Located in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Sale is situated at the head of the Thomson River, above
the junction with the Latrobe River, 212 kilometres east of Melbourne.
The Gunaikurnai People
The Aboriginal people of Gippsland and areas of the southern slopes of the Victorian Alps are the Gunaikurnai people. The Brayakaulung clan
occupied territory around the current site of Sale.
Wayput being the Gunaikurnai name of the area.
The creation story about the origins of the Gunaikurnai people tells how the first Gunaikurnai ancestor, Borun, the pelican, came from the mountains in Victoria’s northwest with a canoe on his head. Borun crossed over the river at Sale, creating songlines and walked to Tarra Warackel (Port Albert). (songlines are the path where creator beings travelled)
Borun then noticed a tapping sound, but not knowing what it was, he continued on, until he reached water, where he put down his canoe. In the water, he found Tuk, the musk duck. She became his wife and they became the parents of the Gunaikurnai people.
The local Gunaikurnai totems are the blue wren (male) and brown wren (female).
Gunaikurnai people moved
about their land with canoes made from a single piece of bark softened over a fire and bent into shape with an axe, then tied at the ends. Food was hunted, such as kangaroos, possums and wombats and collected at the different camps. Possum furs were used for warmth.
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| Aboriginal boys of Gippsland, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 16 December 1911 |
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| Aboriginal child, Sydney Mail (NSW : 1912 - 1938), Wednesday 6 May 1914 |
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| Aboriginal people in bark canoes. This particular image shows what appears to be two different types of bark canoes, one a Murray River type (in the foreground) anad the other a Gippsland coastal type. Australian National Maritime Museum on The Commons |
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| Aboriginal Australian man, dated ca. 1859 - ca. 1863, Whole-length, to right, wearing belted fur or feathers at waist, standing with left hand to head and left elbow resting against tree, shield in right hand. |
Males and females had defined role. Females learnt about collecting edible plants and roots and fishing; and Males were taught to hunt and fight.
The
historical literature reveals that Gunaikurnai warriors had a fearsome reputation, and there existed enmity between them and other Aboriginal groups, such as the Woi Wurrung, Wathaurung and Bun Wurrung peoples (Blake, 1991).
The Braiakolung and the Brataoulung clans (the most westerly clans of the Kurnai Gunai tribes) would also raid neighbouring Bunwurrung camps, kill every man and take the younger women (Massola 1959). they also exterminated the Yowengarra clan,
whose land had become scrubby because it was no longer burned (Clark 1990: 369).
The Gunaikurnai people would gather for corroborees, marriages and initiations.
In Melbourne in 1846, a story was circulating that a white woman had been shipwrecked off the coast of Gippsland and that she was living with Aboriginal people. This story created a moral panic, but there was no indication as to whether the tale was true, or not.
In recent years, some evidence has come from the cache of notes made by Alfred William Howitt, an anthropologist and Gippsland magistrate, indicating that the story of the lost white woman
living with the Aboriginals had some truth to it.
At the top of one page of Howitt’s notes headed August 23 1868, per J.C. Macleod (the son of an early pastoralist), Howitt wrote the following note:
Blacks told him [Macleod] in the early days the white woman was wrecked in the coast with some men who were killed - the woman being saved. She was a tall woman, young with very long black hair in ringlets (some said the hair was fair). … She was the Miss Howard who was about 16 years of age when the vessel in which she was going to Melbourne was lost. Daughter of Commissary Howard. Part of the vessel was after picked up in the ninety mile beach
Two Gunai/Kurnai songs are written on the same page. Read more
here
1839: Angus McMillan
Angus McMillan, born on the Isle of Skye in 1810, was looking for pastoral land, when he came upon the Gippsland plains. McMillan led expeditions into the area in 1839 and 1841.
However, Count Paul-Strzelecki, who followed McMillan's path in 1840, almost to Sale, named the region Gippsland after Sir George Gipps, Governor of the colony.
McMillian, was once widely lauded as a pioneer, is now a contentious figure, especially since Gippsland historian Peter Gardner published his book, Our Founding Murdering Father (1988).
One chapter in the book, refers to McMillan as :"The Butcher of Gippsland" due to his involvement with various massacres. The controversy relates to the lack of primary sources for McMillan's involvement, in massacres, such as the revenge killings, by Europeans, for the murder of Ranald Macalister, by the Gunaikurnai.
