History of Jeparit Rowing Club
Jeparit Rowing Club was formed in 1909 on the Wimmera River. The town is situated near Lake Hindmarsh which is beautiful when it has water.
The club raced under the black and white colours.
The Wimmera Rowing Association serviced the three rowing clubs of the district, Antwerp, Dimboola and Jeparit.
The claim to fame of this town is that Australia's longest serving Prime Minister, Sir Robert Menzies, was born here. His father was a local shopkeeper. Menzies was educated at the local school and became a scholarship winner. Otherwise it is a small country town servicing the wheat belt that surrounds it.
What continues to astound all who review the towns history, is the extraordinary number of soldiers it offered to the war effort in WWI. The following are those who enlisted from the Jeparit Rowing Club alone.
John Allen | William H Gunn | Herbert S Madden MM |
James M Almond | Clarence E. Hamdorf | Clarence Mann |
F. Barry | Norman T Hiscock | David H Osmond |
Thomas Bell | V. Hutchinson | Herman Schulze |
G J Brown | G T Knight | C C Shiell |
K. Burn | W. Lamont | Frederick C Stride |
A. Caldwell | William G Lane | F. Tricks |
S. Coates | Albert E Lester | J R B Wall |
Robert J Currie | Edward R Lester | R. Wells |
R. Dixon | Douglas Livingston | W. West |
Berthold Fritsch | George Livingston | Reuben F W Womersley |
F. Girdlor | Clifton B Logan | |
Ira W Gunn | Percival Loxton |
One side of the War Memorial in Jeparit
The club did not survive post WWI well and it, along with the Wimmera Rowing Association eventually failed. There are no visible signs of the rowing club remaining.
Sources:
- Visit by Graham Drage in September 2021
- The Victorian Oarsman by John Lang, published by Massina & Coy, 1919.