Eliza Morehouse

This plaque is located at 59 Curdie St.

Elizabeth Cooke was born in 1842 and arrived in Victoria when she was eight. After some time, the Cooke family made their way to Ballarat where Eliza married Charles Morehouse in 1866.

Children were born to Eliza and Charles in Ballarat before the family moved to Cobden in 1880 where he operated a store. A son was born on August 2nd 1881 but, just under five months later on December 27th 1881, Charles was dead. Needing to provide for her family, Eliza continued running the store and, from around 1882, was operating coach services.

“A passenger conveyance will leave Mrs E J Morehouse’s store at Cobden daily for Camperdown at 9am, returning the same day, leaving N Morehouse’s establishment, Camperdown, the same day at 4pm. Single fare 2d, Return 3d.”

She also pioneered coach services between Cobden, Princetown, and Peterborough. Eliza moved on to mail services as well in 1885 when she covered the Cobden to Camperdown run and, by 1895, her mail delivery area had expanded to Timboon, Peterborough and Port Campbell.

For 47 years, Eliza held the mail contract between Cobden and Camperdown. Her business grew and her sons eventually joined her.

At one stage, Eliza had around forty horses working on her various coach

services. She had selected each horse personally.

You could even take a Morehouse coach from Melbourne to Port Campbell for the summer holidays!

Eliza also held the lucrative contract to provide bran and oats to Cobden and Camperdown police for their mounts. And not only that, she owned the goods shed at the Timboon railway station. In July 1900, she told the Timboon Progress Association she intended to pull down the shed and move it to Cobden.

Because Timboon couldn’t afford to lose it, the Timboon PA organised petitions to send to the Railway Department requesting they buy the shed. They heard back in August, with the department having offered Eliza £22 for the shed but she refused. She then wrote a letter to the Timboon PA and told them the lowest she would go was £30. If she couldn’t get that price, she would remove the building.

Also In 1900, it was reported Eliza’s business was sold to Mr Smith of Colac and John Bryant of Camperdown. However, two weeks later, it was reported she was building a new letting stable, corn store and cottage in Curdie Street. Eliza’s daughter Ethel went on to marry John Bryant in 1902.

Moving with the times, in 1910, Eliza replaced the horse-drawn coach services between Camperdown and Cobden with a motorbus.

Away from the transport business, Eliza was busy in the community. She was active in the Cobden Presbyterian Church and the Presbyterian Women’s Missionary Union (PWMU). With an interest in politics and women’s rights, in 1891 Eliza signed the Women’s Suffrage Petition at Cobden. During WW1, she was the treasurer of the Cobden branch of the Australian Women’s National League (AWNL).

Eliza left three sons and two daughters. One of those daughters was Minnie Jane, also very community-minded and involved with many of the same organizations as her mother. Minnie never married and lived with her mother until her death in 1932. Minnie died in 1945 aged seventy-six.

– From Western District Families by Merron Riddiford