Blackwood History Books

Aspects of Early Blackwood is the first book you should read when learning about Blackwood. Written by Alan and Margot and with multiple printing over the years it is a wealth on information. From history on the discovery of gold, the mines, the family's and many stories in-between.

This book focuses on the Iconic Hotel often referred to as "The Blackwood Pub". This book was written in late 2024 early 2025 just as the the pub changed hands to local owners where significant renovations took place. This is a full colour book with many photos both old and new ranging back over 100 years. There are mentioned of movies, local stories, ghosts, tragedies and good times. This is a 50 page book and is has been very popular since publication in January 2025

The book gives detailed information on the Quartz mining in Simmons Reef with information on the Mines there and miners who lived in the area and worked in the mines. Also the school, church, Hotels and early pioneers, and the history of the place now called the ‘Garden of St Erth’.  This book was compiled by Margot on her computer with 55 pages and 36 photographs in A5 size and it was launched at the Blackwood hall in December 2007.

This book is about Billy Pincombe who was a gold miner and the son of John Pincombe, miner and Mary Ridd. Billy was born in Devonshire, England in 1860 and his sister Gertrude Mary Pincombe was born in 1863 after the family arrived in Blackwood, Victoria.  Billy blamed the local minister, Lay Reader Harold Gamil Robinson for his wife’s Religious Mania which led her to chop off her right hand, so Billy shot and killed the minister. Then the local Constable was called for and Mounted Constable Charles Henry Saunders shot and killed Billy Pincombe in June 1908. Read this story and envisage along side the author the thoughts of the people who were affected by this tragedy. The book tells the circumstances that led to the murder, madness and mania, and gives details of the Inquest and Asylum records and photos of the houses they lived in and even a photo of Annie Pincombe in the Asylum after she cut her hand off.

The History of Blackwood — The Chinese arrive in Blackwood. About 50 Chinamen arrived from Castlemaine in 1858, and before the year 1861 their number had increased to 200. On their first arrival they pegged the main creek (Lerderderg River) for many miles, and the Chinamen held possession of the creek workings for nearly thirty years. Many Chinese miners can be found at the back of the Blackwood cemetery in unconsecrated ground, some with stone headstones bearing Chinese inscriptions. By 1858 over a thousand tons of debris were sluiced by miners into the main water channels, and when floods came it was spread throughout the river — giving the Chinamen a splendid harvest as they cut tail-races and faced the creek properly. Many made as much as £1,000. This booklet draws on Warden's Reports, Bacchus Marsh Express newspaper accounts (including the famous 1892 article on Chinese New Year celebrations at Blackwood), and the only known photograph of Chinese in Blackwood — six men at the Blackwood Sports Ground in 1900: Jack Sugar, Long Ah Toy, Jimmy Ah Foo, Ah Wah, Ah Toy and Happy Jack. Compiled by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society. 2025.

Pioneer Doctors of Blackwood — Dr. Edward Plews (1822–1899). Edward William Plews was the doctor for Blackwood from 1861 until his death in 1899, a span of nearly four decades caring for the goldfields community. Born in London in 1822, Plews studied medicine at Guy's Hospital and took his L.S.A. degree in 1848 before coming to the colony in 1853 in charge of the emigrant ship James L. Bogert. He married Mary Sandford Jones at Castlemaine in 1859 and arrived in Blackwood in 1861, where he was appointed Coroner, Deputy Registrar of Births and Deaths, and Vaccinator of the district. Edward and Mary had eleven children together. This A5 booklet traces the life and work of one of Blackwood's pioneer doctors — his medical practice, his family, and his decades of service to the goldfields township and surrounding district. Written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society. October 2023.

The story of Isaac Povey, who lies in a lonely grave on Dead Man's Hill above the Lerderderg River near Blackwood. Born in Birmingham in 1834, Isaac sailed for Australia in 1854 with his friend John Edward Hill, intending to make his fortune on the goldfields and return home within three years to his sweetheart Mary. Within twelve months of arriving at Mount Blackwood he caught a chill and died, aged 21. With no cemetery yet established, John Hill buried him in a coffin of bark on the rise now called Dead Man's Hill at Simmons Reef. Mary waited in England, but Isaac never came home. Researched and written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood and District Historical Society, this booklet traces Isaac's short life, the rediscovery of his grave by Tom Johnson, the bronze tablet cast in a Brunswick foundry that still marks the spot, and the parallel story of John Edward Hill — credited as the discoverer of the Mount Blackwood Goldfield in 1855 and laid to rest in the Blackwood cemetery in 1891.

