Torquay Historical Society

Torquay Historical Society To preserve the history and heritage of Torquay and the surrounding district by sharing and preserving stories about Torquay and the district.

18/06/2026

JULY EVENT
MID-WINTER LUNCH

St Therese’s Primary School is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a 2-day celebration on 16 and 17 October. The scho...
14/06/2026

St Therese’s Primary School is celebrating its 40th anniversary with a 2-day celebration on 16 and 17 October. The school is asking past students, teachers and others in the school community to contribute photographs, memorabilia and stories to add to the story of the school’s history. Digital copies can be emailed to [email protected]

Photo: St Therese PS Grossmans Rd 1988 (K Cecil Collection)

WRECK OF THE SCAMMELL. On the evening of 7 May 1891, the SS Joseph H Scammell on its way to Port Phillip ran aground on...
08/06/2026

WRECK OF THE SCAMMELL. On the evening of 7 May 1891, the SS Joseph H Scammell on its way to Port Phillip ran aground on the reef at Pt Danger. Due to the heavy seas no rescue boats could go out. A fire was lit on the beach to alert the crew that its plight was known. In the morning all 22 crew were rescued safely including Captain Chapman’s wife and daughter and her cat Jimmy. All were accommodated at Folletts’ Coffee Palace. The ship quickly broke up and the shore of Zeally Bay became littered with wreckage and cargo. The cargo was valued at £60,000. Hundreds came to see the wreck and pilfering was rife. The customs officers conducted an auction of cargo and ship pieces on the beach on behalf of the underwriters. The sale made £1,314.10.4. At this sale William Pride purchased the deck house and arranged for a team of horses to drag it up onto his block of land on the Esplanade. A second story was put on the deck house and this became known as Scammell House located at 24 Pride St. The house was owned by Pride family descendants until recent times. In 1966 the National Trust of Victoria classified Scammell House in Category D as an interesting building and that preservation was desirable. The Victorian Heritage Database lists Scammell House as of local significance. The remains of the wreck were scattered across the Zeally Bay beaches and would be covered and uncovered over periods of time. In 1975 a large section was uncovered at Pt Impossible. The last pieces on Fisherman’s Beach were removed for safety reasons by low loader to the rear of houses in Riverside Dve. These remains now lie in grass bedside Deep Creek. Three Scammell anchors were raised by the Geelong Skin Divers Club in 1971. A large Scammell anchor of two tons is mounted on the foreshore near Cosy Corner and a smaller Scammell anchor of ¾ ton is in front of the Salty Dog Café at Fisherman’s Beach. Heavy duty salvage techniques were required to raise the anchors. 44 gallon drums were filled with compressed air. Four drums were used for the smaller anchors and ten drums were used for the largest anchor. The anchors floated to the surface and were brought ashore onto the beach. Artifacts from the wreck continue to be found and the society has a collection of found and donated items, including a mahogany table, glassware, a binnacle cover for the compass and a brass Joseph H Scammell name plate. The most recent found item was a bottle of shoe polish wedged in rock at a very low tide. The small bottle is embossed with the maker "Whittemore". Whittemore Brothers Company was a large producer of shoe polish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, between 1852 and the 1930s. The Holden Report of the wreck provides a detailed report on the immediate aftermath, and a copy is held by the society. Artifact photos and their descriptions can be found at Vic Collections. https://victoriancollections.net.au/organisations/torquay-district-historical-society
Photos
Ganly Collection, Marshall Collection, GA photographer unkwn, TDHS Collection

TALL TALES BUT TRUE FROM THE ARCHIVES, Torquay resident Graeme Doyle who came to Torquay in 1939 as a child was intervie...
05/06/2026

TALL TALES BUT TRUE FROM THE ARCHIVES, Torquay resident Graeme Doyle who came to Torquay in 1939 as a child was interviewed in 2015. Graeme was one of the first cadets at the surf lifesaving club and he had lots of stories of growing up through the war years and after. He told of a chap Val Lord who owned and flew a tiger moth aircraft and kept it on the Belmont Common. Val also drove buses for James Goodman whose bus depot was in Gilbert Street and ran a service between Torquay and Geelong. Val would pick up a mate in Geelong and fly to Torquay and land on the paddock (Spittles) across from Baensch’s wine shop which was on the corner of Geelong Rd and Central Ave. He would first fly across the town, and all the kids would jump on their bikes and ride up to watch the plane land. The men would go in for a couple of drinks, and the kids would hang around and have a look at the plane. Val and his mate would then fire up the tiger moth and fly back to Geelong.

TORQUAY HOTELJames Follett (1838-1899) was an early settler from the 1870s and in the 1880s he purchased land close to S...
02/06/2026

TORQUAY HOTEL
James Follett (1838-1899) was an early settler from the 1870s and in the 1880s he purchased land close to Spring Creek where he built the Pioneer Coffee Palace and accommodation facility. The building, designed by architect Joseph Watts and built by Charles Mills, both of Geelong, was made of wood with plastered walls and a corrugated iron roof and contained 35 rooms that could lodge 150 people. The facility opened in December 1888 with a large soiree ball. In 1890 Ann Follett applied for a liquor license (James was running a coaching business to transport visitors to Torquay) and the licensing court reported “the house was a splendid one, nearly all rooms being very large, well-ventilated and altogether of a superior kind”. The license for a fee of £50 of the Pioneer Palace Hotel began on New Year’s Day 1891. The license was transferred to Susan Tassell in 1901 with a fee of £150 and the name changed to the Palace Hotel. William Williams took over in 1912 until 1918; then Alex Crow was licensee until 1926. During the 1930s there were a series of short-term licensees: Henry Main, Bert Mason, Albert McCartney and William Wren. In the 1940s fires that swept through Torquay the hotel was saved largely to the efforts of the Light Horsemen who were camped in Torquay on manoeuvres. Wren sold to Hazel Annett and Mary Evans who ran the hotel during the war years then sold to John Pawson in 1948. The Pawson family operated the hotel until 1970 when it was sold to Beachfront Hotel Pty Ltd. The hotel then underwent a refurbishment that retained the old building and the exterior was changed to Spanish Mission style with the chimneys and lacework veranda removed. In 1976 the hotel was destroyed by fire in suspicious circumstances. Three bars, the managers flat and a number of guest rooms were gutted in the blaze which burnt out nearly two acres. Only the newly completed bottle shop that was not attached to the hotel and a guest room wing used only in busy times were still standing. The hotel operated out of the bottle shop until a new building could be erected. The hotel has then passed through a series of company ownerships up to the present day, undergoing periodic refurbishments.
Photos
1891 New Years Eve dining room
1920s Colourised photo from Rose postcard
1934 Menu, Henry Main publican
1960 Areial view
1976 Aerial view after fire

