Red Cliffs Centenaries

16/09/2026

What could you make for the Cardross Spring Show?

16/09/2026

16/09/2026

15/09/2026

100 years ago today - Red Cliffs and Mildura teams play in a football grand final. 🏉🏆

As reported by the Sunraysia Daily:

“There was a good attendance at the Kenny Memorial Park yesterday [September 15] when the minor premiers of the Wednesday Football League (Red Cliffs) met Mildura Imperials in the grand final match. Merbein had defeated Red Cliffs in the first semi-final, and they in turn were beaten by the Imperials. The game was in charge of C. Edwards. The teams were:—Mildura Imperials: C. Whitmore, J. McLeod, C. McLeod, H. Forrest, J. Barron, F. Litchfield, M. Beattie, F. McCartney, H. McCartney, T. Evans, J. Radford, R. Jack, F. Ruddick, W. Harrison, R. Harris, J. Craig, R. Show and A. Lowden. Red Cliffs: H. Turvey, C. E. Turvey, Winter, Cramer, Waters, P. Smith, Quinton, McGowan, Hewitt, Pardon, Davey, Taylor, McRae, Jones, Hyland, Byrnes, E. Lacey and O’Brien.

From the bounce, Red Cliffs forwarded and Smith had their first goal. This was at once answered by a goal to Ruddick, followed by a second goal to Red Cliffs from Turvey and a third from Turvey. C. McLeod and Litchfield forwarded for Mildura and Mildura’s second goal appeared—five goals in as many minutes. H. McCartney turned the next attack but Red Cliffs were able to score three points. The game was fast, but was without system, play being too crowded. Quarter scores:

Red Cliffs, 3 goals 3 behinds;
Imperials, 2 goals.

Mildura started off in the second quarter with two behinds, and from a free Radford scored major points. Red Cliffs moved forward and good mark by P. Smith deserved the goal that followed. Red cliffs gain threatened, but R. Jack turned play. Coming again, H. McCartney turned play, but Turvey with a good mark scored the next goal. Good play by Harris placed Mildura in a scoring position, but the Red Cliffs backs were too strong for the weak forward line. Red Cliffs, coming again, were turned by good judgement on the part of F. McCartney. From this move Forrest marked grandly and served better than the point that followed. Mildura again came and two flags were raised by Forrest. Whitmore and Harris forwarded again and Barton, from a free, raised the fifth goal for Mildura. Red Cliffs then took a hand but a poor kick by Turvey resulted in a behind. Half-time scores:

Imperials, 5 goals 5 behinds;
Red Cliffs, 5 goals 4 behinds.

Red Cliffs moved off at once on the bounce and scored three points. H. McCartney with a long kick forwarded to C. McLeod, but B. Waters was in the way. Whitmore and C. McLeod were prominent at this stage, saving continually. After some even play, Mildura, with the aid of Ruddick and Radford, passed to Litchfield, who made no mistake, his good kick going through. Red cliffs, from the bounce, came again and Pardon’s kick went through the goal. Turvey from a free scored the next goal. Mildura forwarded but Turvey marked Barton’s kick and saved. As a result, P. Smith secured and scored the next goal. From the bounce Mildura rushed down the centre. Evans forwarded and Ruddick, kicking the ball off the ground, scored the seventh goal. O’Brien was fouled and was given a free kick. His kick was in the air when the bell rang, but it went through and a goal as signalled. Third-quarter scores:

Red Cliffs, 9 goals 10 behinds;
Imperials, 7 goals 5 behinds.

With a deficit of 17-points, Mildura attacked but were turned. Red Cliffs drove down the centre and P. Smith made no mistake. Coming again, Red Cliffs were turned by Lowden, who forwarded but only a point was scored from the foot of Barton. Red Cliffs were kept busy in defence and Mildura broke through. Barton made no mistake with his next shot and scored the major points with a 50-yrds. Kick. With ten minutes to go the Imperial deficit was 16-points. Scrambling and rough play followed and the Imperials came again but Turvey was in the way. Whitmore marked his kick and sent the ball well in to Lowden, who scored the ninth goal and the difference was 10-points. Beattie with a good mark drove to Ruddick, who hit the post. Quinten returned but the Imperials were fighting hard. A free to Litchfield brough the score within three points of Red Cliffs. The game ended with Red Cliffs still three points in the lead and the scores:

Red Cliffs, 10 goals 13 behinds (73-points);
Imperials 10 goals 10 behinds (70-points)).

For the winners, Turvey, P. Smith, O’Brien, Waters and C. E. Turvey were good; for Mildura, C. W. Whitmore, C. McLeod, H. Forrest, Barton and H. McCartney showed out well. Goal-kickers were:—Red Cliffs: H. Turvey (4), P. Smith (4), Pardon and O’Brien. Imperials: Litchfield (2), Barton (2), Ruddick (2), Radford, Beattie, Lowden and Forrest.”