Various secondary sources exist for the massacres, however. For example, Gippsland squatter Henry Meyrick wrote in a letter to relatives in England in 1846:
"The blacks are very quiet here now, poor wretches. No wild beast of the forest was ever hunted down with such unsparing perseverance as they are. Men, women and children are shot whenever they can be met with … I have protested against it at every station I have been in Gippsland, in the strongest language, but these things are kept very secret as the penalty would certainly be hanging … For myself, if I caught a black actually killing my sheep, I would shoot him with as little remorse as I would a wild dog, but no consideration on earth would induce me to ride into a camp and fire on them indiscriminately, as is the custom whenever the smoke is seen. They [the Aborigines] will very shortly be extinct. It is impossible to say how many have been shot, but I am convinced that not less than 450 have been murdered altogether."
Though McMillan may not have lead the Warrigal Creek retaliation, another letter written by Caroline Dexter, who lived at Stratford in the 1850s, an acquaintance of McMillan, wrote in 1858 that McMillan "was compelled in his
early struggles to destroy numbers of more treacherous natives".
Though we do not know precisely, what the word "destroy" referred to, we can imagine. And in doing so, the haunted expressions of the Aboriginal people in the below photo, with McMillan's holding the hand of one man, takes on a very sinister aspect.
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| Photograph of an earlier newspaper print image, possibly about 1865.Caption below image: Depicted above is Angus McMillan with two Aboriginal friends. The discovery of Gippsland lead to the founding of Lucknow 100 years ago. This work is out of copyright |
Archibald McIntosh arrived at Sale in 1844 and established his property at Flooding Creek, not far from the junction of the Thomson and Latrobe Rivers. The area lived up to its name, as McIntosh's property flooded not long after he arrived.
George Curlewis and his manager, McLennan, first occupied the area on which Sale now stands, as far as the Latrobe River.
Angus McMillan's station was called Bushy Park.
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| The first house erected in Sale, VIC, Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Saturday 20 July 1929 |
News spread of the fertile soil around Sale, attracting settlers to the region. Another early settler at Sale was John Campbell of Glencoe. He was a member of the Gippsland Lodge of Freemasons, a member of the Agricultural Society, and the Turf, Rowing, and Yacht Clubs, and for some years, president of the Caledonian
Society.
In 1848, the first Church of England clergyman in Gippsland, the Rev. Willoughby Bean, estimated that the population of Flooding Creek, including The Heart and Clydebank, was 111.
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Glencoe, near Sale, Vic, home of John Campbell, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 27 December 1941
Other settlers were William Pearson of Kilmany Park, the Foster Bros of the Boisdale Estate and
Thomson of Clydebank. The Boisdale run was originally taken up for Lachlan Macalister in 1842.
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| Boisdale Estate of E. M. Foster, Gippsland, VIC, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 13 October 1906 |
The pastoral run, taken up in 1843, 10km east of Sale was called,
The Heart. The name came from a report written in 1840 by Land Commissioner Tyers describing the area as "truly . . . the heart of Gippsland".
Sale was also a crossing place on the Latrobe River for drovers heading south to Port Albert. Those heading to Port Albert encountered very marshy country around the Thomson and Latrobe Rivers. A punt operated across the Latrobe River until a toll bridge opened in 1846.
A Post Office named Flooding Creek opened on 30 September 1848 but was renamed as Sale on 1 January 1854.
1850s: For Sale at Sale
The Latrobe Wharf was first built in the 1850s to cater for increased shipping.
Gold was discovered at Livingstone Creek, Omeo, in 1851, but a rush didn't occur until 1854.
Sale benefited
from the gold rush as it was situated on the Port Albert to Omeo route and operated as an important base for the goldfields. Many diggers decided to stay on in Sale, and the town boomed, with many new buildings being erected from 1855-65.
A Presbyterian church was
built at Sale in 1854 and the Club Hotel in Foster Street in 1858. Catholics were served by priests coming to the region on horseback for some years. The Anglican Cathedral was built in 1884.
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| The old bark church built in 1855 and demolished in 1859, Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Thursday 3 February 1944 |
The
Gippsland Independent, first issued on January 1 1861, was Sale's first newspaper. but it lasted only four months.
1860s: Cobb and Co.
The Cobb and Co. coach service opened early in the 1860s between Melbourne and Sale. However, due to the road and the other factors, the passengers often had to walk some of the way. The trip from Sale to Melbourne took an average of 24 hours.
