Erected in 1991, an old irrigation wheel on top of a grey stoned mount at the Denison roundabout where Grimmes Road, Three Chain Rd, and Traralgon-Maffra Rd meet, known as Kenevan’s Corner, commemorates Soldier Settlement in the Nambrok/Denison area.
The erection of the monument, facilitated by a committee of about 25 people, marked 40 years since the first soldier settlers arrived in the region, its unveiling attracting a crowd of more than 2000.
In 2021, a plaque with the names of Nambrok/Denison soldier settlers was installed, commemorating their service to Australia and their contribution in building the region’s community and dairy farming industry.
While the original Denison/Nambrok soldier settlers committee no longer exists, the latest addition to the soldier settlement memorial is the work of the new unofficial committee comprised of Jenny McMillian, Geoff Smith, and Graeme Anderson.
Mrs McMillian’s father, Frank Norden, was among the more than 120 returned WW2 soldiers who settled in the Denison/Nambrok region through the soldier settlement scheme.
Mr Smith’s father, Gordon Smith, was among the second group of ex-servicemen to receive land and settle in the Denison/Nambrok region.
Mr Anderson, a veteran himself, purchased a soldier settlement farm in 1984 and was close friends with many of the men who settled on farms in the Denison/Nambrok region following WW2.
Regional Roads Victoria installed permanent bollards in July to provide better access and separate the memorial from a nearby gravel stack at the request of Mrs McMillian, Mr Smith, and Mr Anderson as part of their feat to preserve Denison/Nambrok soldier settlement history.
Mrs McMillan, who authored The Plains – A History of Nambrok-Denison, said the soldier monument recognises the soldier settlement scheme’s role in the region’s history and the lives of the returned war soldiers who settled here.
“It was a whole change to the landscape, and the government gave those returned service people who applied an opportunity to change their lives and build new ones,” Mrs McMillan said.
“And with all the new settlements, it brought children; schools were built, the church was built, a whole lot of changes in operations, it made a community.”
The Soldier Settlement Commission, which recognised and addressed previous failures in soldier settlement following WW1, was established by the state government in 1946 under the Solider Settlement Act for the rehabilitation of ex-servicemen from the 1939-1945 war.
The Soldier Settlement Commission was granted authority to purchase property from private landowners and set apart suitable areas of Crown Land for returned war soldiers to settle, through which they acquired 22,00 acres from 65 farmers in the Nambrok-Denison region.
The first seven Nambrok-Denison soldier settlers, Sam Anderson, Len Anderson, Lloyd Jones, Bryan Rodaughan, Max Duffy, Arthur Fitzpatrick and Ron Collin, arrived in 1951.
Over the course of eight years, the Soldier Settlement Commission allocated 138 blocks of land in the Nambrok-Denison region to 15 groups of soldier settlers.
Ray Chambers, Bernie Laws, Vic Jondahl, Fred Wheeler and Len Cole were the 15th and final group of soldier settlers to arrive in 1958.
Solider settlement in Nambrok and Denison following WW2 changed the entire landscape of the region and played a key role in shaping the community we know today.
Solider settlement in Nambrok and Denison sparked the need for Glenmaggie Lake to hold a larger capacity.
Glenmaggie, which was first built between November 1919 and 1926, held 132,000 megalitres at full capacity, providing irrigation to around 360 square kilometres of farming land to properties in the Macalister Irrigation District, near Maffra, Heyfield, Stratford and Sale.
With an injection of settlers to the Nambrok-Denison region and more to come, all of whom need water to prosper upon settlement, the Glenmaggie project was launched to raise the walls 3.6 metres, increasing its capacity to 177,640 megalitres.
The Glenmaggie project was one of Victoria’s most extensive irrigation and water projects of the 1950s, which provided work for the earlier groups of soldier settlers and many other local workers.
“It changed the whole landscape of the Nambrok-Denison area,” Mrs McMillan said.
“By bringing the irrigation, extending Glenmaggie that brought employment at the beginning for the (soldier settlement) farmers that were allocated the land, changed the landscape to irrigated from dry land.”
Soldier settlement brought multifaceted benefits to the region, from the expansion of Glenmaggie Lake, creating newly irrigated land, to a significant population boost, bringing more children to the area who would later comprise football teams, netball teams and tennis clubs.
Solider settlement is a key event in the region’s rich history, a foundation for the Nambrok/Denison and the surrounding area that is known today.
An old irrigation wheel on top of a grey stoned mount at the Denison roundabout where Grimmes Road, Three Chain Rd, and Traralgon-Maffra Rd meet, known as Kenevan’s Corner, commemorates this significant part of local history, and the men who served their country to make Australia the safe, opportunistic nation it is today.
