This story, written by Barry Tilley, is about the Ball family whose members for a time were residents of Cheltenham and Mordialloc and active in community events. John and brother William were the first to leave Cornwall and to travel to Melbourne. “While working in Maldon John was fined 2/6 for leaving his horse and dray unattended while refreshing the inner man at the Royal Hotel”.

Pioneer Settlers was written by Tom Sheedy thirty nine years ago when he was the History Officer for the City of Moorabbin. It contains the names of 119 settlers who were petitioning for a local Post Office and some whose descendants still live in Kingston today.

An Experimental Farm at Cheltenham was established as a result of the urging of local members of the Promotion of Rural Industries Committee as part of their ploy to encourage rural industries. The farm was created on four acres of Joseph Wedd’s eleven acres property on the corner of Centre Dandenong Road and Point Nepean Road (today Nepean Highway). There experiments were conducted into the use of various fertilizers, and the growing of particular plants. They tested a colourfully named set of potatoes including Carmen, Sutton’s Abundance, Black Prince and Windsor Castle Of the various fertilizers available, stable manure and super phosphate gave the best results but ploughed-in pea plants (green fertilizer) was also found to be beneficial.