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| Gippsland Cob & Co. coach, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 20 November 1897 |
However, according to a newspaper report:
Transport Difficulties
"Cobb and Co. at first ran a coach
along the road between Sale and Mel-
bourne in 40 hours—one section of
the road, from Bunyip to Moe, took
10 hours to traverse, and that portion
of it known as the Gluepot took three
hours to travel six miles with five
horses. In the Huck Forest trees
frequently fell across the road, and
every coach carried its crosscut saw
and two axes. When the tree was
too thick to cut through a ramp
would be built on each side of the
log, and the coach driven over it."
Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 31 March 1928,
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| Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 17 July 1937 |
The mechanics’ institute in Foster Street was erected in 1862. And The
Gippsland Times began publication in 1861.
In the early days, Foster Street was the centre of town.
Institutions
In 1863
the population of Sale was at 1800 and it became a borough. In 1864, a courthouse was built. The first Star Hotel was built in 1861 and the Criterion Hotel in 1865.
Gippsland's Benevolent Hospital at Sale was established after a public meeting at the Mechanics' Hall in 1864, opening for patients in August 1867. The first patient was a miner with gangrenous disease of the lungs who stayed for 455 days.
Various Typhoid epidemics occurred in the 1860s, with the influx of people to Australia with the gold rush.
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| Gippsland Hospital, Sale, Vic, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 31 March 1928 |
Aboriginal Missions
Displacement from land, violence between Aboriginals and Europeans and European diseases, to which the Aboriginal people had no immunity, decimated the Aboriginal populations of Gippsland. In the 1860s, Mission stations at Ramahyuk and Lake Tyers became home to many of the remaining Gunaikurnai people.
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| Group portrait of community gathered at Lake Tyers Aboriginal Station, with an elder in the foreground. Rev. Bulmer in white coat with black hat and beard, standing fourth from left, back row. 1937 May 6. SLVIC |
The Criterion Hotel was built in 1865 by Charles Boykett.
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| The Criterion Hotel, Sale, VIC, was built in 1865 by Charles Boykett |
Famous Writers
English novelist Anthony Trollope, visited Sale in 1872 and described its buildings as “generally magnificent” and that there were "innumerable hotels."
Renown children's author Mary Grant Bruce was born at Sale in 1878.
Mary Grant Bruce Recalls School Days
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| Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 27 April 1940 |
"Mrs Bruce, who was bom at Sale, recalled her school days when she rode her pony about the town
and fished for eels in the lake. She also recalled sitting on the library steps absorbed in a
books. Mrs Bruce said that her girlhood environment at Sale had been the background for all her works. In all her travels, Sale had been the heart of the world for her."
1870s: A Major Centre
Sale became a major centre from 1878, when the district railhead was located there. The original station opened on 1 June 1877 as the terminus of the line from Morwell, before the line was extended to Stratford Junction on 8 May 1888. Sale also
continued to be important as a port.
1880s
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| Two-storey post office, with clock tower, was built in 1884 (it was demolished in 1963). York St, Sale, Vic, SLVIC |
Public Water
Sale Council was the first municipality in Australia to try out artesian water as a public water supply. In 1880, the water in the artesian well rose as high as 43 feet above the surface.
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| Artesian well at Sale, Vic, Punch (Melbourne, Vic. : 1900 - 1918; 1925), Thursday 17 August 1905 |
The engineer-architect John Grainger designed and built Sale's first reticulated water supply in 1887/1888. Only the brick water tower remains.
The Sale Canal was built in three stages beginning in 1886, with much of the work done by hand with picks. The construction of the Sale Canal, with turning circle, began in the 1880s and was completed in 1890. The swing bridge was completed in 1883.
The Sale Swing Bridge is the only one left in the world that can swing around 360°.
1890s: Relocation
In the 1890s, there was less demand for canal transport, and the port business and precinct began to decline. The town centre relocated further north around Raymond and Cunninghame Streets.
