(Editor’s Note: This is a story from the Christ Church Daylesford Parish News. Inspired by an early photograph of the Church and the W.E. Stanbridge Hall (then Common School No. 190), members of the local Parish have done some research. In August, 1870, a great storm impacted the town and both the Church and the school were affected. The report below is from The Ballarat Courier of Friday August 19, 1870. Daylesford seems to have always been famous for its storms as there are other reports of storms to be found. At least back in those days they didn’t have Powercor, nor outages!)
Extract from the Ballarat Courier of Friday, August 19, 1870.
At Daylesford the storm was most destructive. The Daylesford Mercury of yesterday says:— An incessant pitiless rain had driven from the streets every one who could keep in doors. The barometer had fallen very low, and everything portended some extraordinary commotion in the atmosphere. Suddenly, about half-past three pm.— as nearly as possible the same time as the storm of 1867 broke upon us — the atmosphere became almost dark enough to require artificial light, a torrent of hail descended, forked lightning darted from ominous clouds overhead, and above the deafening roar of stones on a hundred roofs, was heard the booming of heaven’s artillery. Presently, something thick as a cloud of dust rushed up Vincent street from the north, and a heavy cart belonging to a man named Trewren, was overturned like a straw, and the frightened animal left kicking on the ground. Immediately the balcony of the Manchester hotel was wrenched off, and with the brick parapet and part of the second storey, smashed a heap of rubbish into the road way. Next the wind forced in the window of Mr Cross, sharebroker, and demolished his verandah. That of Mr Pozzi, colonial wine- seller, next door, followed. Then the verandahs of Mr Pasher, fruiterer; Mr M’Gillivray, saddler;and the verandahs of two untenanted shops of Mr Murray were demolished in the twinkling of an eye, as the atmospheric wave passed up the street; the verandah of Mr Broadbent, draper, at the corner of Victoria and Vincent streets, being also torn to pieces. But a far worse misfortune befell Mr Wright, chemist, who, unconscious that his own premises were endangered, was looking at the wreck in the street. The wind caught the brick storeroom in which he kept his surplus stock of drugs, bottles, etc, and with a crash, roof and sides collapsed, smashing, we fear, most of the valuable contents. At this moment sheets of corrugated iron and zinc, shingles, and even planks of wood were flying through the air in all directions, and the only wonder is that no one was injured, or even killed, by these dangerous missiles. The verandah of Mr Vernon’s house, corner of Camp and Victoria streets, the windows of Mr Carr, Duke street, the verandah and fence of Prospect House, and the verandah and northern fence of Mr White, school master, next door, were also levelled. Doubtless other damage of the same nature was done elsewhere, though not to the present moment, we have not heard of any. Out of the front windows of the Wesleyan parsonage was likewise forced in badly, and the iron roofing uncovered so that the rain entered freely. But these, we are sorry to say, were the minor evils of the storm. The Catholic schoolroom, a wooden building, 50 or 60 feet long, was struck by the wind or the lightning, and crumbled into a heap of splintered timbers. Happily, though the school master and a teacher were inside at the time, they made their escape unhurt, and there is cause for greater thankfulness in the fact that the children had been dismissed before the squall. A more unfortunate event even than the demolition of this schoolroom was the partial destruction of Common School, No. 190. The transept of this school was erected, at his own expense, several years ago by W. E Stanbridge, Esq, present Mayor of the Borough, for the accommodation of the girls. This portion of the edifice, like the other, was a solid brick structure, very well adapted to the purpose, and cost several hundred pounds. The transept that escaped the gale of 1867, is now a mass of ruins, while the western half of the building which then fell is now spared. The wind on the former occasion came from the south west, and had it blown from the same quarter this time, it is impossible to say whether the effects of the schoolhouse would not have been precisely the same as before. But we have yet the worst calamity to relate, and that is that Christ Church— an edifice which altogether has cost between £4000 and £5000 — has been seriously damaged. When the hailstorm commenced, the contractor (Mr Clayfield), with three other men engaged in finishing the porch at the north western corner, retired into it to escape the fury of the storm. The outer door unfortunately not being closed the wind rushed into the porch with irresistible force, flung them against the inner door and then on to the church floor. Immediately afterwards they were astonished to see the eastern portion of the roof burst out from the inside, and then stick down again with a tremendous report. At the same time the lead ridging, that lately laid in cement, was torn up from end to end. Such is the injury done to the church that practical men informed us that the whole eastern side of the roof must be removed and replaced, at a necessarily large outlay. We may add that an immense tree in front of Christ Church, 5 or 6 feet thick, was blown down at the same time, but happily fell in the opposite direction to the pressure of the wind, or the front of the edifice would have been completely crushed. There is scarcely a house in the borough that has not suffered to some extent by the great hailstorm of 1870, and we trust it will be many years before we shall be exposed to another one like it. Had not the children in the two demolished Common schools been dismissed half an hour before the disaster, the town would have been plunged into mourning. We fear the damage to property will exceed £1500, the whole of the destruction being caused in a minute or two, by one tremendous squall. The cost of repairing the roof of the Church of England will probably amount to £400 or £500, and the expense of re-erecting the portion of the schoolroom blown down to £200 or £300 more. Besides this outlay, a new schoolroom will have to be built in the Catholic reserve. Mr Wright, chemist, estimates the injury to his drugs by the falling of his storeroom, at £150 or £200; and when to these sums we add the cost of making good the damage done to other stores and private houses, our estimate of the total cost will not appear exaggerated. We heard last night that some houses at Blanket Flat were blown down.
This article was found on Trove, the online database from the National Library of Australia which contains archives of many historical newspapers and magazines from digitised microfiche. You can read the original article here. Trove creates text versions of these stories using optical character recognition (OCR) technology but the recognition isn’t always accurate because of blurred characters in the original documents. This created challenges for the team but it was all good fun.
