Supplying the Wartime Camps
During World War II the Rushworth-Tatura-Murchison area was home to a number of internment and prisoner-of-war camps. Camps 1-4, located around the northern end of Waranga Basin were civilian internment camps while Camp 13 was a POW camp south-east of the Basin, not far from Murchison. Most of the POWs there were Italians and Germans captured in the north African campaign, but after the Cowra breakout, some of the Japanese prisoners also finished up in Camp 13. Each of the internment camps could hold about 1000 internees while Camp 13 could house up to 4000 men divided into four separate compounds. Around 2700 guards and other personnel were needed to run the camps.1
With a capacity for around 8000 prisoners and internees as well as a large number of staff, there was a huge demand for firewood, which was supplied by contractors sourcing wood from the Rushworth forest. Other local suppliers of goods and services also benefitted from the location of the camps in the area.
Two Sets of Lloyd Bros
The Lloyd brothers, Wally and George, contracted to the government to supply firewood to the camps. In her book about the camps, Walls of Wire2, Joyce Hammond details their work so that story will not be repeated here. They employed a number of workers out in the forest to cut wood.
Their workers may have included two of their nephews, Henry Cornelius and Albert Richard (known as Mick) Lloyd. Mick enlisted and spent a year in the army on Australian soil until March 1942, when he was discharged as medically unfit. He had heart trouble after a bout of rheumatic fever but that did not stop him going straight back out to work in the forest.
Henry and Mick always worked together. However, the partnership between these Lloyd brothers did not start all that well. In fact it could have come to a dramatic end in 1935 when Mick was only 18 and working with his older brother. Melbourne newspaper, the Argus reported that “Mr Albert Lloyd had a narrow escape from serious injury when an axe flew out of his brother’s hand while he was cutting timber in the forest. The flying blade made a gash in the jaw of Mr Albert Lloyd and four stitches were inserted.”3
Family Background
Henry and Mick’s great grandfather William arrived in NSW with his parents in 1835 as a 16 year old. He later worked on one of the first stations in the Riverina. “At the time the blacks were very bad and many were the narrow escapes he had from being speared while looking after stock on the run.”4 When the Victorian gold rush started, William went to some of the earlier rushes before coming to Rushworth in 1854.
Parents of Henry and Mick were Joseph Cornelius and Celestine Violet Lloyd (nee Emanuelli). The nine children were the third generation of this branch of the Lloyd family to be born in Rushworth, so you would nearly have to classify them as “locals”.
The Lloyd brothers later shared a house in Stanhope Road with another brother, Bruce (“Bub”), who was a plumber. Apparently, Mick was the designated housekeeper. Henry played in the Rushworth brass band. Another brother, Harold (known as Jim) ran an electrical store in High Street. He sold the first television in Rushworth to Father Collins from St Mary’s. The bottom pub purchased the second TV in town.
After the War
The camps were progressively closed down after the war and as that source of income dried up, the Lloyd brothers continued to work in the forest, cutting fence posts and firewood. They also did contract hay-carting. As the demand for firewood declined, they had to seek markets further afield, with Henry taking truckloads of firewood as far as Adelaide.
A relative remembers that “after the war, they had a red Ford truck…their brother-in-law Bob Jones worked with them. Bob always travelled in the middle of the bench seat in the truck. The boys had to be on the outside.”5
Henry and Mick worked incredibly hard all their lives, so were physically very strong. However, both died very young by today’s standards. Henry was only 62 and Mick only 59 when they died in the 1970s. They are buried together in the Rushworth cemetery, which seems fitting, given that they lived and worked together all their lives.
SOURCES – 1 vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au; 2 Hammond, J G, Walls of Wire, p 69; 3 The Argus 6.5.1935; 4 Rushworth Chronicle obituary 26.4.1901; 5 Per Noel Lloyd email; Other – Lorraine Lloyd, Noel Lloyd, Allan Breen memories
Forest Nature Note
Have you noticed large groups of crested pigeons (common name topknot pigeons) gathering at this time of year, sometimes along power lines. They are very social birds. It is amusing to watch the males perform their mating display/dance as they stick up their tail feathers and bob up and down while making a soft hooting sound as they try to impress the females – not always successfully.