And in a later edition of the Daily we can read:

“On view at Mr. G. E. Butler's Diggersrest Café, Red Cliffs, is the Washington Cup for the 1926 season, which was presented to the Red Cliffs Wednesday football club, at the conclusion of the League meeting in Mildura on Tuesday [September 28]. The Red Cliffs team won the League premiership, but a protest was entered by the Mildura Imperials on the ground that Red Cliffs had included a player without the requisite qualification. But this protest was not upheld at Tuesday's meeting, and the premiership cup was handed to the team. This is the first senior football trophy that has been won by a Red Cliffs football team. The trophy presented by Barker and Park for the best and most consistent player in the team was won by Barney Waters, who was leading on the vote of the umpires that officiated at the different matches.”

14/09/2026

100 years ago - Bruce Maude's house burns down.

"The residence of Mr. Bruce Maude on block 568, Red Cliffs, was destroyed by fire last Saturday evening [September 11], during Mr. Maude's absence in Red Cliffs. The house and its contents were insured." (Sunraysia Daily)

You can read more about Bruce Maude in the book "A Land Fit for Heroes".

14/09/2026

100 years ago - the women of Red Cliffs are featured in Melbourne's The Argus newspaper.

"THE WOMEN OF RED CLIFFS.

A Stimulating Visit.

"I have never lived in a community where the husbands so completely and with such justice regard their wives as 'cobbers.'" This remark which the padre of Red Cliffs made to the writer during a short visit to Red Cliffs last week expresses very truly the atmosphere of this remarkable and extraordinarily interesting settlement. One uses the word "settlement" for lack of a better. But Red Cliffs is really a little world of its own. To any one with even a mite of imagination a visit there is a most stimulating experience. Particularly is it so to a woman, because only a woman, and a young woman perhaps more than any, could really appreciate completely the spirit that animates and inspires the lives of the women who are helping their husbands to build for the future and have been helping most of them, for a long five years. It is difficult to believe that Red Cliffs is only five years old. But it is just so long since the first settlers were camped in that strange and weirdly picturesque canvas town on what is now the far side of the railway line. Hessian humpies were the residences to which some of the women who are now leading the life of the settlement along lines that reveal the stuff of which they are made came to join their husbands. They tell amusing stories now of the difficulties of an experience that would try the mettle of most men. But it requires very little imagination on the part of the listener to realise that it would have taken a very keen sense of humour to have seen any fun in the effort to live decently in such conditions in the heat of a Mallee summer.

It was an experience that made one feel very humble and sometimes a little tight about the throat to sit around the fire in the delightful artistic living room of one of the bravest and most interesting of these young women-for they are all young-and listen to stories of those early days when some hundreds of returned soldiers of all types and mentalities were waiting their chance to "make good' in a life with which most of them were unfamiliar. All of the guests had driven many miles. All of them, men and women, had done a hard day’s work, yet in evening dress and in the brightest of spirits they gave zest to a party that will linger long in the memory of the city guest as one of the happiest and most interesting she had ever attended. After five years that have meant hard work and little money, these soldier settlers and their wives are confident now of the future It is waste of time to express admiration or sympathy for the way in which they have battled through those years of working and waiting. "There is no particular virtue in doing, what you know must be done,” one of the wives remarked. She had just been describing a day during the picking season with a temperature that sounded appalling to a southern mind, with two small children to be tended, the housework to be done, morning and afternoon tea to be prepared and taken down to the workers on the block and everything going wrong that could possibly go wrong. Many of the women to save expense still work with their husbands on the blocks. Domestic help is very scarce and very unsatisfactory. There are few homes without at least one or two babies. The majority of the houses are small and though marvels have been done in the way of makeshifts for saving labour, there is little money for what the town woman regards as necessities.

The following story was illuminative. "My birthday was coming around," one of the women told, "and my husband asked me what I would like. I said could I have something that was not useful. Up till then we had always given one another something that was needed. He said I could please myself. So I thought and thought what would I have. The thing that I least needed, though I longed for one seemed to be a silver teapot, so I asked for that as prospects were a little brighter. A little while before my birthday we were washing up one night after dinner, and I remarked what a comfort it would be to have a sink and what a saving of labour. My husband replied that if I hadn't wanted a silver teapot I might have had a sink. And I thought of the nights and nights especially in the summer when a sink would be a godsend, and very reluctantly I gave up my dream of a silver teapot. Now I belong to the aristocracy that may boast of a sink."

