The history of Woori Yallock

In 1880, when he was 18, Robert Price selected land at Hazeldene, his brother taking the adjoining block.  There were no roads or trains nearer than Hawthorn at that stage and when the railway did reach Lilydale in 1882 it was still a long way away.  They used packhorses to carry everything, including the supplies they got from Woori Yallock.

John and Mary Allsop selected land on the Woori Yallock flats just as the squatting age was ending.  To make some money, John carted supplies by bullock wagon to the early miners in the area, cutting tracks as he went.  Despite his efforts, he lost the contract and his beloved selection, this time on a hillside.  Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday he carted mail to Beenak for £30 a year.  The Allsops’ first child created great interest among the aborigines.

In 1885, Clara Crosbie, a Melbourne girl aged 12, survived for 21 days alone in the bush near Woori Yallock, without food and with no more shelter than a hollow log big enough to lie in.  She had gone to stay with a local family who lived along the bullock track between Woori Yallock and Macclesfield.  On May 12 she went for a walk and lost her way, then struggled through thick bush until she came to the Cockatoo Creek.  Edward Greaves Smith and a colleague, out looking for cattle, came upon her as she limped towards them.

In the days before trucks and tractors, heavy haulage was done by bullocks.  Bullockies did forest work in the area as late as the 1960s.

In 1964, Bill Robbins who was aged 61, worked with a fellow bullocky Wally Legg, who was 72, and a team of ten bullocks near Woori Yallock, cutting telephone poles.  Each day they felled about twenty logs and had the bullocks haul them to a clearing where they were loaded.

Early settlers were keen to have schools for their children and looked to the government to provide them.  Woori Yallock parents formed a committee in 1872 and raised £14 to buy a large tent and fit it out with a chimney, stools and desks.  They arranged for Anne Atterby to be teacher, with a wage of £26 a year.  The school’s history from then on was one of struggle, with unsatisfactory premises, teachers not arriving or teachers being shared, and it wasn’t until 21 October 1914 that a new weatherboard school was officially opened.

Presbyterian Church services were held in the small school house in Woori Yallock.  Ministers came by horse and jinker and the frequency of their visits depended on the state of their roads.  A church was built in 1908.

A regular Cobb and Co coaching stop between Lilydale and Warburton was the Woori Yallock Hotel.