What’s In A Name delves into the fascinating stories and personalities behind some of the city’s best-known street names. This week the Journal looks at central Dandenong’s Clow Street, named in honour of Reverend James Clow.
REVEREND James Clow was known as the “father of the Presbyterian church in Victoria” according to his great-great-grandaughter Nola Sharpe.
Nola wrote a history of the Clow family for the Dandenong and District Historical Society’s Gipps-Land Gate magazine.
Born in 1790 near Stirling in Scotland, James’ parents were tenant farmers who ran a flour mill.
Born with only one hand, James was clearly unsuited to take over the family farm. Instead, he enrolled in divinity studies at Edinburgh and St James universities.
At 25 he was appointed the first chaplain of the Church of Scotland in Bombay.
From India James wrote to his Scottish sweetheart Margaret Morison asking her to marry him and join him in India.
Her blunt reply was “If I’m worth having, I’m worth coming for”.
Rev Clow’s ministry in Bombay prospered but the climate played havoc with his health. After 18 years in India he retired to Edinburgh with Margaret and their six children.
The couple had another two children, before deciding to relocate to Australia.
Rev Clow and his family arrived in Melbourne in 1837, two years after the settlement had been established. He conducted the first Presbyterian service in the colony on 31 December 1837.
Despite having a main road named after him, Rev Clow’s connection with Dandenong was tenuous. He pioneered parts of Ferntree Gully and Knox, but at that time according to Nola the whole area between Mt Dandenong and the Dandenong township was loosely known as Dandenong.
In 1938 Rev Clow purchased a cattle run ‘Corhanwarrabul’, which stretched from Dandenong Creek, the present Rowville, to Ferntree Gully and the foot of the Dandenong Ranges.
Clow built a homestead near the junction of the Narrawong and Dandenong creeks at Rowville and named it ‘Tirhatuan’, after the cry of the wild pigeons. It was the first residence in the Knox area.
Son James Maxwell managed the station and the Clows divided their time over the next 12 years between Tirhatuan and their Melbourne home.
In 1987 to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Clows’ arrival in Melbourne, the Knox Historical Society installed a plaque in his honour on Wellington Road.
Want to know the history behind a street name in Greater Dandenong? Let us know and we’ll find out! Email journal@starnewsgroup.com.au
