Byaduk

BYADUK PLOUGHING MATCH

The Byaduk Farmers Club held their annual ploughing match on June 14, 1881. The venue was the farm of the Christie brothers and 13 competitors displayed their finest ploughing techniques.

James Harman was a keen competitor of ploughing competitions and on the day won the Champion class. His plough of choice was the Lennon made in North Melbourne by Hugh Lennon. Only the year prior the Lennon plough had made news with the capture of the Kelly Gang. The armour forged for the gang had been made out of Lennon plough boards.

Reuben Harman, James’ younger brother won the B class. Reuben was 41 at the time and died only two years later. He was also a fan of the Lennon. Another Harman, Arthur came second in the C class with a Hornsby plough and along with his uncle Reuben won a prize for best crowns.

“BYADUK PLOUGHING MATCH.” The Australasian (Melbourne, Vic. : 1864 – 1946) 18 June 1881: <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article137816092>.

Other notable Byaduk residents to win prizes were William and Alexander Christie and Peter Fraser. Thanks to Peter Fraser, then an 18-year-old, we now have the book Early Byaduk Settlers, a recollection of his life in Byaduk. Following the match, the participants enjoyed the annual dinner at Hardy’s Temperance Hotel. As the Harmans were staunch Methodists, the venue would have been seen as most appropriate.

Ploughing matches were a popular activity for farmers in the late 19th century. They were an opportunity to display skill, show off the latest farming implements and to gather socially with other farmers. The first ploughing match was held in the Portland area in the 1850s and they appear to have peaked in the 1880s when Inter-Colonial Ploughing Matches were held at Werribee Park and Ballarat. The sketches below depict the 1882 event at Werribee Park where 3000 spectators were attendance, including several parliamentarians. Farmers came from New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.

INTERCOLONIAL PLOUGHING MATCH. (1882, August 5). Illustrated Australian News (Melbourne, Vic. : 1876-1889), p. 120. Retrieved June 15, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article63185745

By the mid-1890s, the papers were lamenting the demise of the ploughing match. This was put down to a number of reason including the move of young people off the land and more advanced implements. The writer sees horse racing as no match to the social and competitive nature of the ploughing match, which were also free of the “curse of Australia”, gambling. In the 20th century, the rise of the tractor meant ploughing by horse became almost unknown. The skill required to plough was not as great as that of horse ploughing and there was no longer a need to demonstrate one’s abilities. Field days today, allow for the display of the latest farming equipment and techniques filling a void left by the end of ploughing matches. The following article from The McIvor Times & Rodney Advertiser but was also published in the Portland Guardian.

“Ploughing Matches.” The McIvor Times and Rodney Advertiser (Heathcote, Vic. : 1863 – 1918) 23 January 1896: 1 (Supplement to the McIvor Times.). Web. 1 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article90151643

Ploughing match results offer another insight into the lives of our Western District families. They often have a comment on the highlight of the day and list the farmers’ place of residence.

I grew up in Hamilton, with Byaduk only about 20 kilometres from my home. I passed through it on trips to coastal Port Fairy, visited the nearby dormant volcano Mt Napier with school and heard stories about the Byaduk caves. Never for a minute did I know that I had any link to the small town with its drystone fences and rocky paddocks.

I had heard of the Harmans from the conversations of my great uncles and aunties, but when I asked who they were Nana would just say they are “cousins”, so I figured they were not that closely related. It was not until I started finding out more about my family tree and Nana told me all the names she knew, I discovered that her mother Sarah was a Harman.

My Great Grandmother Sarah Elizabeth Harman

When first researching, I would look through records for certain family names and would often come up with very little. That was until I started on the Harmans. There was loads of information and they soon became my favourite family, and not just for the ease of researching them. I discovered an upstanding, religious family that always dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. A family that got involved in the community whether it be building schools, ploughing competitions, the Methodist church, or the Farmers Union. Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they were a well-known family in the district.

Coming to Australia in three separate groups, Joseph and Sarah Harman and their mostly grown-up children, reunited in Port Fairy during the mid-1850s. They established themselves in the town, but with the land opening up in 1861 they moved to newly settled Byaduk around 1863. Joseph was the first bootmaker in the town, while sons James, Jonathon, and Reuben began farming the stony land. George, who was second eldest, seemed to have no wish to farm and by the late 1860s had returned to Port Fairy where he worked for the local council.

The family grew and by the turn of the century, another generation of Harmans were raising families with the union of marriage linking them to other well-known families in the district, including the Kinghorns, Bishops, and Olivers. The family was also beginning to branch out to other parts of the state, including Gippsland. In 1907, three members of the Harman family appear in a photograph of Byaduk pioneers, James, Jonathan, and Reuben’s wife Elizabeth.

Byaduk Pioneers 1907

I eventually left Hamilton and did not return to Byaduk until the 1990s to visit the cemetery. By this time I knew something of the Harman’s standing in the community but had not realised that there was so much recognition of it. While not that surprised to find a road named after them, I was surprised the Byaduk Caves had the names, Harman’s Cave No 1 and Harman’s Cave No 2 and that the volcanic lava flow that runs from Mt Napier to Byaduk is called “Harman Valley”. Also, the Byaduk area has been recognised as part of the Kanawika Global Geopark