The History Publication
We have divided the full publication into five sections for easier download.
History Section 1
Lifeline, Roy Ross: A Brief Portrait, Family (368k)
History Section 2
The Working Men's College, Military Service, Years with the Shires (600k)
History Section 3
The Warragul Projects, After Hours, Trees and Golf (748k)
History Section 4
The Investor, The Quarries, The Quarry and The Trust (240k)
History Section 5
An Enduring Trust, Acknowledgements (280k)
The commissioned History of R.E. Ross and the Trust was launched by the Governor of Victoria, John Landy AC, MBE, at The State Library of Victoria on 15 July 2003.
The Founder
Roy Everard Ross was born in July 1899 at Mansfield, Victoria and died in Melbourne in November 1970. He trained as a land surveyor and engineer and went on to become a very successful Local Government engineer, property owner, businessman and investor. He served as a Captain in the Australian Naval and Military Expeditionary Force in New Guinea following World War One.
In 1959, Mr Ross founded Bayview Quarries and became Chairman of Directors. After its takeover by Boral Ltd. in 1968, he formed Hillview Quarries Pty. Ltd. to operate an existing quarry at Dromana. Hillview Quarries continues to be owned by the Ross Trust and generates income for distribution by the Trust as grants.
Mr Ross was a keen bushman, had an extensive knowledge of native plants and trees, and made a study of the habits of birds and their calls.
A brief history
The R E Ross Trust was established in Victoria in 1970 by the will of Roy Ross. The will provides for five Trustees to manage the assets of the Trust and to distribute the Trust's income.
When it came to making grants, the First Trustees decided to concentrate the Trust's activities in three fields and to "give priority to particular projects rather than merely making donations to established agencies and institutions". The three fields were: "Social Welfare, with particular regard to assistance to the disadvantaged in breaking the circles in which they are caught and which result in poverty..."; "Nature Conservation, with particular regard to the purchase of land for the protection and preservation of flora and fauna"; and "Education of Foreign Students, with particular regard to students from Melanesia."
To June 2003, the Trust had approved around 3,150 grants totalling almost $52.5 million.
Over the years the Trust has continued a policy of each year mixing smaller grants for many organisations with larger grants, often multi-year and in partnership with other donors, for a smaller number of particular projects. In the area of social welfare, the focus has always been on those who are most disadvantaged. Some examples are Children and families - through a range of community services such as child care, counselling, peer education and support, child protection, help-lines, Drug and alcohol abuse - by supporting drug education and rehabilitation services, providing funds for the ground-breaking research of the Drug Policy Expert (Pennington) Committee into the risk factors for addiction in young people, funding pioneering work into the needs of the children of drug addicted parents.
Since its establishment, the Trust has made many grants for the purchase of land and the support of other conservation projects throughout Victoria. At June 2002 grants of around $6.4 million had been made. The crowning achievement of the Trust in 2002 was to enable Trust for Nature to purchase Ned's Corner Station in Northwest Victoria. Believed to be the largest Victorian property in private ownership and comprising 25,000 hectares including 14 kilometres of Murray River frontage, the purchase is of immense significance to conservation in Victoria.
In the area of Education of Foreign Students, the First Trustees undertook research into this area before making their first grant in 1973, in partnership with a number of others, to Monash University. Grants in this area to June 2002 had totalled nearly $3.25 million, of which almost $2.64 million had gone towards the Trade Education Project or as it became known, The R E Ross Trust Fellowship Program. That Program provided for specialised, short term enhancement of trade skills and instruction techniques of adults from small South Pacific Island countries from 1987 to 2006 and from East Timor from 2000 to 2004.
For the most recent information about the education of foreign students, click on Programs.