Edward Charles Lousada's Toora house

 Our Truscott relatives have lived continuously in the Toora area, arriving somewhat before Edward Charles Lousada. Thus Gwen Truscott was readily able to identify this house (above) which is the probable backdrop to the oval photo. The house (oddly - to our eyes!) faces away from the spectacular views of Corner Inlet and Wilson's Promontory. It was named 'Cleveland' in a local press reference of 1913 (see note 3 below) and the farm on which it was located is indicated on the map to the right. On 20 Apr 2018 'Cleveland' with different land sold at auction (see note 2 below). The map to the right and its caption shows how this progression occurred.		    Toora locations

This map was provided by Gwen Truscott and shows the general location of the Truscott blocks and also of the Toora township. The Lousada house (see photo left) is situated very nearly centrally within the area outlined in pink (the Buckley/Fraser farm - see notes 1 and 4 below). The land is on the west of Grip Road, and about 2km west-southwest of St Thomas church (see photo on right). The railway line (now a rail trail) runs through the land just to the north of the house. After the Lousadas left but before 1930 the farm was split (see note 1 below).		  

St Thomas Anglican Church, Dutton Street, Toora 

This church provided a community for the family throughout its Toora period, unlike Calignee where an Anglican church had to be built with little time to benefit from it (see note 5 below). As we can see from note 3 below the family of Edward Charles Lousada was prominent in life at this church in the period 1908-11, and the Truscott family was also active. The 1912 Truscott Lousada marriage and the 1919 Lousada Truscott marriage celebrated here no doubt also had their origins here! A history of the Truscotts may be found here.

 

 

The stock and station firm William Hamilton & Co was known in Toora and this link may have given Edward Charles Lousada knowledge of opportunities in Toora once he decided to leave Calignee near Traralgon. Though Calignee was only a little to the north of Toora a direct journey by road would have been arduous, with the rail journey via Dandenong a lot further. At this time the first selectors in the Toora area were disappearing, and Gwen Truscott's work shows that our Truscott ancestors probably moved onto Jabez Richards' farm in 1907, later acquiring and subdividing it.

Edward Charles Lousada also worked a farm selected by someone else (see note 1 below). His length of stay in Toora can be gauged from Toora newspaper records 1908-13 (see note 3 below). The 1912 record (in note 3) gives us a possible clue as to why he chose Korumburra as his next destination, for it shows that he strongly favoured butter factories being cooperative. He had been sending his cream to the co-operative butter factory in Foster, and not to the nearby Toora Butter Factory, owned by the Handbury proprietary company (see note 6 below).

 He was possibly in Korumburra by late 1913 (see note 7 below) for the data in note 3 shows no evidence of him in Toora after 2 Apr 1913. By 1914, Korumburra had become a favoured location for dairy-farming and had a co-operative butter factory (see note 8 below), with its black-coal mining origin well behind it. However, there was a more immediate factor contributing to a departure from Toora (see note 4 below) and in any case Edward Charles Lousada was almost 60 by the time he left.

Notes:

1. A newspaper report (uploaded) suggested Edward Charles Lousada was a very successful sharefarmer in Toora, working a farm a mile from Toora through which the railway line passed. Though the article states that the farm was that of R H Downing, we note (as shown in the map) that the railway line does not pass through the Downing farm (running instead along its northern boundary). However the land outlined in pink (the old Buckley block of 99 acres according to a pre-railway map provided by Gwen Truscott) is traversed by the railway. It would seem that the newspaper report was in error in asserting that Edward Charles Lousada farmed the R H Downing block - for it is likely that he farmed the old Buckley block. The stock numbers in the newspaper report support this conclusion - they seem too small for the larger R H Downing block. Gwen Truscott on 21 May 2018 noted that a Buckley & Fraser marriage (see note 4 below) led to the Buckley block having the 'Fraser' name (see the map above). The title must have been divided at some time, for the acreage sold in 2018 (see brochure) includes the southern part of the old Buckley block but not the northern part. Indeed Gwen Truscott also reported her husband Edgar's recollection that around 1930 he knew a son of the Dineen family which farmed the northern part of the old Buckley block. Thus the old Buckley block was divided before 1930 and after Edward Charles Lousada left around 1913. Incidentally the acreage sold in 2018 (see brochure) amounts to only around 60% of the R H Downing block shown in the map above, for there had been a sizable excision along the west boundary and a smaller one along Grip Road.

2. The relevant real estate brochure has been uploaded. Gwen Truscott reported the price was $5195/acre, and that 25 acres were recently added, though we currently do not know which acres these were. Gwen Truscott also reported that the new owner is a great grandson of Evelyn Truscott #1474. On 28 Aug 2018, Gwen Truscott reported that the house was about to be demolished! A bikeride in March 2024 past the location revealed that the house-site was now part of a massive corn-field!

3. The following local newspaper records were found by Gwen Truscott (except for the 1913 item):

4. Gwen Truscott suggested on 20 Jun 2018 that the 1912 death of Mrs Mary Fraser may have been the event which precipitated the Lousada departure from Toora around 1913. Mrs Mary Fraser, stated to be a daughter of Thomas Buckley, died in 1912 (see https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bdm/indexsearch.doj). The Buckley & Fraser marriage occurred well before Edward Charles Lousada occupied the land; for in 1910 a Mrs Fraser of Toora appeared in The Argus of 19 Jul 1910 p9 when it reported the 24 Jun 1910 death in Perth of Elisabeth Bessie the 4th daughter of Thomas Buckley of Essex, naming two surviving daughters Ellen Buckley and Mrs Fraser of Toora. Mrs Mary Fraser was the probable owner of the 'Fraser' farm sharefarmed by Edward Charles Lousada (see area outlined in pink in the map above), but whether the farm was split (see note 1 above) soon after her death, or later perhaps after the death at age 91 of James Fraser of 'Lomond' Toora in 1927 is not currently known.

5.  The Traralgon Record of 11 Aug 1905 noted that the formal approval of the Public Board of Health for the opening of the Anglican Church at Calignee had been forwarded to Mr E C Lousada. Earlier on 13 Aug 1904 the same newspaper carried an advertisement calling for tenders for the erection of a wooden church at Calignee to be in the hands of Chas. Lousada Hon. Sec. of the Church of England Building Committee by 24 Dec. Before then some temporary arrangements must have been made for on Monday 23 Nov 1903 (as reported in the Traralgon Record 4 days later) Tryphena and Barrow were presented for confirmation by the visiting Bishop of Gippsland and duly confirmed. Among the candidates for confirmation was an Amelia Schier, perhaps a relative of the Arthur Schier through whose firm Edward Charles Lousada bought Clanville in 1915.

6. Handbury's Butter Factory in Toora burnt down on 31 Mar 1914 but was rebuilt after 7 months. This turn of events was probably irrelevant to Edward Charles' move to Korumburra for which he had probably left in 1913.

7. He was certainly there by 18 Aug 1914 when his son Aubrey registered for the Australian Army, and he wrote a letter from Hillside near Korumburra on 31 Aug 1914.

8. One report (see Foster Mirror and South Gippsland Shire Advocate 5 Nov 1914) noted that its co-operative butter factory returns were high, which was pushing up local land values with its cream being sourced from a wide area. A history of Korumburra (ref 218 p194) shows that in the first decade of its life 1901-11 the Korumburra Co-operative Butter Factory expanded output by a factor of 4.