John Monash should appear on Australia's currency.…
Sir John Monash had a sister. Her name was Mathilde.
They grew up together in a bilingual household in Richmond — the same home, the same driven immigrant parents, the same intellectual expectations. Their mother Bertha was a…
Yallourn's Miracle Men take Melbourne's cup.
In 1951, Yallourn Soccer Club won the Victorian First Division championship becoming the first non-metropolitan club ever to take the cup. This was David versus Goliath, and…
Yallourn's Casualty Centre Became Victoria's Most-Read Library
In 1940 and 1941, the Yallourn power station generated 67% of Victoria's electricity. Every factory making ammunition. Every hospital needing lights on. Every household in…
Sir John Monash helped make the world beneath our feet possible.
Reinforced concrete is easy to ignore because it is everywhere.
What is the Golden Thread?
It begins with a boy in Melbourne in 1878. John Monash was thirteen years old when he stood for his bar mitzvah at the East Melbourne Synagogue. From Ecclesiastes he received a…
The Pianist Before the General
Sir John Monash played piano seriously enough to perform in public.
The Many Hands That Built Yallourn
Yallourn was one of the great industrial achievements of the British Empire.
People need honest heroes.
Monash loathed war “with a loathing I cannot describe,” then planned the Battle of Hamel with such precision that it achieved its objectives in 93 minutes. He endured financial…