Sir Peter honoured to mark Ballarat's 100-year Legacy

A FORMER governor-general and Australian army general visited Ballarat this week to acknowledge 100 years of service from the city’s Legacy club.

Sir Peter Cosgrove visited the Garden of the Grieving Mother at Sturt Street, Alfredton on Tuesday 17 February as part of the Legacy Club of Ballarat’s milestone.

The club, the third oldest in Australia, has supported generations of veterans’ families.

Sir Peter spoke to a large crowd about Legacy’s work, met with school students and Legacy members, and laid a wreath before the Grieving Mother statue.

Former governor-general Sir Peter Cosgrove laid a wreath at the Garden of the Grieving Mother on Sturt Street Photo: CHRISTOPHER O’LEARY.

He said he was honoured to attend.

“100 years of continuous service is magnificent,” Sir Peter said.

He said that Ballarat, in the beginning of its Legacy club after the First World War, was home to a generation that knew support for veterans’ families was important.

“They came to see that while the ghastly war was over, the long agony of loss, and loss of hope in the families of the fallen needed to be addressed,” Sir Peter said.

“And that had to be metaphorically, with an arm around the shoulder, and practically with the sort of things that the breadwinner would want his or her family to have.”

Legacy Club of Ballarat vice-president Alastair Dowling with Sir Peter Cosgrove.

He said it was natural for the city’s Legatees to volunteer.

“Well Ballarat was always a wonderful rural city,” Sir Peter said.

“It’s almost an oxymoron to say rural, because Ballarat was a huge place, and a wonderful economic driver of our minerals economy in Australia.

“But out of all of this you would say well, naturally the men and women of this district said, ‘our AIF families are going to be looked after, and we’ll step forward’.”

Today Ballarat Legacy maintains a membership of at least 90 Legatees and assists almost 500 widows and dependents.