Milang. South Australian railway carriages at the Milang Railway station museum South Australia.

Milang and the Murray River Boat Trade.

In 1853 the governor of SA offered a reward of £4,000 to the first river steam boat to navigate the Murray to Wentworth and beyond. Captain Francis Cadell working with William Younghusband, a close friend of the governor received the prize although Captain William Randell of Mannum reached Wentworth in his steam boat at the same time. Cadell had named his boat after the wife of the Governor, the Lady Augusta and the Governor and a small party travelled on Captain Cadell’s boat. After this financial boost Cadell went on to establish the River Murray Navigation Company based in Goolwa. Randell established his own shipping line based in Mannum. The river trade began in earnest in 1854. The prize was intercolonial transportation of goods into western NSW and southern Qld via the Darling River from Wentworth. In the 1850s there was almost no settlement in SA along the river so the money to be made was in NSW and the upper reaches of the Murray in Victoria. Randell transported flour to Echuca, for example, for overland transport from Echuca to the goldfields at Bendigo. The early river steamers and barges were manufactured along the Murray and the lakes, often at Goolwa or Mannum or in Milang. Wool was the staple product shipped down the river from NSW and the return trips took up flour, sugar, tea, pianos, furniture, engines or whatever outback stations needed. Customs duties were due at the SA/NSW/Vic border and the Qld border. Milang established a niche role for itself in the riverboat trade; it made steamers and barges, provided captains and skilled navigators and handled the bulk of supplies going up to NSW as Milang was the closest and easiest river port to Adelaide. Duranda Terrace in Milang handled 50 to 60% of all SA exports up the river. Merchants flourished here and Landseers established a large wool handling and warehousing business with offices in Morgan, Murray Bridge, Goolwa, Wentworth, Wilcannia and Mildura. But their headquarters were in Milang.

 

Albert Landseer the company founder was born in England in 1829 and was a cousin to the famous British landscape painter of the same surname. Albert studied sculpture himself but gave it up to immigrate to SA. He became the agent for Captain Cadell of Goolwa in 1856 and from that contract he expanded his business all along the river. He had ten children with his first wife and six with his second. He controlled almost all the trade through Milang and was known as the “Duke of Milang.” His business partner who contributed financial support was William Dunk. Albert Landseer died in 1906 as the river trade was starting to reduce. Landseer contributed to the district by becoming a member of parliament and was a popular local identify. Alas his four storey stone flour mill and three storey warehouse in Duranda Terrace were both demolished a long time ago. (His impressive wool store in Morgan still stands.) Landseer’s flour mill operated from around 1870 to 1890 replacing the Pavy flour mill that was established in Milang in the 1850s to supply flour for the riverboat trade. The heyday of the riverboat trade was in the 19th century. Before any railways reached western NSW almost all trade was carried on the river through SA. Railways reached western NSW and upper Victoria in the 1880s. But the river trade persisted as so many stations were situated right on the banks of the Darling River and so river transport was the easiest and cheapest right into the middle 1920s. The first jetty was constructed in Milang in 1856 to get the river trade going. It was increased in length in 1859 and again in 1869 until it was 217 metres (711 feet) long. A tram track took cargo to the end of the jetty. The great Murray flood of 1956 saw half the jetty washed away.

 

Although much of the river boat trade died away in the 1920s some services continued, especially the local steamer service across Lake Alexandrina. Once the railway from Adelaide reached Milang in 1884 a service was started to connect with the trains to take passenger and freight across the lakes to Poltalloch station, Meningie and from there overland through the Coorong to the South East and Melbourne. The paddle steamer Dispatch plied this route from 1877 between Milang and Meningie. After 1884 other vessels were also used on this route. Trade declined considerably in Milang itself after 1878 when the SA railway reached Morgan. It then became the major river port, rather than Milang.

 

Because of the river trade Milang had a thriving boat building industry. George Ross established engineering works in Milang and then branched out into boats. Ross’ major competitor was Frank Potts of Langhorne Creek who built his boats in Milang too. Potts built many of the boats used by Landseer’s company. The last boat built for Landseer was the Marion in 1897. This is the paddle steamer now in the Museum at Mannum. Another well known boat builder in Milang was C.H.F. Kruse. The register of steamers built in Milang lists:

1857The Enterprise.

1872 The Ponkaree.

1873Landseer’s floating dry dock was built and then later sold on to William Randell at Mannum in 1876.

1875The Wilcannia.

1876The Annie and the Bourke.

