Wannaeue

Wannaeue is the name of a parish on the Mornington Peninsula but was also the name of the house on the Red Rooster site at Strathmore over Pascoe Vale Rd from Peck Avenue. Some consultants have claimed that the house was built in 1870. However John Murray Peck moved from "Mascoma" in Ascot Vale to "Lebanon" in today's Strathmore in 1882 when this later residence had been completed*. It was in about 1882 that the name, Peck" first appeared in the rate records of the Shire of Broadmeadows. Wannaeue was built later, probably as a wedding present for Peck's daughter, Minnie Waters Peck, who married William Allison Blair Jnr. Blair's father, William Allison Blair, was a lime merchant who bought much land in the parishes of Wannaeue and Nepean on the peninsula from the mid 1860's and the son no doubt gave the name of the former parish to the Pascoevale house.(*Book about historic Essendon, Broadmeadows and Bulla houses.) J.M.Peck bought William Smith's portion of crown allotment 15 Doutta Galla* but also cheekily fenced a 12 acre paddock purchased by Sir John Franklin much earlier which had been leased with portion of c/a 23, also owned by Franklin and became known as Dunn's Farm. By the time Peck occupied "Lebanon",this paddock was unoccupied so Peck fenced it and paid the rates. This was the basis of the adverse possession claim made by John English who later bought the Lebanon Estate.

Where was John Murray Peck living in the 1870s? Mascoma, almost directly across Mount Alexander Rd, Ascot Vale from Robert McCracken's "Ailsa". Young Alexander McCracken probably already had his eyes on Peck's daughter, Margaret, whom he married at Lebanon in 1884. It seems fairly obvious why Peck was selling "Mascoma" in 1882 doesn't it! The last sentence in the advertisement is: "This property is for positive sale on account of Mr.Peck moving to his new residence, Pascoevale." http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/202527762

First mention of Wannaeue, Pascoevale.

"Family Notices.

The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957) Wednesday 6 February 1889 p 1 Family Notices

... . BLAIR. —On the 28th ult., at Wannaeue, Pascoevale, the wife of W. A. Blair, jun., of a son."

Here is the link to the heritage report which doesn't explain how the house name came about and states that Peck built the house over a decade before he owned the land. Wannaeue Homestead - Victorian Heritage Database. The name of the house is right: a bit of a miracle given the variations in spelling of the name (such as Sam Merrifield's "Wanganui"), and the house was bought by Albert Cook, long-serving secretary of the Shire of Broadmeadows at the time the old shire hall in Broadmeadows Township (now Westmeadows) was replaced by the new offices near the Broadmeadows Station in 1928. But the house was not built in 1870; more likely it was built in 1888. At least it explains why Jim McKenzie and his Pascoe Vale mates referred to Wannaeue as Cook's Cottage. Albert Cook was Broadmeadows Shire Secretary.

Wannaeue is also the name of a parish on the Mornington Peninsula. Despite exhaustive efforts, only one definition of Wannaeue has been found. It, like other nearby parish names on the Mornington Peninsula (Moorooduc, Tyabb, Kangerong and Balnarring) as well as the locality name Tootgarook, would have come from Boon-wurrung descriptions of those areas. It is thought that "Wannaeue" is an Boon-wurrung Aboriginal word interpreted as meaning "reedy waters".