The Stirling Family

Doug Stirling

In November 1856, my grandfather John Stirling, then aged 15, migrated to Point Henry near Geelong from Paisley, Scotland. He was met by his father William Stirling, who had migrated to Australia a couple of years earlier. John was taken to Winchelsea where his parents were already well established. Eventually he married Jessie Lauder, the daughter of another pioneering family. John’s father died in 1865, at 56 years of age. His mother Janet won the respect of the townspeople and became known as everyone’s ‘Auntie Stirling’. She grew vegetables on a large plot near the present Winchelsea bridge, and gave her produce away to the needy. Janet’s memory was cherished long after her death at age 99 in 1904.

In 1878 John moved to Lorne and – with the help of his son William – set about building Lorne’s first store and bakehouse with an attached dwelling. The family grew to eleven children, and in 1888 my dad, Johnstone ‘Jack’ Galloway Stirling – the second youngest – was born next to the store. Jack learned his trade as a carpenter under the watchful eye of his brother in-law Andrew Sanger, a well known Lorne builder. Jack became the maintenance carpenter at the Erskine Guesthouse and in time married the housekeeper Annie Woods who had come from the tiny Victorian town of Amphitheatre. The marriage was blessed with three children; first my two sisters and then in July 1922, I was born at number four Smith Street Lorne near the old Chalet guesthouse. I was given the name John Douglas Stirling, however I have always been called ‘Doug’.