Telford Family of Ellinbank
Telford family at Ellinbank
John Dempster Telford moved with his wife Lottie and offspring, Jean, Ray and Doug, from Tasmania in 1924 to take up dairying at Ellinbank. He purchased a 118 acre block from Peter Tandberg straddling the border of Ellinbank and Gainsborough to the east, and called it “Glendearg”.
The Ellinbank district had been opened up to settlers to select 320 acre blocks in the area in 1874; the Telford property had been subdivided from the selection of William Cropley, one of 5 members of that family to come there in 1874. The land is highly fertile and suitable for intensive farming and was covered in thick forest of tall trees, Messmate, Swamp Gum, Blackwood and smaller understory of Hazel bush, Supplejack and Tree ferns. The early pioneers worked hard and long to clear the land for farming; by the time John Telford arrived his land was being used principally for dairying.
The advert in The Argus of June 21, 1924 for the sale by Tandberg mentions Buildings comprising a new house, cowshed 6 bails, dairy and shed, and as separate lots, 100 cows and heifers, 4 draught horses and 2 light horses as well as a milking machine, mower, ploughs etc. - it is not known how much of this John Telford chose to bid for. At some stage he obtained a further 46 acres to the south of this land, making it 164 acres in all.
Ellinbank is within the region occupied by the indigenous Woiwurrung (Wurunjeri) language group prior to the arrival of the European settlers.​
Click here to for a more detailed history of Ellinbank from 1874 to the mid 20th century.
The name "Glendearg" was carried on from the Table Cape farm; where the name was taken from we don't know but before leaving Scotland, J.D. Telford's grandfather William Orr worked for several years near Peebles not far from Glendearg in the Scottish borders; there is also a sheep farm near Eskdale north of Dumfries named Glendearg.
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John Telford's mother was Jeannie Orr, daughter of William and sister of Juliana. Juliana married Henry Stewart and their son Cyril moved to Ellinbank sometime prior to 1914. So when the Telfords moved there in 1924 they had relatives already settled there and had most likely been to visit.
The original subdivision of the Ellinbank / Lardner area by government surveyor John Lardner was of 10,000 acres which would be sufficient for around 32 separate 320 acre farms. By 1924 many of these had been further subdivided and more land opened up further east and south toward the Strzelecki Ranges.
The 1925 electoral roll for Ellinbank and Gainsborough lists 53 family names, 60 individuals (all male) listed as farmer or dairyman, 67 females all listed as “home duties” except one, namely Grace Matilda Gilbert, “sewing mistress”, and 15 males as labourer, carter, engine driver etc.
St Georges Church of England had been built in 1915 and was being actively supported by the Gilbert, Kingston, Tackaberry, Parnell, Hale, Sterecher, Wallace, Sutherland, Potts, McPherson, Warne, Pascoe, and Parker families.
The earliest mention of Telfords in the local paper is in December 1925 when Mrs (J.D.) Telford is named as helping with the arrangements for an annual tea party and concert of St Georges Church of England at Ellinbank.
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Others such as the Cropleys attended the Methodist church next door to the Primary School in the centre of the district. The school was opened in 1879.
The Ellinbank football club had been founded in 1922; cricket and tennis would come later.
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By the time the Telfords settled at Ellinbank the nearby town of Warragul was well established with the Shire Hall built in 1892, the 1886 Court House and the Railway Station from 1878. The earliest burials at the cemetery are from about 1883.
In 1927, a sale was advertised in the West Gippsland Guardian of the Dairy Herd and Plant of Mr J.D.Telford of Ellinbank. It states that “Mr Telford is giving up dairying and going in for sheep grazing”. Then a couple of years later he and Lottie moved to Bright leaving the Ellinbank farm in the joint care of Ray and brother Doug - who divided it between them, Ray taking the northernmost 80 acres ( on the Darnum - Ellinbank road, just on the edge of Gainsborough by which address it has sometimes been known) and Doug the southern part at the end of Cropley's Road.​​
Jack Telford died on 20th July 1931 and is buried at Bright.
