Penshurst, Victoria

Before British colonisation, the area around Mount Rouse was the country of the Kolorer gunditj clan of Aboriginal people. Their title is derived from their name for Mount Rouse which was Kolor.[4] The permanent spring that is now located within the Penshurst Botanic Gardens was a traditional meeting place for Aborigines in the region.[5]

Major Thomas Mitchell travelled through the area in 1836, naming Mount Rouse. In late 1839 John Cox, who was a grandson of New South Wales Corps officer William Cox, arrived in the region and established a sheep station which he called Mount Rouse station.[6] Conflict with the Aboriginal population soon followed and in May 1840 a manager at the property named Patrick Codd who had a significant history of violence against Aborigines, was killed. Revenge killings by the colonists resulted in up to twenty Aborigines being shot. A local Indigenous man named Figara Alkapurata (or Roger) was later arrested for Codd's murder and executed in Melbourne.[7]

In early 1842, the colonial government decided to create a reserve for Aboriginal people at Mount Rouse. John Cox was ordered off the land, moving to the neighbouring Weerangourt property. In February 1842, around 210 Aborigines from various tribal groups in the region arrived at Mount Rouse accompanied by Assistant Protector Charles Sievwright. The main buildings of the Protectorate were located at what is now the corner of Cox and Martin streets in Penshurst.[5][7] In his role Sievwright attempted to safeguard the Aborigines assigned to him by reporting the massacres conducted by nearby settlers and by providing rations and shelter. However, these actions infuriated the local colonists who demanded the government replace him, and in September 1842 Dr John Watton was appointed to manage the protectorate.[7]

During this time, the Native Police were forcibly rounding up Aboriginal people throughout the Western District and ordering them to go to Mount Rouse or be shot. The reserve however was consistently underfunded and could not provide for the needs of hundreds of people. Therefore, few Aboriginal people remained for any great length of time at Mount Rouse. The reserve was also blamed for providing shelter to Aboriginal people who took livestock and speared shepherds at the surrounding sheep stations. These issues chronically interfered with the operation of the protectorate, and in 1849 Dr Watton resigned from his position. A year later the Aboriginal Protectorate was officially closed down and divided up into two grazing properties with a reserve for a township which became the settlement of Penshurst.[7][8]

The town of Penshurst was gazetted in the 1850s, the Post Office opening on 1 September 1857.[9] In 1852 German Lutherans led by Johann Friedrich Krummnow founded a community named Herrnhut located near Mount Rouse about 8 km from Penshurst – the group adhered to the principles of shared property and fervent prayer. Krummnow died there in 1880 and the community had disbanded by 1890.[10]

The Penshurst Magistrates' Court closed on 1 November 1981, not having been visited by a Magistrate since 1971.[11]

The Penshurst Volcanoes Discovery Centre[12] is an interpretive centre and tourist information centre located in Martin Street in the old Shire of Mount Rouse offices. It contains an audio/visual display of volcanoes in general, and the eruptions and lava flows of the district in particular.