Chaffey CMG (1856-1926) and his brother George (1848-1932) were pioneers of Mildura. Both born in Ontario, Canada, they grew up working with their father on irrigation projects. They met Alfred Deakin in the 1880s in Canada when he was sent to investigate solutions to severe drought conditions in northern Victoria. After encouragement from the Victorian government to establish an irrigation system on the Murray River at Mildura, the brothers migrated to Victoria in the 1880s. They were vigorous and sometimes controversial entrepreneurs who used irrigation to establish significant agricultural projects and developments in the Riverina and Sunraysia districts, earning recognition as the region’s most successful pioneers. In August 1937, Bonita joined members of the Chaffey family on an official stage to watch Mildura celebrate its golden jubilee with a pageant parade. The arrival of the Chaffey brothers in the district was portrayed by a float displaying ploughs and a water pumping plant, “the machinery which transformed Mildura from arid wasteland to a thriving city”. Nowadays there is a ‘Chaffey Trail’ at the Mildura Visitor Information Centre.
Christina (Petee) Karen Sandford Hindhaugh (Beggs) OAM 17 February 1944 – 31 July 2015 Clyde 1957-1961 Christina Karen Sandford Beggs (known as Petee) was born on 17 February 1944, one of four children born to Helen Karen (Seeck, 1907-1984) and Sandford Robert Beggs (1906-1984), graziers and merino sheep breeders in Willaura, Western Victoria. Her mother Karen, daughter of a Latvian-born winemaker, John Alexander Seeck (1869-1942), was a state champion golfer in South Australia in 1933, before marrying in 1935.
On 2 July 1943, Bonita married Reverend Vernon Desmond Hartwig of Quambatook. The Hartwig family had migrated to Australia from Germany in the mid-1800s. From 1942-1944, Bonita’s husband Rev. Hartwig was the acting vicar of Merbein in the parish of northern Mallee. On 25 June 1944, Bishop James inducted Rev. Hartwig as the first rector of Merbein and also baptised the Hartwigs’ first child, Michael Chaffey Hartwig. In April 1946, Bonita’s husband became Canon Hartwig of Broken Hill and the family settled there, raising three more children, Sue (Ambagtsheer), David and Margaret.
Christina was the granddaughter of Hugh Norman Beggs (1863-1943), grazier, sheep breeder and station manager of Nareeb Nareeb, Glenthompson in Western Victoria and his wife Mary Catherine (Reeves) daughter of Henry Sandford Palmer, once high sheriff for County Tipperary, Ireland. The Beggs were descended from Irish free settlers who arrived during the 1850s and established the pastoral properties Eurambeen and Gnarkeet near Beaufort, Victoria in the 1870s and Nareeb Nareeb in the late 1890s. Generations of the Beggs family have presided over the Australian Sheepbreeders Association, the Graziers’ Association of Victoria and the Australian Wool Corporation. Christina’s brother is Hugh Beggs AM (married to COG Frankie Beggs (Fairbairn) and her two sisters are Eda Ritchie (Beggs) AM and Tamara (Tamie) Fraser AO, widow of former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. They were brought up at the foot of the Grampians, their childhood skyline dominated by mountains and lake, developing an abiding attachment to country life. The Beggs were known as a very close and loyal family who were raised with a strong ethic of community service and national pride.
Bonita was intensely proud of her Chaffey family heritage and spent forty years researching the family history. In May 2012, her daughter Sue Ambagtsheer presented the Mildura Rural City Council with a copy of the full family history compiled by Bonita, commemorating the 125th anniversary of the original 1887 contract signed for the Chaffey irrigation project. Bonita spent her last years at Bethsalem Care retirement village in Mildura and died peacefully aged 95 on 29 August 2014. The much-loved matriarch of her family, she was ‘Grandma’ to seven grandchildren and a ‘happy laughing Great-grandma’ to eighteen great-grandchildren.
Christina and her sister Eda went to board at Clyde in 1957. Tamie attended The Hermitage. Christina made lifelong friends and excelled at Clyde. In her junior years she was captain of tennis and basketball and played in the baseball team. She was form captain in 1958, Dux of Leaving in 1959, senior tennis captain, dramatic committee, school prefect and house captain of Faireleight. She was awarded the Oakley Rhodes Prize and matriculated in 1960. In 1961 her achievements were the firsts basketball team, colours for tennis, sports committee, school dance secretary, school captain and she was awarded the Arthur Robinson Prize.
Information from ‘The Argus’ 12 Aug 1937, the Mildura Visitor Information Centre, Sunraysia district press, the Australian Dictionary of Biography (Chaffey) and the internet.
After leaving Clyde, Christina joined Eda in teaching at Sunday School in Willaura. She later married Chris Hindhaugh and lived on a sheep and cropping property in the ‘red gum country’ of the Western District where they raised three children; Julia, Eda and
Bonita boarded at Clyde from 1935-1936.
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