In his will he leaves the 164 acre "Gainsborough property" to wife Charlotte for her lifetime then on her death to be divided equally between Raymond, Douglas and Helen (Jean); in the event Jean predeceased Lottie so the farm went to Ray and Doug; livestock, farm implements, motor vehicle and household furniture at Gainsborough to go to his wife absolutely; the 20 acre farm at "Torwood Lea", Bright to Basil: shares in Australian Iron and Steel to William.
The probate documents detail the property at Gainsborough with a value of 4467 pounds, being 164 and a bit acres, with 2 dwelling houses, sheds etc., and the property at Bright with a value of 700 pounds being 20 acres and 30 perches in area.
At Bright he had 3 cows, 1 heifer, 21 pullets, 6 old hens, a separator, churn, ladders, scythe and hedge cutter and orchard spray.
At Gainsborough there were 20 cows, 21 springers, 3 draught horses, 1 pony, 1 sow pig, 400 Leghorn fowls, mower, reaper-binder, drill, shave plough, furrow plough, harrows, milking plant, engine, separator, cream cans, cooler, incubators and brooders; and location not specified - Chevrolet motor truck, jinker, bicycle etc.
Total assets of 7335 pounds.
This raises some interesting questions - at some stage around 1929 - 30, Jack and Lottie have moved to Bright in semi-retirement to a hobby farm, leaving Ray and Doug at Ellinbank / Gainsborough. He had apparently sold the dairying stock in 1927 but in 1931 there were cows but no sheep on the property ! Maybe the sale never went through, or after Jack left, did Ray and Doug restock ?
From Victorian electoral rolls it is apparent that J. D. Telford's widow Lottie initially moved back to Gippsland spending some time living with her son Basil at Drouin but by 1942 she had moved to Frankston to live with daughter Jean who had purchased a property at 10 Plummer Avenue on Olivers Hill. Jean died in 1957 at the young age of 59 after suffering for years with Parkinsons Disease. Lottie then came to live with Ray and family at Ellinbank, then for a while with granddaughter June Wallace before moving to Perth WA for a few years with son Will, Alice and family; she died in September 1964 aged 89 and was cremated at Karrakatta cemetery.​
During the period 1920 - 1929 we know that Ray spent some time away from the family farm, partly studying and partly working on other farms in Victoria. He did not always find it easy working with or for his father as he had his own ideas - one of them presumably being that cows were better than sheep. Ray enrolled at Hawkesbury Agricultural College west of Sydney in January 1920, aged 19; the family had just moved to Cressy (near Longford) from Tabe Cape. We have no record of how long he remained at the college but by 1922 he was working for Thomas Mesley in South Gippsland with the top testing Jersey herd in the state.
By 1930 he was well settled at Ellinbank having taken on the role of secretary of a committee formed to build a public hall for the district which was completed in that year - and of course he had begun courting the local School Sewing Mistress, Grace Gilbert.
Grace Matilda Gilbert married Raymond Gordon Telford on 4th July 1931 at the Ellinbank Church of England.
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For more on this family, click here:​
Photographs above show:
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The view looking north to the Baw Baw Mountain range from Glendearg, Ellinbank.
(at top of page) and making hay at Glendearg
"Torwood Lea" Bright, photographed in 1890 - Jack and Lottie moved there in 1929.
Bright cemetery where John Dempster is buried.
Lottie and John Dempster Telford
.Lottie Telford nee Docker in her later years.
Olivers Hill Frankston where Lottie and daughter Jean lived for many years.
Gravestone of Lottie (Charlotte Elizabeth Gordon Telford (nee Docker) and her daughter Helen Jean Betham Telford (Jean) at Warragul cemetery.
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For more on the Telford family in Beechworth and Tasmania and on the Docker family in Australia, click below: