Harkaway

Harkaway is located in the City of Casey land as at the 2021 census had a population of 1,011.

History
Prior to European settlement, the area was home to the Bunurong and Wurundjeri indigenous peoples. They maintained a traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle with seasonal movements. A number of stone axe heads have been found in the Harkaway area in a location known as “Bald Hill”, and some reports say that a corroboree was held there in 1858. However, by 1840, reduction of their hunting grounds, draining of the swamps and introduction of European diseases such as smallpox and measles effectively ended their ability to maintain a traditional lifestyle.

The area was settled by German immigrants in the 1850s. They typically built small timber cottages for themselves and practiced small-scale intensive agriculture on family lots, with the families primarily engaged in clearing the land and growing wheat, oats and potatoes, and “also very active in dairying”. However, a townsite was never actually declared. Harkaway Post Office opened on 1 January 1865.

The settlers also constructed a number of other buildings – a Lutheran church (1869), the belfry of which is still intact and is located on Hessell Road; a single-room brick school (1876), a post office and a community hall (1909).

Notable people
Minnie a’Beckett, who married Arthur Merric Boyd, founder of the Boyd artistic dynasty, was based at “The Grange” in Harkaway in her early years, and Jessie Traill (1881–1967), a noted Australian painter, set up a studio in the 1920s.

Harkaway Primary School has an enrolment of about 200 students, a community hall, tennis courts and numerous walking and equestrian trails.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harkaway,_Victoria