Eaglehawk is a suburb within the

City of Greater Bendigo The City of Greater Bendigo is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central part of the state. It covers an area of and, in June 2021, had a population of 123,632. It includes the city of Bendigo and the towns of Axe ...

and a former

gold-mining Gold mining is the extraction of gold resources by mining. Historically, mining gold from alluvial deposits used manual separation processes, such as gold panning. However, with the expansion of gold mining to ores that are not on the surface, ...

town in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The town is situated to the north-west of

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is a city in Victoria, Australia, located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2019, Bendigo had an urban population of 100,991, makin ...

on the

Loddon Valley Highway The Loddon Valley Highway runs roughly north-west from Bendigo to Kerang on the Murray Valley Highway. It constitutes part of the direct route from Melbourne to the popular Murray River holiday areas around Swan Hill. Route Loddon Valley Hig ...

. The highway is known locally as High Street until the intersection with Sailors Gully Road (Bendigo - Pyramid Road) and as Peg Leg Road to the west. Located on this intersection is Brassey Square which is the location of the

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

. Next to the town hall is the former

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letters and parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post offices may offer additional serv ...

and the Mechanics' Institute. To the north of the intersection on Napier Street is Canterbury Park and Lake Neangar while the Swan Hill railway line and the local railway station are located to the south.

History

The original inhabitants of the area were the Neangar people. Following the discovery of gold at Sandhurst (

) in October 1851, Joseph Crook discovered a

gold nugget :''"Gold nugget" may also refer to the catfish Baryancistrus xanthellus or the mango cultivar Gold Nugget.'' A gold nugget is a naturally occurring piece of native gold. Watercourses often concentrate nuggets and finer gold in placers. Nuggets a ...

while searching for stray horses. This event sparked a

gold rush A gold rush or gold fever is a discovery of gold—sometimes accompanied by other precious metals and rare-earth minerals—that brings an onrush of miners seeking their fortune. Major gold rushes took place in the 19th century in Australia, New Z ...

in the area leading to the establishment of the township in 1852, the population quickly building up to 40,000. The Post Office opened on 1 August 1857. In 1862, the

Borough of Eaglehawk The Borough of Eaglehawk was a local government area which covered the northwestern suburbs of the regional city of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. The borough covered an area of , and existed from 1862 until 1994. History Eaglehawk was first ...

was established, which included the nearby township of California Gully. After the alluvial gold was exhausted in 1893, reef mines were established, with 300 tonnes of gold extracted. Most of the mines had closed by the 1890s and by 1947 the population had decreased substantially to 4,090. The Eaglehawk Magistrates' Court closed on 1 January 1990. In 1994 the Borough of Eaglehawk was amalgamated by the Victorian Government with four other councils to become the city of Greater Bendigo.

Community facilities

Schools

The town has two government primary schools one at Eaglehawk and another at Eaglehawk North, a Catholic primary school (St. Liborius) and a government secondary college (Eaglehawk Secondary College).

Sporting facilities

Canterbury Park has an oval as well as bowling and croquet facilities. The Eaglehawk Croquet Club Inc. was founded in 1909, in premises vacated by the Eaglehawk Bowling Club. Golf Croquet was introduced in 1975 and subscriptions for this style of croquet is rising. Association, Golf Croquet and Golf Croquet Pennant games are played. The Eaglehawk Croquet Club is a part of the Northern District Croquet Association (NDCA) and the club now hosts some major regional tournaments and competitions, the NDCA Pennant Competition and also teaches and coaches school and college children from all over Bendigo. The club hosts the Victorian Teachers Games (welcoming teachers and players from all over Victoria) and will host the Special Olympics. Eaglehawk Croquet Club also runs regular "Come & Try" days. Canterbury Park is also home to the Bendigo Leisure Centre, operated by the Bendigo Regional

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It was founded on 6 June 1844 by George Williams in London, originally ...

. This facility includes a 50-metre indoor

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

, a

health club A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health se ...

mini golf Miniature golf, also known as minigolf, mini-putt, crazy golf, or putt-putt, is an offshoot of the sport of golf focusing solely on the putting aspect of its parent game. The aim of the game is to score the lowest number of points. It is played ...

and

squash court Squash is a racket-and-ball sport played by two or four players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow, rubber ball. The players alternate in striking the ball with their rackets onto the playable surfaces of the four walls of the court. Th ...

s. The Albert Roy Reserve has a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

field, a

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

, a

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

stadium and is home to the Roy Bateson Tennis Club. A

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

field is located at the nearby Truscott Reserve. The town has one

golf course A golf course is the grounds on which the sport of golf is played. It consists of a series of holes, each consisting of a tee box, a fairway, the rough and other hazards, and a green with a cylindrical hole in the ground, known as a "cup". Th ...

