About the Author
Charles Martin's home page


    Len Martin is a great-grandson of Charles Henry Martin, the subject of this book. He was born in 1936 and grew up in Hamilton, a town of about 7000 people in Western Victoria. His father was a carpenter. In 1954 he went to Ballarat Teachers' College to train as a primary school teacher. The teachers' college was at that time located in the very same building in which his great grand-father had taught almost 100 years earlier. At this time he also joined the Dawson Street Church of Christ, his great grandfather's old church, and remained a member there for 17 years, until he left Ballarat to live in Hall's Gap, a small tourist town in the Grampians National Park. During his years in Ballarat he taught at various schools in the area and also became well known as a footballer in the Ballarat Football League.
   
In 1958 he married Judy Wiltshire, and two sons were born to them, Peter
and David.

    In 1978 he left teaching and entered into ministry with the Churches of Christ, first of all at Ballarat (York Street Church, a sister church to Dawson Street) and then just outside Melbourne in the Dandenong Mountains at a place called The Patch. After five years he returned to Hall's Gap to live, and taught in various schools nearby. He became involved in local government and spent six years as a councillor, including one year as Shire President. In addition to this, he spent a year teaching in Papua New Guinea as Head Master of a school in the highlands.

    Since retirement five years ago he has devoted his time to family history research, as well as gardening, jogging, bike-riding, bush-walking and other equally enjoyable, but non-profitable activities. These include two months volunteer teaching of maths and music at a Church of Christ mission school in Vanuatu, and another two months teaching English at a Christian mission in Ukraine.

    At the present time he and Judy have four grandsons, all children of Peter.

From the Author - About the Book.

    Apart from the final printing, this book is entirely my own work. I state this, not that I should be the recipient of praise (should you find it interesting) or blame (should you find it dull), but as a plain matter of fact. All the research in the Public Records Office and newspaper archives, the procurement of documents and photographs, the typing and setting out of each page, was done by me. It was quite a large undertaking, especially as I have no previous experience in this type of work. Here and there some mistakes have slipped through the net (my spell check wasn't working), and from time to time you will notice various other inconsistencies. I trust, however, that you will overlook these, bearing in mind that this is an amateur production, and that you will gain some appreciation of the life of one member of the Martin family.


Picture of Len Martin


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