Wedge Buslines

This plaque is located at 64 Victoria St.

In 1931, while working at Lester Motors in Swanston St, Melbourne, Davy Wedge won a contract for a mail  delivery service from Camperdown to Peterborough. At the time, he could have joined a colleague by the name of Reg Ansett in Hamilton but he wanted to set up his own business.

Not long after, he started to take passengers to Peterborough as well. When that arrangement finished, he won a new contract, picking up both passengers and mail from Timboon, Scotts Creek and Cobden to meet the train in Camperdown. He also had a wood yard, and a truck that did a cream pick-up for the butter factory.

So, by 1935, he had begun a bus business with one ten-seater bus which grew into a 22 bus service with a staff of 25.

With his buses gaining momentum, Davy soon opened his garage. He sold petrol, did repairs, had a franchise for VW cars, and Rover and Deutz tractors for many years.

Have buses will travel! Davy picked up school runs to Camperdown High School from places like Red Hill, Glenfyne, Cobrico, Tesbury, Chocolyn and Mt Myrtoon, and he also ran a bus from Cobden to meet the early train at Camperdown. At that time, the Pelaco factory opened in Camperdown so the bus was nearly full of Cobden women going to work. They would catch the 5pm bus home.

Davy’s buses would also pick up parcels, mail and ice-cream shippers off the train from Bulla in Colac and take them to Cobden and Timboon. When the wild flowers were out in Halls Gap, Davy would run a couple of buses on a Sunday, picking up in Cobden and Camperdown. In the summer, Davy often ran a couple of buses to Lorne for the day.

When the Timboon Consolidated School opened in 1948, Davy had runs from Simpson, Princetown and Glenfyne. Wedges had a service to Melbourne on a Sunday leaving at 7.30am, picking up along the way, and leaving Melbourne at 5pm.

In the early 1950s, Davy collected the Herald newspaper from the train for delivery to the summer holiday-makers in Port Campbell and Peterborough and, when the Heytesbury Settlement was opened up, he had a mail run to Simpson and the outlying areas.

Born in Hawthorn, he was a founding member of the Victorian Bus Proprietors’ Association in 1944 and, in 1968, was made a life member for 25 years’ service. He was president from 1966 to 1968.

Davy Wedge is a life governor of the Cobden Bush Nursing Hospital of which he was president for ten years and one of the original committee members. He was also a member of the Central Council of the Victorian Bush Nursing Association. He was president of the Cobden Turf Club from 1952 until 1960 and, again, in 1968 and 1971. He was a member of Warrnambool Race Club committee and South Western District Racing Association. Davy was appointed a deputy coroner and JP in 1954.

He married Blanche Kathleen Hardiman (1907-1996) at North Brunswick in 1931. They became proud parents of two daughters, Lorraine (born Cobden in 1934, married Bruce King) and Marcia (born Moreland in 1941, married Peter McKenzie). The family home was on the corner of Victoria and Smith streets, between two of the three Wedge sheds, the third being on the south side of Smith Street.