Five Minutes With Merron Riddiford, Western District Historian

The Western District has always been a place of stories.

They sit quietly in bluestone churches, old cemeteries, family albums, creek beds, former hotels and the names of streets locals pass every day. Some are well known. Others are waiting to be found again.

For Western District historian Merron Riddiford, uncovering those stories has become a lifelong passion.

Merron researches and shares the histories of families, milestones, events and places across Victoria’s Western District, with a particular love for Hamilton and the people who have shaped it. Her interest began early, growing up just down the road from the Hamilton Pastoral Museum, with a Nana who loved to reminisce about Hamilton in the 1920s and 1930s. Later, when Merron began researching her own family history more than 35 years ago, she quickly discovered that family history and local history are beautifully intertwined. To understand the people, you need to understand the place they called home.

And Hamilton, as Merron explains, has no shortage of remarkable stories.

One character who continues to capture her imagination is Billy Trainor, a close friend of poet Adam Lindsay Gordon. Born on Staten Island in New York, Billy came to Australia as a boy with Barton’s Circus, making a living as a trick-riding clown. He later shared a house with Gordon in Mount Gambier, rode at race meetings across south-east South Australia and the Western District, then became a publican, running hotels in Hamilton, Wannon and Coleraine. His friendship with Gordon was so deep that when Billy’s wife died, he purchased a burial plot next to Gordon’s at Brighton Cemetery, ensuring he too would one day rest beside his old friend.

It is these unexpected details that make local history feel so alive.

Merron says many people are surprised to learn just how significant the Western District was in Victoria’s development. While many of us grew up learning about the gold rush, Hamilton had already been surveyed and formally recognised as a town before gold was discovered at Ballarat. Once known as the capital of the west, Hamilton also became a city in 1949, a fact even some locals do not realise.

Then there are the stories that stretch much further back. Merron has written about seashells and shark teeth found in local waterways such as Muddy Creek and the Grange Burn, remnants of a time millions of years ago when the Southern Ocean reached the base of the Grampians. For visitors and locals alike, it is a reminder that this landscape holds history on a scale far greater than human memory.

Hamilton has also played host to some surprising names. Alfred Tennyson Dickens, son of Charles Dickens, lived in Hamilton during the mid-1870s. He worked as a stock and station agent, served on local committees, and his wife Jessie was buried in Hamilton. As Merron puts it, in modern terms it would be a little like having the child of J.K. Rowling living in town.

The Western District’s contribution to World War I is another part of the region’s story that Merron believes deserves greater recognition. Hamilton, with a population of around 5,000 at the time, had a very high number of enlistments per capita. Smaller communities such as Tahara also contributed significantly, with several men receiving military honours. Many Western District horses also formed part of the Australian Light Horse, carrying the region’s story well beyond its own borders.

For those wanting to step into the past, Merron suggests there are places across the region that still feel deeply connected to those who came before.

Hamilton’s Christ Church Anglican Church is one of them. Built from locally sourced bluestone and Mount Sturgeon freestone, the nearly 150-year-old church carries the presence of generations. Merron describes walking through its doors, touching the bluestone walls, and thinking of the notable residents who may have done the same. Some of them are still remembered in the church’s beautiful stained-glass windows.

Byaduk is another place that transports her back in time. It is where her ancestors lived and worked, including her great-great-great-great-grandfather Joseph Harman, a bootmaker, and later family members whose bullock wagons travelled along Port Fairy Road. In Byaduk, the landscape still holds the echo of flour mills, school walks, horse-drawn cortèges and family footsteps.

Then there is the old Hamilton Cemetery. For Merron, walking through it is like walking the streets of Hamilton itself. The names on the headstones connect to streets, parks, shops, families and stories that still form part of the town’s identity. It is, she says, a special place.

Of course, history is not always found in grand monuments. Sometimes it appears in the small, surprising discoveries hidden in old newspapers and records.

One of Merron’s favourite finds came through the story of Thomas Gorman, an early Hamilton stationmaster and founding member of the Carlton Football Club. Gorman played for Carlton from 1865 to 1871, later arriving in Hamilton with his family in 1879. The following year he was elected to the Hamilton Football Club committee. Just weeks later, he and three of his children died during a diphtheria outbreak in the district.

It is a heartbreaking story, but also the kind of discovery that shows how closely national, local and family histories can overlap.

For Merron, preserving local history matters because it helps communities understand who they are and how they came to be. It connects people to place, keeps stories alive, and offers the chance to learn from the mistakes and injustices of the past. “Those from the past gave us so much,” she says, “and they deserve their stories to continue through the generations.”

For visitors wanting to better understand the Western District, Merron suggests beginning with the region’s cemeteries. Their inscriptions reveal where people came from, what languages they spoke, and the cultural threads that shaped local communities. Across the Western District, German, Hebrew, Mandarin, Gaelic and other inscriptions can be found on headstones, each one adding another layer to the story of settlement, migration, faith and family.

She also recommends visiting the region’s many historical societies and museums, including the Hamilton History Centre, Dunkeld Museum, Coleraine, Glenthompson and Penshurst Historical Societies, and the Hamilton Pastoral Museum. Its twice-yearly rallies are a highlight, bringing history to life through steam engines, blacksmithing and machinery in motion. For Merron, it is just as fascinating now as it was when she was a child.

To step even further back in time, the Penshurst Volcanoes Discovery Centre offers insight into the region’s extraordinary geological story, while the World Heritage listed Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, including the Tae Rak Aquaculture Centre at Lake Condah, offers an opportunity to learn about rich Gunditjmara culture and life before European settlement.

After years of research, Merron believes the Western District’s historical fascination lies in its unique combination of geography, Aboriginal culture, diverse communities and the central role of agriculture. Together, they have shaped a region unlike anywhere else.

And when she uncovers a forgotten story or photograph?

Merron describes it as a quiet “Eureka” moment. Family historians might call it a happy dance. For her, it is more of an internal spark, followed by the strong urge to share what she has found. The only challenge, she says, is that there are more stories to tell than there is time to tell them.

Luckily for Hamilton and the wider Western District, Merron is still finding them.

Connect with Merron:

Western Districts Families History

You can follow Merron’s work and discover more Western District stories through:

Facebook: I’ve Lived in Hamilton Victoria

Facebook: Western District Families

Website: Western District Families