The story of Little Doaty — Josephine Margaret Rowan, the eldest daughter of Joseph Rowan, Clerk of Courts of Blackwood. Born in Sandhurst (Bendigo) in 1874, Doaty died at Blackwood aged just 4 years on 23 October 1878 during a diphtheria epidemic. Her small grave just inside the main gate of Blackwood Cemetery has prompted many a visitor to wonder who she was. Researched and written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society, this booklet draws on official records, family photographs lent by Doaty's niece Mrs Mary Kane, and contemporary newspaper reports from the Bacchus Marsh Express. It also includes the inquest into the drowning of Selina Bass at Barry's Reef in the same year — a tragedy later confused with Doaty's death in local folklore.

The story of the Blackwood Mineral Springs Reserve, set on a bend of the Lerderderg River. Chinese prospectors are credited with discovering the two springs — the Soda and the Iron — while working the river in the gold-rush years. Although mining continued until 1888, the Lands Department gazetted a reserve around the springs in 1879, and it has been a popular picnic spot ever since. A rotunda was built over the Iron spring in 1891 and another over the Soda spring in 1914. After the 1939–45 war the present camping area below the 'Rip Van Winkle' tunnel was levelled, the reserve was extended to 14 acres in 1948, and the Caravan Park was built by the Public Works Department in 1955. Researched and written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society, this booklet also covers the early history of nearby Tipperary Flat — the alluvial gold workings, water races (including Cocciardi's race), and the camps that once held 13,000 miners across the Blackwood goldfield.

The story of the Mounter Brothers and their mines at Barrys Reef, Blackwood. John Mounter (originally Polamounter) left Cornwall in 1856 and made his way to the Blackwood goldfields, settling at Barrys Reef where he reputedly planted the Monkey Puzzle tree from seed brought from St. Stephens, Cornwall — a tree that still marks where the Mounter homestead once stood. Mounter's mining party was very successful: in 1873–74 alone the records show they obtained 2,431 ounces of gold from their block on the Trewhella claim, with more than £30,000 worth of gold raised from the 160-foot length over the years. This A5 booklet covers the Mounter family, their mines, and the rise and fall of Barrys Reef as one of Victoria's leading mining towns of the 1870s. Researched and written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society.

The Skinner family of Blackwood, best known as the founders of the Easter Monday Mine — discovered by brothers Joseph and Alfred Skinner on Easter Monday 1907, two miles south-west of Blackwood in the Simmons Reef area. Researched and written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society, this booklet traces the family from Edwin (Edward) Skinner Snr — born 1830 in St Blazey, Cornwall, and married in 1851 in South Australia to Elizabeth Wicks of St Gluvius, Cornwall — through their children born across Ballarat, Kyneton, Costerfield and Barry's Reef, and on to descendants who emigrated to Waihi, New Zealand in the 1890s. Drawn from family letters, electoral rolls, cemetery and inquest records, and photos lent by descendants including Erin Jones of Te Puke, NZ, with the last four pages devoted to the history of the Easter Monday Mine itself.

A history of the Blackwood goldfields and township.

The Sultan Mine is very much a part of the early deep reef mining in Blackwood's history. Barrys Reef became a thriving township in the 1870s with the opening up of mechanised digging to obtain the gold deposited in the quartz reefs running north and south through Barrys Reef. The Sultan Mining Company commenced operations in 1869. By 1874 the company had erected a 60 horse power steam engine with a 20 stamp-head battery — over £15,000 was spent on plant and machinery, making it one of the best equipped mines in the Colony. By 1876 the mine employed over 300 men on three shifts — two-thirds of all quartz miners in the Barrys Reef district. In just three months in 1874 Barrys Reef had 80 new buildings erected with close to 4,000 inhabitants. In all the Sultan Mine yielded 65,801 ounces of gold valued at £264,000 and paid £58,562 in dividends — making it one of the most profitable mines from the shareholders' point of view in Victoria's history. The gold at the 700 foot level was so rich it was called "the jeweller's shop". The company collapsed late in 1880, and by 1883 the costly machinery was sold and moved out of the area. Written by Margot Hitchcock, Historian for the Blackwood & District Historical Society. February 2024.