Nearly all members of the Sparrow family tragically died on St Patrick’s Day, after trying to escape rapidly rising floodwater on their property in the Macarthur district. 

Now, more than 70 years later, they will be remembered with a memorial at the scene of their untimely deaths on Lake Gorrie Road. 

As heavy rains pelted the fertile farmland, George Sparrow yoked up the horse and cart in an effort to save his family. They had woken in their home to water lapping at the beds.

Son Roy headed to Bessiebelle to seek help, while George and wife Lillian tried in vain to save the lives of their other children Letita, Bruce and Ronald.

While frantically trying to reach higher ground, the horse and cart veered off the path from the family home to the front gate.

Lillian and the three children were horrifically stuck underneath the upturned carriage, and drowned.

George continued in vain, and after nine hours of trying to reach safety he died of a heart attack, from exhaustion. 

Moyne Shire councillors voted unanimously in support of allowing the memorial to the Sparrow family, which was put forward by the Macarthur and District Historical Society.

President Geoff Sharrock grew up close to the Sparrow family farm. He was a young boy in 1946, and still remembers the floods.

“I was not quite five-years-old,” he said.

“It rained, and it rained, and it rained some more. I remember the water being all around quite well. My dad was involved with the search for the Sparrow family. I can remember him coming home after the search.” 

He said the family was well-known in the district.

“They had been around here for a long time,” he said.

“They had a bit of land there, in stone country. It was one of those things that went down in history and I guess it’s nearly been forgotten about.”

He said the deaths had affected people at Bessiebelle at the time. Secretary Bernie Warren moved to Macarthur in 2002.

He said one thing that had surprised him when he first learnt about the Sparrow family was that there was “so little recognition in the historical society records that it took place”.

“There was nothing of significance there,” he said.

“It’s really only recently, over the past couple of months, that it has started to come to the fore. I’m grateful that we will now have a record of it and a plaque.”

The Argus newspaper reported on March 18, 1946, that only “scant information” was available about the Sparrow family’s deaths.

“When a jinker overturned near Macarthur yesterday morning, a family of five persons was thrown into the swirling floodwaters,” it says.

“Police believe that the man whose body was found collapsed died while endeavouring to rescue the other members of his family.” 

More than 400 people filled the pews and surely overflowed into the front yard of Macarthur’s Church of England for the funeral. 

The Portland Guardian reported: “There is little doubt that had all roads been open to traffic, the extremely large attendance at the funeral of the five members of the Sparrow family at would have doubled”.

The Age reported in the Bessiebelle-Macarthur area alone more than 5000 head of sheep and 500 fat cattle were lost in the flood.

The district was visited on March 28 that year by Victorian Governor Sir William Dugan. The Sparrow family home is now gone, but a windmill remains. 

The path from the home to the front gate is narrow in parts, marked with rocks. It is easy to see how the horse and cart could have easily lost its way in waist-deep water, and overturned. 

A bluestone memorial will be placed near the front fence of the property.