Colleen Lazenby gushes over the sepia images, hand-written poems and sketches dating from the 1860s now on show at Whittlesea council offices.
Ms Lazenby, the council’s heritage co-ordinator, says an A3, 14-centimetre-thick ledger detailing the name of every customer and their purchases made at Mernda’s first grocery is one of the most remarkable artefacts on display.
The items are part of the late Fay Thomas’s extensive collection of photos, plans, maps and other relics, which she gathered over many years to document the life of Moses Thomas, her great grandfather who was one of Mernda’s first residents.
Mr Thomas surveyed the Morang Road District, a precursor to the shire of Whittlesea. During the 1850s, the engineer, carpenter and stonemason built the Mayfield Presbyterian Church, a school, dairy farm, flour mill, bakery, grocery store, butter factory and blacksmith’s in the suburb when it was known as Morang.
Ms Lazenby said that when his great granddaughter, Fay, died aged 73 last year, she left behind her own honourable legacy as a teacher, principal, academic and school assessor. The council has been given access to her collection of archival material about what is now Mernda.
“Some of these objects are remarkable, never seen before,” she said. “Pictures of Moses Thomas as well as his second wife Anne, railroad plans from the 1860s, poems written for his wife in 1868 … it’s phenomenal. You get a real sense of him as an individual.”
The original collection will be on display at the council until February 27, after which it will be donated to the State Library of Victoria.
