A Land Fit for Heroes?

 William Rutledge’s Advance of £625 was approved on 11 March 1920 in respect of Block 734 on Chipping Norton Soldiers Settlement.  Initially he intended working the property as a poultry farm but in 1924 sought permission to turn it into an orchard.[1]  The holding consisted of 8 ½ acres and was judged by the Department of Lands Inspector to be of ‘ fairly good quality quite suitable for poultry farming’.[2] By 1925, Rutledge has planted an acre of vegetables and asked that the money from the sale of the existing fowl pens and two of the fowl houses be sold.  He wanted to use the money from the sale to spend on growing more vegetables.  The Inspector was quite critical of this idea coming to the conclusion that if Rutledge could not make a living ‘after five years of poultry farming with the all assistance granted him by the Department and poultry food, he wouldn’t be able to make a living in the more risky occupation of market gardening’.[3]

In October 1928, it was thought that Rutledge would never be in a position to repay his liability and it was requested by the Under-Secretary of Lands that the Auditor-General give permission to write-off the accumulated debt of £708.12.9 as irrecoverable.[4]

 Footnotes