Indigo

Distinguished and Famous people from Indigo

🏛️ Sir Isaac Isaacs

Isaac Isaacs grew up at Yackandandah and continued his education at Beechworth, later teaching locally before moving to Melbourne. His legal and political career took him to the High Court and eventually to the office of governor-general, becoming its first Australian-born holder. The son of a tailor, he pursued law through part-time study after beginning clerical work, building on an education whose foundations lay in the north-east Victorian towns.

🔬 Jean Macnamara

Annie Jean Macnamara, known as Jean, was born at Beechworth in 1899. She investigated polio with Macfarlane Burnet, helping establish that the virus had more than one strain. Her interests also extended to the land: disturbed by the damage caused by rabbits, she pressed for government research into myxomatosis. Early disappointments did not end her campaign. The book presents a doctor whose concern for children reached beyond the hospital, linking the lives they might lead with the condition of the country they would inherit.

⚖️ Sir John Vincent Dillon

Jack Dillon became Beechworth’s clerk of courts in 1934 and lived there until his transfer to Melbourne in 1938. During the Beechworth years he passed the police magistrates’ qualifying examination with honours. He later became a magistrate, a senior public servant and, in 1973, Victoria’s first ombudsman. His family remembered that even settling the children’s disputes could bring out the courtroom manner: he wanted each witness to finish the story. Beechworth was a working and family home during his early legal career, long before he was investigating complaints about government departments across the State.