1877The Avoca and the Dispatch.

1878The Milang, the Elsie, the John Hart and the Victor.

1880The Mary Ann (second steamer of this name).

1891The Ada and Clara. (This was financed by the Bowmans for the lake crossing to Poltalloch Station.)

1892The Advance and the Retreat.

1897The Agnostic, the Marion and the Tarella.

1898The Etona (used by the Anglican Church for services along the Murray from Murray Bridge to Renmark.)

1911The Elsie (second steamer of this name).

Although the river trade was starting to die off in the early 20th century in 1902 the lock system was agreed upon by the states. It was mainly built to provide a constant river level free from snags in the Murray. The locks were also to control river flows in times of drought and keep the Murray navigable. The first Murray River lock was started in 1915 and finished at Blanchetown in 1922. It took another 20 years for the remaining 25 locks along the river to Albury to be completed. The final stage of this project really was the construction of the five barrages to prevent salt water from entering the lakes and Murray River. They were completed in 1940.

 

A Brief History of Milang.

The settlers of Strathalbyn were anxious to have a port near their town especially after the Wheal Ellen mine began operations in 1857. In August 1853 Captains Cadell and Randell had proved the viability of river trade. In light of this the Surveyor General Arthur Freeling ordered a township to be laid out on the shores of Lake Alexandrina near where the Bremer and Angas rivers enter the lake. A site was selected on high ground away from both river mouths. Milang was laid out by January 1854. The town had a grid pattern, like Adelaide surrounded by parklands on three sides and the lake on the other. Blocks must have sold quickly as in 1857 a private development was laid out beyond the parklands by Dr Rankine of Strathalbyn. The town name was selected from a local Aboriginal word “Millangk” which meant place of sorcery and magic. Some might argue that Milang is still a magical place!

 

Among the purchasers of the first town lots, as was to be the case in Langhorne Creek too, were the elite of Strathalbyn- the Gollans, Stirlings, Dawsons etc. Other pioneers of Milang were the Landseer family and G Chalken. Chalken owned the Lake Hotel, established in 1856 in a side street. The Pier Hotel facing the lake was built in 1857 and still stands. Landseer soon opened a general store and Post Office. He bought machinery from the original Pavy flour mill and built a new one in 1871. Around this time he also erected a large wool store and other warehouses along Duranda Terrace making him the main businessman in town. Milang blossomed overnight on the expectation of successful river trading. A South Australian Register newspaper article in 1857 described the new town thus: “Milang is becoming a very bustling little port and will shortly grow into a place of importance. Already it has two inns, a steam mill, a store of some extent, a chapel in the course of erection, a timber yard and a jetty on which there were lying on Tuesday the Symmetry twenty five tons, the Blue Jacket five tons and the Enterprise eight tons. There are now about one hundred and ten souls in the township and several hundred settlers within a radius of two or three miles. Cultivation is progressing extensively and wheat and flour are continuously shipped, and also silver and lead from Strathalbyn and the Wheal Ellen mines.” Alas Milang is no longer a bustling port or town!

 

As with most other towns the first public structures were the two hotels and the early school room in 1856. This purpose built school is still in use. The first church erected was the Church of Christ in Coxe Street in 1857. This church was enlarged in 1899 and again in 1901. By 1866 Milang had two further churches the Primitive Methodist erected in 1866 in Chapel Street and the Congregational Church erected in 1862 in Stephenson Street. The Congregational Church originally had a thatched roof and it is now the Uniting Church. The Anglican Church was not built until 1911 and its completion was financially assisted by the Dunk family. Before then Anglican services were conducted in the Institute building. Mrs Landseer laid the foundation stone of the Institute in January 1884. James Rankine of Strathalbyn opened the Institute later that year. By 1890 it was free of debt and in 1917 further additions were made to it. A District Council was formed in Milang in 1855 and the first meetings were held in nearby Belvedere. A police station opened in Milang in 1865 but Milang began to slide backwards shortly after that. The tramway to Strathalbyn in 1869 bypassed Milang despite pleas for it to travel via Milang. However they did get a rail line in 1884 to link with the Adelaide line at Sandergrove. In 1893 a butter factory opened in Milang, the Lakeside Butter Factory which exported local butter to England. It closed in 1915. It re-opened some time later and was still operating in the 1930s. The infamous shacks along the lake foreshore were built around 1948. The Milang Progress Association controlled the area until the local Council resumed control in 1967. Despite government threats to their existence the shack owners have had several reprieves and they are still there.

 

Done