John F. W. Bird

Story

‘ É at Australia House there was a model showing trees ands crops growing, a windmill and cattleÉ very nice. I told him I had no knowledge whatever of land. He said ‘You have nothing to unlearn. Your children are the right age and you are pretty certain to be able to get a comfortable living.\” John Bird to Royal Comm. Closer Settlement, Victoria, 1933.

In 1907 after first wife, Maud died, John Bird married her younger half-sister, Alice Mears, then 22 years old. They lived in London. Following his grandfather, in his 20\’s John had become a publican, and by 1907, using Mears Estate capital, was owner of several hotels. Four children arrived quickly, John W., in 1908, Eric, 1910, Mollie, 1911 and Enid, in 1913. By 1912, they had decided a pub was an unsuitable home for children, and the pubs were sold. He then had a variety of occupations, including manager of a Chinese Steam Laundry. He was too old to enlist in WW1. Through the war John and Alice lived by ‘we are not afraid’. Even when air raids were in progress, the children were sent to school.

The effects of the War, the early post war period and Peter\’s birth in 1921 convinced John that England offered few opportunities for their young family. He visited all the colonial offices in London. At Australia House he was given brochures for the Victorian Closer Settlement Schemes (CSS). He also discussed the prospects with a staff member, who responded with promises of supervision.

In July 1923 the family boarded the Euripides. During the voyage, both Johns and Eric (13) competed in a chess championship. Controversially, Eric won – a bottle of whisky! The ship docked in Melbourne in September 1923. The family was taken to a beachside house near Mentone and settled in while they waited for a farm.

Soon John and two other migrants went to see Bass Park, near the small township of Bass. A CSS officer showed them the land. Without talking it over with his family, John saw and accepted 80-acres with no buildings or fences. The property was swampy land and infested with bracken and rushes; it needed cultivating and sowing. The family arrived at Bass only three weeks after disembarking. They shared the Bass Park homestead with another English family whose hygiene worried Alice. Three months later they were able to rent a house on the farm closest to their land.

Without proper farming equipment, John Sr. quite unfit, and John Jr., and Eric, as the main outside workers, the establishment of the farm was terribly slow. Alice was sick and Mollie, then only 12, did a great deal of the housework. A skilled fencer was employed and the boys learnt quickly. The boundary fence was completed by Christmas. In the second year they managed to plough and plant 20 acres. In 1927, with more Mears Estate funds, John bought the Bass Park homestead and 900 acres. From 1925, product prices, began the Great Depression decline. No matter how hard or well they worked, their finances deteriorated.

John Bird was one of the letter writers who sparked off a Royal Commission into the Schemes. John\’s complaints were focused on the CCS adviser for their first year, including inadequate guidance on farm development, fencing and implements, the purchase of 20 late calving heifers, two of these had been spayed (made infertile); one had to be killed because of an infectious disease; the purchase of a draft horse so old he broke down the first time it was used in a team; bought for £25 it was eventually exchanged for a dog. John implied this officer was buying at above market prices and receiving kickbacks. The CSS employees challenged everything they could. ‘The horse story was exaggerated: old horses were quieter and better for the inexperienced. The spayed heifers, if fed, would fatten and could be sold.’ The Royal Commission findings lead to the CSS administration reviewing the blocks, making some larger and paying some settlers a lump sum to leave.

In 1933, John Bird suddenly announced to his shocked family that he had taken a lump sum and bought a hotel-guesthouse at Wye River on the Great Ocean Road, between Lorne and Apollo Bay. Despite the alarming curves of the road, named ‘Rookery Nook’, renovated and expanded by the family, with Eric as the leading builder, and employing the whole of the family, except John Jr., who had married and continued dairying, this business attracted holidaymakers, allowing financial survival until and after John\’s death in 1945.

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