This is an item our volunteers are researching. It was donated from the Don Duffield collection and was received from I...
23/05/2026

This is an item our volunteers are researching. It was donated from the Don Duffield collection and was received from Iris and Andy Duffield, Andy a relative of Don. The sampler contains lace that belonged to Eliza Wolff (formerly Edwards, nee Leatherdale) who was Iris' grandmother. Eliza had guest houses in Torquay, St Heliers and Melba House in Price and Pride Streets. Her daughter Effie Rice (nee Edwards), and Iris' mother was the owner of the well known Two Bays guest house on the Esplanade. It was assembled in circa 1918 and is all hand sewn. We are continuing to research the age of the lace samples.

22/05/2026

It is National Volunteer Week and Torquay & District Historical Society wishes to acknowledge our volunteers who work to preserve the history and heritage of our community. A small and intrepid group. Frank, Judy, Jenny, Barbara, Margaret, Martin and Carollyn. The Society welcomes more volunteers to engage in our work. History is definitely interesting, is collaborative and research uncovers amazing information and is rewarding.

THE SHEIK If you’ve driven along Horseshoe Bend road lately, you may have noticed a For Sale sign on the east side of th...
13/05/2026

THE SHEIK
If you’ve driven along Horseshoe Bend road lately, you may have noticed a For Sale sign on the east side of the road in the first block from The Esplanade roundabout. The property listed for sale is set back from the road and is accessed via a laneway so the residence is not clearly visible. This was not always the case however as when it was built over 30 years ago there were fewer surrounding houses and the “castle” stood out.
The property is now known as Whitesbeach Resort and is presently on the market as its owners are retiring. It has been operating as a boutique hotel hosting individual holidaymakers or small groups for work or leisure. But it was originally built in about 1990 as a palatial holiday home for a unique couple whose story should well be part of Torquay’s recent history.
The resort was the creation of Dato Hussain Yusuf, a prominent Geelong based Malaysian businessman who had once been the head of Malaysia’s Department of Veterinary Services. It was intended as a coastal getaway for his family, and also the first stage of a much more ambitious project. He was married to a legendary Malaysian actress, model and film producer Datuk Maria Menando who at the height of her fame was voted by Times Magazine as “Malaya’s Most Beautiful”. The couple was married in 1978, four years after the death of her previous husband, a Sultan whose social position had prohibited her from any further participation in the film world.
Dato Hussain Yusuf was an enthusiastic member of the Torquay community who we believe was an active member of one of the service clubs in Torquay. He had plans to develop a major resort including a golf club and a marina golf Club on an extensive area of land surrounding his castle but unfortunately his unexpected death in 2000 meant his dream was never realised. He was affectionately known locally as The Sheik. He kept an exotic limousine at Torquay, possibly a Rolls Royce. The car was an object of great novelty to the locals as it emerged from time to time onto Horseshoe Bend Road on its way to town, or the races.
We don’t know much about the Sheiks business activities or residential arrangements in Geelong, although we understand he may have had a car dealership in Geelong and had unsuccessfully tried to establish a market for Malaysian made cars in Australia.
We would like to be able to add to The Sheik’s story for our archives so any contribution (or correction) by our followers would be appreciated.

THE HOSFORD CUPIn 1940 the Hosford Cup was awarded to James Baines by the Torquay Table Tennis Club. In 1947 we find a ...
01/05/2026

THE HOSFORD CUP
In 1940 the Hosford Cup was awarded to James Baines by the Torquay Table Tennis Club. In 1947 we find a photo of the Torquay Tennis and Table Tennis Club in the Weekly Times which includes Mr. J F Hosford President. Who was J F Hosford and what is the history of the Torquay Table Tennis Club?

BARRY PERKINS PLANTATIONWe have driven in to Torquay from Geelong many times and noticed the ageing sign in the median s...
28/04/2026

BARRY PERKINS PLANTATION
We have driven in to Torquay from Geelong many times and noticed the ageing sign in the median strip announcing The Barry Perkins Plantation. Noting the sparseness of trees following the sign we have pondered on the history of the plantation. We have found a snippet in a 2003 edition of the Torquay Times that tells us that Barry Perkins was the Vic Roads Superintendent of Works for the Geelong region who oversaw improvement works on the Surf Highway, in particular the duplication of the road on the entrance to Torquay in 1991-3 period. He was reportedly keen on landscaping road environs and instrumental in saving a number of indigenous species along the way. He retired in 1993 and sadly passed away the following year. We wonder if a more extensive plantation existed in the area and was dedicated to Barry Perkins before being decimated by the roadworks as the few trees that remain seem just a token acknowledgement of the work of an avid conservationist?
Can you help us with the backstory for our archives?

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18 Price Street
Torquay, VIC
3228

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