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Star Hotel in Raymond Street, Sale, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 20 November 1897 |
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| Foster Street, Sale, VIC, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 20 November 1897 |
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| Raymond St, Sale, VIC, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 10 December 1898 |
1900s
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| W D Lesilie establishment at York St Sale, VIC, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 26 December 1903 |
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| Bull and Napper in 1904, Sale, VIC, 1904 |
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| Swing Bridge. Sale, VIC, en route to Gippsland Lukes. Narracoorte Herald (SA : 1875 - 1954), Friday 22 December 1905 |
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| Typical share farmers Gippsland, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 13 October 1906 |
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| ARRIVAL OF THE STATE GOVERNOR (SIR REGINALD TALBOT) AT THE BOROUGH COUNCIL CHAMBERS, SALE VIC, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 14 July 1906 |
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| WRECKED VERANDAH AND BALCONY : A BOLT1NG HORSE AND CART BRINGS DOWN THE WHOLE (IF THE VERANDAH AND BALCONY ON ONE SIDE OF THE CRITERION HOTEL, SALE, VIC. Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 24 March 1906 |
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| Raymond Street, Sale, VIC, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 14 July 1906 |
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| Steamer leaving Sale for Gippsland Lakes / Hammond & Co. Studios, ca. 1907-ca. 1915, State Library of Victoria |
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| POST-OFFICE AND LAW COURTS, SALE, VIC, (A two-storey post office, with clock tower, was built in 1884 and was demolished in 1963) Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 17 October 1908 |
Lake Tyres Mission
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| Children at LAKE TYERS MISSION STATION, VIC, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 27 February 1909 |
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| AT LAKE TYERS MISSION STATION, VIC, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 27 February 1909 |
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| AT LAKE TYERS MISSION STATION, VIC, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 27 February 1909 |
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| AT LAKE TYERS MISSION STATION, VIC, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 6 January 1912 |
The first State secondary schools in Gippsland were the Sale Agricultural High School established in 1909, and the Warragul Agricultural High School established in 1907.
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| Sale Agricultural School, Sale, VIC, Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 12 June 1909 |
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| Australian Boer War soldiers at the memorial fountain in Sale, Victoria - 1910, Aussie~mobs |
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| A bush home consisting of three tents with a chimney attached. A woman and a young boy stand in front of the tent on the left and there are hens in the foreground. Sale, Victoria, pre 1910, Museums Victoria |
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| Golf at Kilmany Park, Sale, VIC, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 24 August 1912 |
WW1
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| Edward Randolph Cleaver, 4th Light Horse Regiment (4LHR). A butcher of Sale, Victoria, AWM |
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| Studio portrait of an Aboriginal serviceman, 5459 Corporal (Cpl) Harry Thorpe MM. Thorpe was born at the Lake Tyers Mission Station, near Lakes Entrance, Victoria. He enlisted at Sale on 12 February 1916, and embarked on 4 April 1916 aboard HMAT Euripides from Melbourne. He joined the 7th Battalion in France in July 1916. He was wounded in action at Pozieres in 1916 and Bullecourt in 1917. In January 1917 he was promoted to Lance Corporal (LCpl). On the night of 4 - 5 October 1917 LCpl Thorpe was conspicuous for his courage and leadership during operations at Broodseinde, near Ypres, in Belgium. For his 'splendid example' he was promoted to Corporal and awarded the Military Medal, although the original recommendation was for the Distinguished Conduct Medal. During the advance on 9 August 1918 at Lihons Wood, south west of Vauvillers, France, a stretcher bearer found Thorpe shot in the stomach. He died shortly after and is buried in the Heath Cemetery, Harbonnieres, France, with his friend William Rawlings, another Aboriginal soldier who won the Military Medal, and was also killed on the same day. AWM |
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| Teachers and pupils in front of State School, Sale, VIC, circa 1915 |
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Shows a decorated dray drawn by two horses outside the Breheny's Brewery in Sale, VIC 1918?, SLVIC
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1920s: Industry
In the late 1920s, industries of the town included: Gippsland Woollen Mills, the butter and cheesefactory, and Breheny Bros.' brewery, also the Silver flour mill and fibrous plaster company.
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| Sporting Globe (Melbourne, Vic. : 1922 - 1954), Wednesday 26 July 1939 |
Boys' Home
The Kilmany Park Farm Home for Boys in Sale was established by the Presbyterian Church after purchasing William Pearson's Kilmany Park Estate in 1924. It operated as a farm for boys aged between 10 and 16. Kilmany Park was closed in 1978.
