July 27th, 2026Our history with Natalie Poole
A Pillar of Society
One of seven children, Ernest Samuel Wall was born on July 27, 1879 to Samuel Wall and Elizabeth Ann Briggs.
The Wall family had resided in Woodend for many years when Ernest purchased the Trentham Newsagency in Market Street in 1907.
The Woodend Star newspaper, dated August 17, 1907 reported: “PURCHASE OF A BUSINESS. Mr Ernest Wall has purchased a newsagency, fancy goods, and stationery business at Trentham, formerly carried on by Mr W. Smith. Mr Wall’s Woodend acquaintances will wish him every success in his venture.”
On August 28, 1907 at St Mary’s Church in Woodend Ernest married Maud Mary Richardson. As newlyweds they moved into the rear of 20 Market Street, Trentham and operated the newsagency, fancy goods and stationery business in the building at the front.
At the time, newspapers came by train from Melbourne. Ernest Wall’s daughter Mavis recalled Mr Cann from Blackwood would drop off the newspapers to the front door of the shop with his horse and buggy. The newspapers received were the Leader, The Age, The Weekly Times and the Kyneton Guardian.
She also remembers the shop selling books, toys, crockery, stationery including envelopes and pens, tobacco and sweets.
The lollies included snowballs, licorice straps, emu sticks, silver sticks, moonshine puffs and coconut roughs. Mr Cochran was the travelling salesman who came around with his box to show everyone the lollies.
Ernest and Maud had three children – Enid Mary in 1909, Mavis Annie in 1913 and Sydney William in 1917. The children helped in the shop when they were old enough. Mavis remembered delivering the newspapers each morning; the whole town’s newspapers were delivered to the newsagency.
Ernest also had a hire car service in Trentham which he ran from the newsagency. It is possibly the first active hire-car business in Trentham. Mavis recalled that people coming from the train station would see the signage at the newsagency and get the car to take them to Blackwood or elsewhere.
A walk to Blackwood would have been arduous at this time and people had been known to get lost in the bush.
A favourite memory of Mavis’s when she was little and her dad was working away in the shed out the back of the business was that he put a big wooden obstacle across the doorway, which she stayed behind; he was minding her while making his special toys. He made wooden wheelbarrows, push-along toys and hobby horses for children.
Ernest was also actively involved in many community groups in Trentham which included: the Australian Natives Association Trentham – committee and assistant secretary; Trentham Football Club – treasurer; Trentham Mechanics Institute – committee/treasurer; Trentham Progress Association – treasurer; Guardians St Georges Church of England – board member; and St Georges Tennis Club – treasurer.
In 1936, Ernest and Maud Wall sold the newsagency to Misses Annie and Julia Traulsen and left the district shortly thereafter.
He would have been a great loss to the community due to the number of committees he was actively involved with in town. Ernest died on September 3, 1957 in Mooroopna and is buried in the Trentham Cemetery.
Ancestry photo – The Wall family’s Trentham Newsagency in the 1920s with Maud on the footpath and Enid on the horse
