Last month the Society was set a challenge. Who was behind the memorial placed in Moorak Park, Newtown on Remembrance Day 1988?

Society Member & Parishioner of All Saints Newtown, Stephen Yewdall, was seeking information on the Memorial Cairn, located in Moorak Park, Newtown. The purpose of Stephen’s research was for a proposal to host a remembrance service, in association with a church service, at the adjacent All Saints Anglican Church in November 2025.

The text on the plaque fitted to the cairn states it was dedicated on Friday, 11 November 1988. He assumed the placement of the cairn was undertaken as a Bicentennial Project for Remembrance Day, by the former City of Newtown.

Despite a diligent search he was unable to find any information on this memorial. Luckily for Stephen one of our Committee Members, Lana Capon, was able to find a post that provided the information Stephen needed, plus some more.

The source of the information was found on a website developed and run Chris Ganly that promotes a number of his local history books and also includes a series of posts on topics that have captured his interest. Luckily for us Chris was intrigued by the pretty Moorak Park that is perched on Noble Street overlooking Chilwill. Chris has kindly given us permission to link to his website.

Chris begins his history of the park this way …

There’s a small park in Newtown called “Moorak Park.” It’s on the south side of Noble Street opposite Talbot Street. I walk my dogs through and past it regularly so with a bit of time on my hands again in these unusual times I decided to investigate.
 
It’s the name that got my attention to start with. We’re in the parish of Moorpanyal and nearby is Moolap and there’s also the Moorabool river. So, my starting guess was that it was likely to also be an Aboriginal name, which it is. It’s an aboriginal word for mountain, or hill. And this makes a lot of sense as Moorak Park is sitting proudly on Mercer’s Hill in Newtown. But the obvious question begs, well to me anyway, why and how?