History+of+Raywood

= = =History of Raywood= = = = = Raywood Primary School has been there since 1877 but there use to be another school there before that

//Currently the Grades 4-6 children are studying the exciting history of this district.We were very fortunante to receive a handwritten history written by// //88 year old// //a// //former local resident// //who was born and bred in Raywood. Her name is Esma Ludeman ( nee Hayes). She is now aged 88 and is the granddaughter of the first European child ( Mr. Donald McKay) born on the Raywood Goldfields. When she herself was a student at Raywood Primary School in late 1920’s and 1930’s she wrote a history of Raywood for a school assignment from first hand accounts and has over the years added to that original history by continuing to document further developments.// //She continues to have a very strong and sound recollection of Raywood and a passion for its history and has always had a strong community involvement, having spent her married life farming at Tandara before retiring to Bendigo in the 1980’s.//

[|History of Raywood P.S]


 * //__On October 22, 1863 Joseph Woodward found alluvial gold on the edge of Thunder Plains. He named the area Raywood after his birth place in England. The Borough of Raywood, including Elysian Flat was proclaimed on January 3, 1865.__//**

=//__The Police Station__//=
 * //__The first Police Station opened in December 1863. During 1865, the Elysian Flat police station merged with Raywood. A new brick station, situated in the main street, was built in the 1920s. Inglewood street was given its name in 1864 by a majority of diggers who had assembled.__//**


 * //__The first of many hotels was built in 1863, about where the Town Hall is currently situated. It moved to its current location in 1874, where it operated as the Raywood Royal Theatre until 1974. On January 4, 1864 a post office opened in a room at Gunn's Hotel. The cast iron pillar box in front of the Town Hall was made by Alliance Iron Works, Melbourne.

In 1878, the Town Hall was built, and was used as the Mechanics Instiute and by several religious denominations. A library became operationl by 1895. By November 1878, the Borough of Raywood was instructed to have a reservoir surveyed. Water supply began sometime later, about 1884.__//**