The northernmost part of Victoria, the Mildura region is a special place. In the heart of the mallee country it is where the Murray River meets the Darling.
For tens of thousands of years the rivers supported a large population from numerous cultural groups such as the Latje Latje, Nyeri Nyeri, Wergaia and Barkindji people.
Early European visitors remarked that the Indigenous people were unusually tall and strikingly handsome. Through generations of colonisation and settlement, those people have been remarkably generous and resilient.
Thanks to the region’s multilayered and multifaceted history, it is now one of the most multicultural parts of Australia – a powerful case study in cultural blending.
I first went to Mildura in 1980 for a family holiday. We stayed in a caravan at the rear of a vacant Victorian-era house. It was a short walk to the riverbank where we effortlessly caught dozens of large carp. We laid them out on the grass bank and an Italian-Australian family collected them; they had a way of cooking the carp that did away with the muddy taste.
Since that time I’ve been a regular visitor to the region for holidays and work. I relished the chance to research the region’s history for my book, Red Earth: A History of the Mildura Region.
Previous books about the region have said too little about Indigenous people, along with women, non-British migrants, the local arts scene and aspects of farming, the riverboat trade and events during and after the world wars. My work would help fill in the gaps and silences.
Hearing of my work, many people from the region stepped forward to support and participate in the research. They welcomed me into their homes and gave me access to an extraordinary archive of photographs, letters, ledgers and other documents, along with their memories of living and working in the region, and their views of what makes it so special.
The following images tell a small part of Mildura’s remarkable history:
For thousands of years, water has been central to daily life in the Mildura region. The major rivers in particular have long been focal points for transport, fishing and recreation. The rivers also nourish lakes and and branches, as well as channels and dams for irrigation.
This image, from the Museums Victoria Collections, shows a piggy-back dive into the dam at chateau Mildura, a winery established by W. B. Chaffey, one of the two brothers who founded the irrigation scheme at Mildura in 1887. Chateau Mildura later became the famous Mildara winery. Wine is a crucial output from the region’s irrigated fruit blocks, as are table grapes and dried grapes.
As part of their irrigation scheme, the Chaffey brothers allocated 1000 acres (405 hectares) for the township of Mildura. The physical layout – tree-lined streets in a grid pattern with wide boulevards – resembled the brothers’ earlier development of ‘Ontario’ in California, though the plan at Mildura was less flamboyantly geometrical. This 1887 image, from the National Library of Australia Collections, shows the Mildura town layout.
Despite tens of thousands of years of Indigenous ownership, the Chaffey scheme was promoted on the basis that the land was wholly free of any prior claims. George Chaffey touted that purchasers of irrigation blocks ‘will not have to contend against the difficulties of prior ownership’.
Reflecting the Chaffey brothers’ former enterprises in Canada and the US, the Mildura layout featured the American convention of avenues running north-south and numbered streets running east-west. The early promotion of the irrigation scheme emphasised the imminent provision of a railway link to Melbourne. In reality, the railway was not built until 1903.
To make way for the irrigation scheme, huge areas of Mallee country had to be cleared. One popular method at Mildura was to drive two traction engines in parallel lines 90 metres apart and run a heavy chain between them.
In this way, the old trees were pulled out by their roots. Dynamite was also sometimes used to dig out the huge Mallee stumps. This 1890 image of a clearing gang is from the State Library of Victoria Collections.
Most colonists were blind to the diversity of the Mallee country, and the many ways to find food and water in it. An example of the diversity is the patches of Murray pine forests that shelter an undergrowth of mosses and the blue mallee flower, Halgania cyanea. One especially beautiful cluster of pines is in a gorge near Ouyen. Yet another example: the Murray–Darling floodplain differs significantly from most of the Mallee land.
Nineteenth-century Europeans gave little thought to the potential costs of introducing exotic animals. Nostalgic British hunters introduced foxes to Australia along with red deer and fallow deer – and of course hares and rabbits, which would ultimately devastate pastoral country in the Mildura region.
