Haddon starts to mark a century-and-a-half

MORE than forty people gathered at Haddon Memorial Park on Saturday to celebrate the town’s one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary.

The event was coordinated between members of the Haddon Community Learning Centre, the Cemetery Trust and the Woady Yaloak Historical Society.

Cath Thomas from the learning centre served as one of the event coordinators and said it marked the launching point for year-long birthday events.

“The idea is to celebrate the whole year of being 150. We’ve put it out to the community groups to come on board,” she said.

“There’s the Haddon Cemetery Trust doing their walk, the shooters’ club are doing a Christmas shoot, the Begonia Quilters are coming down and our school and kindergarten are involved too.

“The celebratory year starts from this Sunday so this is launching the start of us doing all these fun, novel things to mark the year.”

Former Golden Plains Shire mayor Bill McArthur acted as MC, and the day included speeches from Woady Yaloak Historical Society president James Brown, and Federal Member for Ballarat, Catherine King.

The event also saw the launch of a book about the district, Haddon and Nittingbool: The valleys next door to Ballarat – An Early History.

Author, Laurie Moore, gave a presentation featuring Haddon maps and minerals, and said he hoped the work will give the community “a sense of place.”

“We’re on the back of Ballarat but part of Golden Plains Shire. Most people feel we’re on the nether-end of the empire, as it were,” he said.

“A lot of people here really don’t feel it’s more than a place where they live, so by putting together the history, it might give them a sense that they’re part of a real community.”

A Haddon resident for nearly 30 years, Moore said creating the book gave him a renewed appreciation for the township.

“It’s in a new age. People here seem to want the attention and amenities. We’ve got the new schools, sporting clubs. We’ve really come from nothing now since the 1930s,” he said.

“The progenitor of Haddon was the breaking-up of a squatting run followed by the discovery of gold. Then the miners wanted land, with 240 houses at its peak… after that, farming produced a new population.”