The town of Catani

Carlo was honoured by having a railway station on the Strzelecki Railway line named after him. The Railway officially opened June 29, 1922. You can read about the history of what turned out to be a short-lived railway line, here.

Report on the names of the new Railway Stations

The Age June 30 1922  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205046493

It was either the Bunyip Pioneers' Association or the Koo Wee Rup Pioneers' Association who could claim credit for suggesting the name of Catani for the railway station to the Public Works Department.

The Bunyip Pioneers' Association suggests the new railway station should be called Catani.

South Bourke and Mornington Journal  March 4, 1920 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66197618

Thr Koo Wee Rup Pioneers' Association suggests the new railway station should be called Catani

Weekly Times March 6, 1920 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/222562046

Whoever did suggest that the Station should be named after Carlo, it was a popular choice according to Niel Gunson, in his book The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire   Dr Gunson quotes the memories of H.J. Boxshall of Yallock.

Mr Catani was well known to most of the men employed on the drain work, no matter how far away or how small the drain, he would insist on having  a look at it to see how the work was progressing. He got to know many of the men by name and would sit on the drain bank and have his lunch with them. These trips meant long rides on horseback and often longer distances on foot, but it was all in a day's work for Mr Catani. Henry John Boxshall, the son of Thomas and Elizabeth (nee Mills) Boxshall, early Yallock settlers.

There wasn't anything at Catani before the station was established and the area was considered to be part of Yannathan. But a small community developed in the vicinity of the station - a general store (now closed) was built early on as the storekeeper, Robert Bush is listed in the 1921/22 Cranbourne Shire Rate books. His listing that year says there was already a building on the block and a notation in one of the columns has the date 6/3/22, which I assume was the purchase date*.

Catani State School, No. 4154, opened on January 30 1923 - in a building described as a pavilion...and which also served as a church and dance hall** The school moved to another part of town in 1927 to a new building and closed in the 1993. From various newspaper reports I have discovered that in April 1923 a Postal Receiving Office opened and in October 1923 mail deliveries were established. In November 1925 the Post Office was raised to an Allowance Office, and could also provide money order facilities (I don't know what that means). The Soldiers Memorial Hall opened October 19, 1928, and a Presbyterian Church (now Community Church) opened in April 1933. Electricity came to the town in 1936. 

From 1923, Catani had a football team with the local Junior Football Association and played home games, thus the Recreation Reserve must have been established then. 1927 is the first year I can find mention of Senior team playing.


* The Local Government year used to run from October to September thus the 1921/22 Rate Books cover October 1, 1921 to September 30, 1922 so his store was erected sometime in that period. The Cardinia Local Heritage Study Review 2008: Volume 5 - Stage B Individual Places (Draft June 2008), prepared by Context P/L, actually says Robert Bush purchased the land July 13, 1922. Either way, Robert Bush is definitely listed in the 1923/24 Rate books as a Storekeeper at Catani. 

  **Vision & Realisation: a centenary history of State Education in Victoria

Carlo Catani - a short biography

The town of Catani, in West Gippsland,  is named after Carlo Catani who was one of the Engineers in charge of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Drainage scheme. I thought it would be interesting to find out a bit about the man behind the name.

Carlo was born on April 28, 1852 in Florence in Italy. He was the son of Enrico Catani, who was a merchant, and Augusta Geri. He was educated as a Civil Engineer at the Technical Institute of Florence. Carlo and his two friends, Pietro Baracchi and Ettore Checchi, arrived in Melbourne, via New Zealand, in September 1876.

Carlo Catani

Image from the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society

The trio were employed as draftsmen by the Department of Lands and Survey. In 1880, Catani was registered as a Surveyor and in 1882 he and Checchi joined the Public Works Department as Engineering draftsmen. By 1886, they were both assistant Engineers. Checchi (1853 - 1946) went on to become an Engineer with the State Rivers & Water Supply Commission when it was established in 1906. Baracchi (1851 - 1926)  became the Acting Government Astronomer for Victoria and later joined the Commonwealth Government as an Astrologist and Meteorologist.  Catani was promoted to the Head of his Section in 1892. In 1893, the Public Works Department resumed the control of the Swamp drainage works from private contractors and Catani was appointed as the Engineer. Catani implemented the Village Settlement Scheme. Under this Scheme, all workers had to be married, accept a 20 acre block and spend a fortnight working on the drains for wages and a fortnight improving their block and maintaining adjoining drains. The villages were Koo-Wee-Rup, Five Mile, Cora Lynn, Vervale, Iona and Yallock.

Catani was also responsible for the first mechanical equipment used on the Swamp. He had ordered the Lubecker Steam Bucket Dredge in 1912 and it arrived in 1913 at a cost of £4,700. It weighed 80 tons and had a capacity of 61 cubic metres per hour. A labourer at the time dug about 8 cubic metres per day. It was used on the Lang Lang River, then on the Main Drain, Cardinia Creek and Yallock Drain.

Catani’s other work with the Public Works Department included flood mitigation works on the Yarra River. He was responsible for planting the elms, oaks and poplars along Alexandra Avenue. He designed the Morell bridge. The laying out and planting of the Alexandra Gardens was also carried out under Catani’s direction. His last major project was the reclamation of the St Kilda foreshore. The gardens he designed at the end of Fitzroy Street were named after him as was the Catani arch bridge on the St Kilda foreshore. There is a bronze bust of Carlo Catani on the Clock tower on the St Kilda esplanade. Contemporaries of Catani said that he 'saw possibilities to which others were blind' and that he had 'unfailing courtesy and a kindly nature.'

Carlo was naturalised in 1892. He married Catherine Hanley of Port Fairy on May 18 1886 at the Free Church of England in Fitzroy, by the Reverend Nathaniel Kinsman,  They had six children, Edoardo or Edward (b.1886 and d.1887), Elvira May (1888-1947), Enrico Ferdinando (b.1891-killed in Action in France in 1916), Ettore Luigi (1893-1967), Eugenia Anastasia (1895-1915) and Enid Marguerite (1899-1950). Catani died July 20,  1918 at the age of 66 and is buried at the Brighton cemetery. Catherine died in 1925, aged 68. None of the children married.

I looked at Enrico's Military Record at the National Archives of Australia and found that he was Killed in Action on July 29 1916. Enrico was a Second Lieutenant, had served at Gallipoli before serving in France. He was buried at Cemetery Post Station, near Pozieres. However in a interesting and poignant twist, in 1932 the body of an 'unknown' soldier was exhumed from another location and this was identified through the identification disc and other personal effects to be Enrico Catani. There are a series of letters in Enrico's Military file between the Australian War Graves Service and Enid Catani regarding this discovery. In the end Enrico was buried again in the Serre Road Cemetery near Beaumont Hamel, in France. The body of the Officer, who was initially thought to be Enrico, now has a headstone stating that he is an 'unknown Australian Lieutenant'. In one of the letters Enid sent to the Government regarding the discovery of her brother's body, Enid said that her surviving brother, Ettore, had never recovered from the shock of Enrico's death and is under the care of the Master-in Equity of the Supreme Court. The Master-in-Equity looked after people who did not have the legal capacity to care for themselves. It sad to think that effectively, the family lost two sons to the First World War.

Most of this information comes from the article on Carlo Catani, written by Ronald McNicoll, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, access it here.


I originally wrote this post for the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Historical Society newsletter and it also appears on my  'work' blog http://caseycardinialinkstoourpast.blogspot.com