Rediscovering Ginninderra:
Nine Elms
Related People
Edward ('Ted') Alfred Boreham
Edward ('Ted') Alfred Boreham was born in 1872 in Lower Boro in the Tarago district. His parents...
Millicent Sophia Harcourt
Millicent Sophia Ward was born in Ginninderra in 1858. Her father, Edmund Ward, worked as the...
Edmund Miles Ward
Edmund Ward came to Ginninderra to work for the Davises as the horticulturalist at Palmerville...
Margaret Ward
Not much is known about Margaret Collins, an Irish servant, who married Edmund Miles Ward of...
Edmund and Margaret Ward built the timber homestead in 1877, known as Nine Elms, and established an impressive garden and nursery. An advertisement from around 1878 portrays their business in the following terms:
Ornament your homes by planting trees, shrubs, vines. The undersigned is prepared to supply all kinds of fruit and ornamental trees at the following quotations, delivered at Gininderra or at the Queanbeyan Age offices where orders may be left and will receive prompt attention
The stock list included 'Fruit Trees (all sorts)' at 18/- per dozen; Forest Trees, Ornamental Shrubs and Pines, (when selection is left to advertiser) £5 for 100; and 'Vegetable and Flower Seeds at Sydney prices'.
Its name came from a row of nine elms trees that the Wards had planted at the entrance gate where the property joined the Yass-Queanbeyan road. The remnants of these trees have survived and can still be seen today.
The massive bushfire of 1905 seriously threatened Nine Elms, but it was saved through the 'superhuman' efforts of local residents, including Edmund Rolfe and John Southwell (junior).
The Ward family was shattered by the compulsory acquisition of their land and Nine Elms for the new Federal Capital Territory in July 1914. The family left the district.
Edward Boreham took on the lease of Nine Elms. In 1913 the Borehams also breifly leased Deasland when the Harcourts left the district, but he did not live there himself; instead preferring to reside at Nine Elms.
Related Photos
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References
- Gillespie, L. L., Ginninderra: Forerunner to Canberra, Campbell, 1992
- Meyers D. (ed. K. Frawley), Lairds, Lags and Larrikins: an Early History of the Limestone Plains, Pearce, 2010
- Shumack, S. An Autobiography, or, Tales and Legends of Canberra Pioneers (ed. J. E. and S. Shumack), Canberra, 1967
- Various editions of the Queanbeyan Age and Goulburn Evening Penny Post