Jeparit ( ) is a town on the

Wimmera River The Wimmera River, an inland intermittent river of the Wimmera catchment, is located in the Grampians and Wimmera regions of the Australian state of Victoria. Rising in the Pyrenees, on the northern slopes of the Great Dividing Range, the Wimme ...

Western Victoria Western Victoria is a wine grape growing zone in the southwestern part of the state of Victoria in Australia. It extends approximately from the South Australia border to Ballarat and from Horsham to the coast. It includes the defined wine regio ...

, Australia, north west of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

. At the 2016 census Jeparit had a population of 342, down from 394 five years earlier.

History

The area around Jeparit is originally home to the Gromiluk

Aboriginal peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

prior to European settlement. The name Jeparit is believed to be derived from a Gromiluk word meaning "home of small birds". European settlement began in the 1880s when German

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Cathol ...

immigrants began to settle and grow

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

. The town was surveyed in 1883 and gazetted in 1889, the post office opening on 31 August 1889 though known as

Lake Hindmarsh Lake Hindmarsh, an ephemeral lake located in the Wimmera region of western Victoria, Australia, is the state's largest natural freshwater lake. The nearest towns are Jeparit to the south and Rainbow to the north. After more than a decade of dro ...

until December 1889. Two earlier post offices called Lake Hindmarsh had existed in the area at various times since 1861 to serve a smaller population of graziers. Jeparit's most famous son is former

Australian Prime Minister The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister heads the executive branch of the federal government of Australia and is also accountable to federal parliament under the principl ...

and founder of the

Liberal Party The Liberal Party is any of many political parties around the world. The meaning of ''liberal'' varies around the world, ranging from liberal conservatism on the right to social liberalism on the left. __TOC__ Active liberal parties This is a li ...

Sir Robert Menzies ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

, who was born in the town in 1894. He is commemorated with a

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

and a memorial bust installed at the town square. The spire, topped with an ornament resembling a Scottish Thistle, is inscribed:

Sport

With its neighbouring township,

Rainbow A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows c ...

, Jeparit has a football team (Jeparit-Rainbow) competing in the

Horsham & District Football League The Horsham & District Football League is an amateur Australian rules football league based in the Wimmera area of Western Victoria. History The league in its present form was created in 1946. Prior to World War 2 a number of local leagues ex ...

. Golfers play at the course of the Jeparit Golf Club on Nhill Road. Jeparit is the setting for Peter Carey's 1985 novel ''

Illywhacker ''Illywhacker'' is a novel by Australian writer Peter Carey. It was published in 1985 to commercial and critical success, winning a number of awards and being short-listed for the Booker Prize. Considered metafiction or magical realism, th ...

''.

References

External links

Further information about Jeparit and surrounding areasWimmera-Mallee Pioneer MuseumLake Hindmarsh
Towns in Victoria (Australia) Wimmera {{GrampiansAU-geo-stub