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Kangaroo Ground was the first farming
community to establish in the Yarra Valley
beyond Heidelberg. Its first families were
Scottish, most arriving in Victoria aboard the
sailing ship ‘David Clark’ in 1839, each family
later buying, on average, 150 acres of rich
volcanic soil. By the mid-1850s they were
growing around 2,000 acres of wheat, oats
and vegetables. The extreme productivity of
Kangaroo Ground farms saw its farmers become
a power in the land.
In need of roads to transport their farm produce
to market they established the Eltham Road
Board which in 1871 became the Eltham Shire
Council, which governed the municipality for
69 years, from Kangaroo Ground. By 1873
Kangaroo Ground had its own newspaper
covering the County of Evelyn. Despite such
claims to fame it never developed past village
status with a general store, a church, a school,
a hotel and a scatter of farmhouses. Its people’s
main focus, instead, remained on farming, each
paddock fenced in sturdy post-and-rail, with
heavily bordered Hawthorn hedge to ward off
the kangaroos that had given the district its name.
The plant selected for this panel is the native
perennial
Themeda triandra
or kangaroo grass.
Haymaking
WITH KANGAROO GRASS
IN KANGAROO GROUND
PHOTOGRAPHS
William (Bill) Williams on rake
c.1942 Andrew Ross Museum
The extensive crop fields of
Kangaroo Ground
c. 1900
Andrew Ross Museum
INFORMATION
Woiwood, Mick.
Kangaroo Ground —
The HighlandTaken
(1994)