There are as yet no class distinctions at Red Cliffs. As one man put it "We all started on scratch. No one has any money. What we get will be what we earn and what honours there are go to the men who have stood the test best." And he mentioned with pride that among those hundreds of men who number among them some who would have been in one or other of the professions or in business, artisans or labourers who might have been found in every walk of life had there been no great war, there has been only 8 per cent. of failures up to date. The time must come, with the world made as it is, when there will be distinctions, but they will be of the right kind. Those people will be leaders of the social and public life of the place who have won the right to their positions, and they will be accepted because of it. Already Red Cliffs has a population approximating to 4,000, and the average age of the adult population of the settlement is 30 years. That in itself is significant and explains the fact that Red Cliffs has the highest birthrate and the lowest death rate in the world.

The Womens Club

There is nothing, more significant of the splendid spirit of the women of the settlement and of the men who give their women the fullest support and sympathy than the Womens Club, which is a monument to the initiative and enterprise of a small group of women who have belonged to Red Cliffs since its beginning. One of them, a woman who would have made a place for herself in any community by reason of her organising and executive ability, was one of three women, among 800 men who made a home for their husbands in what were known as the married quarters in canvas town. She, like so many others, came from a city home and had known no hardships, had possibly never even dreamed that she might some day choose to face hardships of the kind that filled the days of her early married life. She is now a moving spirit in a club that is a credit to the women who conceived it and to its present membership. These women are determined that they shall keep in touch with the things that matter in the great world, that they will not allow their minds and their brains to lie fallow because they are far away from the centre of things and can afford only very occasional trips to the city. They meet once a fortnight in the hall which houses also a baby health centre that has proved a boon to the district. Their meetings are social gatherings in the best sense of the word, because not content with the pleasure of talking with one another they always arrange to have either a paper read by one of their members or an address by a visitor. Although many of the members are women who have had interesting lives, who have travelled and "done things," some of them do not care for the limelight, and it is not always easy to arrange something new. But there is always something special. The writer's visit coincided with one of the meetings, and it proved another interesting experience. Every woman in the room was accompanied by one or more children. She could not have come otherwise. And so that the children might not interfere with the meeting one member always volunteers to look after them in the kitchen, where blocks and books and crayons are provided to keep them occupied. So impressed were the passengers on a Reso train which visited Red Cliffs recently with the value of this women's club in the life of the district, and with the benefits of the baby health centre, that 30 of them subscribed £42 as a donation to the club funds. The H. V. McKay Trust has just granted them £100, and they feel very confident of the future. If they carry on as they are going they will be able to cry shame on some of their city sisters who are content with the social round of the suburbs. They have their good time, too, with dances and bridge parties when circumstances permit, but their horizon is a much wider one. One feels inclined to cry, "Hats off to the wives who are 'cobbers' as well.""

The picture is of Mrs Martin of Block 332 in 1922. It appears courtesy of Musuems Victoria. It was donated to them by Lois Etheridge.

To see and read more about the women of Red Cliffs, get yourself a copy of "Red Cliffs Recollections", available from the Red Cliffs and District Historical Society.

14/09/2026

100 years ago - philanthropic trusts have been very generous to Red Cliffs.

"The Red Cliffs Baby Health Centre will shortly take delivery of a Ford car for the use of Sister Archer when visiting mothers and babies of the settlement. When the purchase of a car was first mooted, a Ford represented the limit of the probable means of the Centre, and the Shire Council was approached with a request for assistance in purchasing the car. Subsequently special donations were made to the Centre, whose finances were increased considerably as a result. These donations were as follow: Edward Wilson Trust, £250 (in response to a request for a contribution toward the purchase of a Ford car) [nearly $25,000 in today's money]; H. V. McKay Country Trust Fund, £100 (for building fund) [about $10,000], and £42/10/ from the last Reso train party [over $4000]. The funds available for the purchase of a car were more than sufficient for the type of car originally decided upon, and inquiries were made with a view of substituting another car. The Mildura Shire Council was asked if it would agree to a car other than the Ford being purchased, on the understanding that the shire was not to be asked to increase the amount of its donation under the original proposal. The Red Cliffs Health Centre was notified in reply that the Shire Council could not agree to any departure from the original decision to contribute for the purchase of a Ford. In view of this reply, the consideration of another type of car was abandoned and the order lodged for a Ford." (Sunraysia Daily)

Both the Edward Wilson Estate and the HV McKay Charitable Trust continue investing in community projects today.

14/09/2026

100 years ago - a new blockie committee is formed.

"At the first meeting of the new committee of the Red Cliffs Fruitgrowers' Association it was decided that the committee as a whole form a growers' defence committee for Red Cliffs, and three delegates Messrs. Morris, Badger and Mackinnon, were appointed to confer with the Mildura growers' defence committee." (Sunraysia Daily)

Growers defence committees were bodies formed by block owners to defend against the unwanted actions of block worker organisations, typically the Australian Workers’ Union.

14/09/2026

Still winners in our eyes 💛🖤🐯