The Chaffey Brothers’ offices (shown in this 1890 image from the State Library of Victoria Collections) represented the peak of the brothers’ irrigation scheme. One of the largest and most costly buildings in early Mildura, the general design corresponded to that of the offices formerly occupied by the brothers at Ontario.
Promoters and friends of the irrigation scheme proclaimed it a huge success. In an 1892 speech, Alfred Deakin said the Mildura scheme was ‘the GREATEST PRIVATE ENTERPRISE any colonial Government ever sought to encourage; it is the greatest private enterprise in Australia; it is one of the biggest of its kind in the world, and the germ of anything you like in the future’.
But criticism and concerns were growing – about the design and viability of the scheme, and about the yabbies and crayfish that were digging holes in the irrigation channels.
The 1890s recession hit the Mildura scheme in multiple ways. The flow of settlers slowed, capital became scarce and general economic conditions worsened. The domestic market for Mildura produce slumped because fruit was regarded as a luxury. And then in 1893 confidence crashed along with several Victorian banks.
On 10 December 1895, the shareholders of the Chaffey Brothers’ company voted that it should go into liquidation. Hundreds of settlers left the region, many going to the goldfields of Western Australia. The remaining settlers turned to cooperation and self-help, taking over the residual institutions and creating new associations.
The beginning of organised fruit marketing, combined with investment in new packing and processing facilities, gave the region a boost, as did tariff protection and the completion of the railway line. The tide turned: people were again taking up land at Mildura. This image, from the Mildura Historical Society, shows the clearing of a block at Merbein (September 1911). After the two world wars, Merbein and Red Cliffs would become important destinations for soldier settlers, as would other centres in the region.
On 14 January 1908, representatives from Mildura and Renmark met at Ned’s Corner Station (between Mildura and Renmark) and made plans to form the Australian Dried Fruits Association (ADFA). The new organisation had national aspirations and soon had members from every fruit-producing area nationwide, including Western Australia for Swan River currants, and Griffith and Young for prunes and other dried tree fruits.
The forerunner of all national primary industry marketing arrangements in Australia, ADFA was founded on a strange mixture of capitalism and socialism: capitalism because it was essentially a profit-driven cartel; socialism because of its focus on collectivism, cooperation and mutual benefit.
In 1919, ADFA launched a comprehensive advertising campaign that featured competitions, publications and a film. This image, from the Public Records Office Victoria, shows an ADFA dried fruit stall at Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, c.1920–30.
An early goal of ADFA was to secure preferential access to British Empire markets for members’ produce. After World War I, at a time when global demand for dried fruit was high, ADFA succeeded in securing high export prices. Efforts to reduce tariffs and strike preferential trade deals were also successful, thanks in part to appeals to racial ties and imperial fraternity. In 1924, the UK Conservative Party confirmed its policy of preference for Australian products.
Mildura became a crucial international source of dried fruit as well as fresh fruits such as oranges, apricots, lemons and figs. This image shows the packing of citrus at Merbein, 1954 (State Library of Victoria Collections). British trade fell away in 1973 when Britain joined the European Common Market. That event left local growers feeling betrayed and abandoned, but they were able to find and expand into new markets.
Thrown together, the Mildura region’s people built an energetic creative community notable for its vibrant local art and culture that includes important Indigenous art, sculpture events, a much-loved writers’ festival and a major regional gallery.
The region’s cultural scene also includes a long history of performing arts including music, theatre and ballet. A popular local band in the 1960s was the Rhythm Rockets, originally made up of Bill Tyers (lead guitar), Col Avery (rhythm guitar, bass guitar and vocals), Geoff Evans (bass and rhythm guitar) and Reg Casey (drums), and joined later by Peter McWilliams (bass guitar), Neil Warhurst (sax) and Jeff Waters (drums, replacing Casey). This image of the Rhythm Rockets is from Ian McWilliams and the Frames of History project.