If you think Glenrowan
is a bit of a sleepy little town now (with a 2001 census count of 348),
imagine what is must have been like back in 1861 when the town was
proclaimed and the population was only a dozen souls.
Glenrowan sits at the foot of The Warby Ranges in North East Victoria.
It is watched over by
Mt. Glenrowan, comprising Morgan’s Lookout. (named after the
bushranger)
By the time of the
siege, according to Author Frank Clune, the population had reached 100
persons.
The earliest beginnings
of Glenrowan were in 1846 when brothers James Hutton Rowan and George
Christian Rowan owned 16,000 acres of grazing land in the area.
By 1857, the area was
surveyed and allotments were sold. The town grew slowly and starting in
1862 was used by Cobb & Co. as a stop-over to change horses and for the
passengers to rest and grab a meal.
The year 1873 saw the
railroad come through and by 1876 the first school was built (with
Thomas Curnow as schoolmaster, the man who stopped the train).
The original township
was about a mile closer to Benalla (than it is today) consisting of a
post office, school ,police barracks, several pubs, bootmaker etc.
There were several
hotels, one being the Farmers Arms. (pictured) It originally was the
police barracks.
The original post
office was next door to the police barracks and was run by H Reynolds.
Alec Reynolds was a prisoner at the Inn during the siege.
Today the old township
of Glenrowan is simply farmland.
By 1878 Mrs. Ann Jones
had built the Glenrowan Inn and in May of 1880 Constable Hugh Bracken
took over the policing duties in town.
McDonnell's Railway
Tavern stood across from the little railway station and there was a
Station Masters residence close by.
Away from Glenrowan's
main population therefore was the Inn, Railway Tavern, Station Masters
and Railway Station, these four buildings were the main feature at this
end of town.
The town lost its
innocence in June 1880 when Ned Kelly & his gang came calling.
Footnote: Bricks from
the Farmers Arms were used in the construction of the
new police station in 1888 and in modern times many were utilised in the
floor
and walls of local business Cobb & Co. (NedKellysWorld)
McDonnell's, Station
Masters & The Glenrowan Inn sites are now all vacant land.
The railway station is
a replica with the only original part being a section of the platform.
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