, the Neangar Park Golf Course. From 1936 until 1978 Canterbury Park hosted

greyhound racing Greyhound racing is an organized, competitive sport in which greyhounds are raced around a track. There are two forms of greyhound racing, track racing (normally around an oval track) and coursing; the latter is now banned in most countries. Tra ...

. The suburb has an

Australian Rules Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

football team competing in the

Bendigo Football League The Bendigo Football Netball League (previously known as the Sandhurst Football Association, Bendigo and District Football Association, Bendigo Football Association and Bendigo Football League) is an Australian rules football and netball compe ...

Other facilities

A community and

day hospital A day hospital is an outpatient facility where patients attend for assessment, treatment or rehabilitation during the day and then return home or spend the night at a different facility. Day hospitals are becoming a new trend in healthcare. The num ...

, a 66-bed aged-care facility (St Laurence Court) is operated by Benetas. A police station and a fire station are also located in the town. Eaglehawk is also home to the Star Cinema, a non-profit community-owned cinema located in the old Eaglehawk Town Hall. 1st Eaglehawk Scout Hall runs programs for Scouts on a Tuesday night and Cubs on a Thursday night, they are a part of Scouts Australia and have their hall available for hire to the general public.

Events

The annual

Dahlia Dahlia (, ) is a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants native to Mexico and Central America. A member of the Asteraceae (former name: Compositae) family of dicotyledonous plants, its garden relatives thus include the sunflower, ...

and Arts Festival is held in March. Annual Canterbury Carols are held in December

Cultural references

The author

Thomas Alexander Browne Thomas Alexander Browne (born Brown, 6 August 1826 – 11 March 1915) was an Australian author who published many of his works under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood. He is best known for his 1882 bushranging novel '' Robbery Under Arms''. Biog ...

, better known by his pseudonym

Rolf Boldrewood Thomas Alexander Browne (born Brown, 6 August 1826 – 11 March 1915) was an Australian author who published many of his works under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood. He is best known for his 1882 bushranging novel '' Robbery Under Arms''. Biog ...

, wrote the novel ''The Sphinx of Eaglehawk'' in 1895, based on his experiences as a station owner in the area. In one of A.B. "Banjo" Paterson's poems "

Mulga Bill's Bicycle "Mulga Bill's Bicycle" is a poem written in 1896 by Banjo Paterson. It was originally published on the 25th of July 1896 edition of the ''Sydney Mail'', and later appeared in the poet's second poetry collection ''Rio Grande's Last Race and Other ...

", first published in ''

The Sydney Mail ''The Sydney Mail'' was an Australian magazine published weekly in Sydney. It was the weekly edition of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' newspaper and ran from 1860 to 1938. History ''The Sydney Mail'' was first published on 17 July 1860 by Joh ...

'' in 1896, Paterson introduces the eponymous character as "Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze". The poem's local connection was recognised with the creation of the Mulga Bill Bicycle Trail, taking in many of the mining attractions, historic sites and modern day amenities of Eaglehawk.

Notable residents

* William John Symons (1889-1948) - soldier and business man * Edgar Charles Harris (1897-1964) - publisher * Martin Victor Kennedy (1895-1952) - journalist and author *

John Brumby John Mansfield Brumby (born 21 April 1953) is the current Chancellor of La Trobe University and former Victorian Labor Party politician who was Premier of Victoria from 2007 to 2010. He became leader of the Victorian Labor Party and premier ...

- premier of Victoria (2007–10) taught at Eaglehawk Secondary School *

Samuel Totten Samuel Totten is an American professor of history noted for his scholarship on genocide. Totten was a distinguished professor at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville where he taught from 1987 to 2012 and served as the chief editor of the jour ...

, internationally renowned scholar of genocide and humanitarian -- taught at Eaglehawk Secondary School (1976-1978)

References

{{authority control Suburbs of Bendigo Mining towns in Victoria (Australia) Bendigo