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| William Pearson, and family, came from Kilmany, Scotland, in the 1840s and settled at what is now Kilmany Park. The estate later became a boys' home. He became a Member of Parliament.Leader (Melbourne, Vic. : 1862 - 1918, 1935), Saturday 7 July 1906 |
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| Sale, Vic, Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 13 April 1929 |
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| St Patrick's College, Sale, VIC, Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), Thursday 31 January 1924 |
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| Sale Technical School, VIC (opened 1906), Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 31 March 1928 |
1930s
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| Sale Team (Premiers Gippsland Football League1, VIC, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Saturday 10 October 1931 |
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| Age (Melbourne, Vic. : 1854 - 1954), Saturday 22 September 1934 |
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| Raymond Street, Sale, 1930s- 40s. State Rivers and Water Supply Commission photo, State Library of Victoria |
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| Gippsland Times (Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Thursday 7 February 1935 |
1940s and WWII
The 37th Battalion Gippsland Regiment which had its headquarters at Sale first formed in 1888, as an off shoot of the Victorian Rangers.
At the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, the 37th Battalion was headquartered around Sale, in Victoria, where it formed part of the 10th Brigade.
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| Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 - 1946), Saturday 12 April 1941 |
During World War II, Royal Australian Air Force bases were established at east and west Sale.
RAAF Base East Sale opened as a training base for bombers on 22 April 1943. The base was primarily responsible for training aircrew, but
units from East Sale also operated in some convoy protection and maritime surveillance roles.
Over 3,000 aircrew were trained at the base between its opening and the end of World War II. Gough Whitlam, future prime minister of Australia, undertook training on the the Lockheed Hudson (bomber aircraft) as a navigator here.
The base is known as the home of the RAAF Roulettes aerobatics team.
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| Sale, Vic. C. 1944. RAAF aircrew trainees receiving instruction on aerial gunnery at RAAF Station, West Sale. AWM |
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| Group of WAAAF aircraft maintenance staff repairing and testing spark plugs, Sale, Victoria, AWM |
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| Sale Football Team, Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Wednesday 14 September 1949 |
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| Murray Views No. 7 Post Office and Raymond Street, Sale, Victoria, c.1948, Royal Australian Historical Society |
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| Murray Views No. 11 Raymond Street, Sale, Victoria, c.1948, Royal Australian Historical Society |
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| Murray Views No. 6 Raymond StreetLooking South, Sale, Victoria, c.1948, Royal Australian Historical Society |
1950s |
| Members of Sale Rowing Club going for practice, Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 - 1954), Wednesday 31 May 1950 |
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| Sale Carnival Parade / Douglas Thompson. Sale, Vic, circa 1953 |
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| Raymond St, Sale, Vic about 1950. SLVIC |
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| The Queen visits Sale, VIC, Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 - 1954), Wednesday 3 March 1954 |
1960s: Oil and Gas
The discovery of oil and gas in Bass Strait in 1965 transformed Sale, as people flocked to the area for jobs and new estates were built by Esso and private developers.
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| EAST SALE, VIC. 1962-02-15. COMMONWEALTH AIRCRAFT CORPORATION (CAC) CA-25 WINJEEL TRAINER, AWM |
1970s |
| Road works, Sale. Gippsland, VIC, 1970-1972, Matt W |
1980s
The Sale rail station was relocated in 1983, to a site outside the town, on a new section of track which linked the Melbourne and Stratford lines, without the need to run in and out of the original station.
Around Sale
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| The Water Tower at the corner of Marley Street and Cunninghame Street was commissioned in 1887 on a one acre site.Designed by prominent engineer John Grainger (father of musician Percy Grainger). |
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| The Sale Swing Bridge built in 1883, Sale, VIC |
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| Former AMP Building in Raymond Street, built 1930 |
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| RAAF Roulettes, Central Flying School, RAAF East Sale, Chris B |
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| Former Wesleyan Methodist Church, Sale, VIC, circa 1886 |
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| Criterion Hotel, Sale, VIC, built 1865 |
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| Port of Sale, Sale, VIC |
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| Originally Sale Technical School. The high school moved from Raymond St to Guthridge Pde in 1973 & merged with the Tech school in 1993 |
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| The Cobb & Co building is located in Raymond street, Sale, VIC |
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| Star Hote, Sale, VIC, built in 1856 |
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| Gippsland Hotel, Sale, Vic, built 1926 |
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| William Pearson, and family came from Kilmany, Scotland, in the 1840s and settled at what is now Kilmany Park. The estate later became a boys' home. Kilmany Estate, Sale, VIC |
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| Former site of the Crown Hotel in Sale (Also known as the Black Pub) |
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Sale Courthouse, VIC, built 1887, Vmenkov
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Things To See and Places To Go
The Sale Historical Museum
The Gippsland Armed Forces Museum
The Gippsland Vehicle Collection Motor Museum
