Albert Jacka VC, MC & Bar (10 January 1893 – 17 January 1932) was an Australian recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for gallantry "in the face of the enemy" that can be awarded to members of the British and Commonwealth armed forces. Jacka was the first Australian to be decorated with the VC during the First World War, receiving the medal for his actions during the Gallipoli Campaign. He later served on the Western Front and was twice further decorated for his bravery.

Wikipedia article - click here for full Albert Jacka article.

Albert Jacka was born near Winchelsea. Read more from the Australian War Memorial.

Marjorie Florence Lawrence CBE (17 February 1907 – 13 January 1979) was an Australian soprano, particularly noted as an interpreter of Richard Wagner's operas.^[1][2] She was the first soprano to perform the immolation scene in Götterdämmerung by riding her horse into the flames as Wagner had intended.^[1] Afflicted by polio from 1941, her autobiography was filmed in 1955 as Interrupted Melody.^[1] Lawrence later served on the faculty of the School of Music at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

From Wikipedia article - click here for the full article. Marjorie was born in Deans Marsh, and there is both a road named after her (Marjorie Lawrence Drive, also known as the Winchelsea-Deans Marsh Road) and Winchelsea's Globe Theatre was built by her father in her memory.

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Barwon Park was built by Thomas Austin, one of many early settlers who brought sheep, cattle, horses, dogs, cats, hares, partridges, pheasants, sparrows, hawks, starlings, thrushes and blackbirds to Australia. In 1859 Thomas arranged for his English family to send 12 pairs of rabbits from England so that he could breed them for hunting. He built enclosures and employed a game keeper to oversee their breeding - which succeeded beyond Thomas' wildest dreams, attracting wide praise. Today the praise has turned to blame, however Thomas Austin wasn't actually the first to bring rabbits to Australia. Rabbits first came with the First Fleet in 1788.

Rabbits now cover the whole southern part of Australia, from northern New South Wales through Alice Springs across to the West Coast. There are different stories as to how rabbits escaped to the wild - in 1864, the Barwon River flooded and washed away the fences holding the rabbits in at Barwon Park, and the local people also liked to catch and eat rabbits (cutting holes in the fences to allow them to escape). A third theory is that a small hole was cut in the fence so that when the Duke of Edinburgh visited Barwon Park he had easy targets to shoot as the rabbits ran through!

Find out more about rabbits in Australia from Wikipedia.