History
Kinfauns – A Cavalcade Of Characters By Lance Hodgins
K
infauns is a luxury housing estate which dominates the landscape between Hastings and Bittern. For well over a century the land passed through the hands of a succession of interesting characters. David John Ham Captain Ham turned to his men. “That’s it. We’ve won today. Grab a couple of hours sleep.” Their faces were black and grimy, their skin was scorched, and their throats burned red-raw. They slumped to the ground where they stood. All day long they had prepared for the enemy, which had rushed past the town of Hastings and swept up the hill to the homestead. They had stood with their backs to the house, and fought like demons with their water-soaked hessian bags. The fire then turned inland and joined with another to level the properties around the Balnarring Racecourse before settling south of Bittern. Darkness had fallen and so had the wind. The temperature, however, did not. That Wednesday in mid-January 1898 it had been 110°F in the shade and everyone knew there was more to come. Daybreak brought a southerly wind change and Warrenda was again under attack. The men moved the valuable contents of the house into the garden, burned a new break, and once more steered the flames around them. When news reached the township of Hastings that “Ham’s place was safe” there was great satisfaction. D J Ham was a popular and influential member of the community. Still in his thirties, he was a councillor and Shire President and a strong supporter of the local cricket and football teams. He held the rank of Captain in the local military corps and was responsible for the master-stroke of using bullocks to haul the huge 40-pounder guns – leading to its nickname the “Ham and Beef Battery”. Ham was the well-educated son of a Ballarat politician. He was a superb sportsman and he spent his early years on horseback on cattle stations in Queensland and New South Wales. Soon after the fire at Warrenda he went to the Boer War where, as Major Ham, he commanded his troops with notable success. After the war he conducted a successful business in South Africa for several years.
Above: D J Ham
People believe that Ham named his property “War-ender” to commemorate the end of this war, yet the Boer War ended in 1902 and D J Ham’s address was Warrenda when he married in 1894. It is more likely that he named it after the prominent “Warrenda” cattle station in Queensland which he would have encountered whilst working in the outback as a young man. continued next page...
October 2023
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