History Mystery Monday: Who drove the first buses from Essendon Station?

From as early as 1912, buses have been an efficient way for Melburnians to get from A to B. Who were the Moonee Valley locals who drove the first buses from Essendon Station?

From what we can tell, it was very much a local family affair! Which perfectly fits August's theme of National Family History Month.

The story begins in 1915 with a marriage between a young man from Moonee Ponds and a young lady from Essendon. Sergeant Herbert Vivian Memery, of the 29th Infantry Battalion, married Mona Grant on the 20th of November, 1915. Shortly afterwards, Sergeant Memery embarked for war in February 1916, along with his brothers John and Samuel, and brother-in-law Edward. Mona was pregnant with their first child, and was living with her father James Grant at his property on Mount Alexander Road while her husband was deployed. Herbert and Mona’s first daughter was born there in 1916. Sadly, Sergeant Memery was injured in battle, but returned home to Mona in 1917. They welcomed a second daughter in 1918.

Now we come to the next stage of the story- the Memery Family Bus Line.

The first bus from Essendon Station, c.1923-1926.
Photograph coursety of Moonee Valley Libraries.


Bus routes were often originally run by small, private companies, and it seems that returned soldiers from World War I with knowledge of heavy vehicles often perfectly transitioned to the public transport business. From 1923, Herbert Memery owned Red Motor Bus and Touring Services, and ran the first bus services from Essendon train station. He describes his one-ton passenger bus in this newspaper advertisement, while spruiking Goodyear tyres! His brothers also drove buses on the line, it was a real family business. In an even further demonstration of families working together, Mona was known to drive the buses too- and was rumored to be the first woman in Victoria to receive her driver’s license in May of 1923! 

It seems as though Mona’s father James, who was an employee of Victorian Railways, was also a partner in the Memery bus business, along with his wife Catherine. This partnership of the Red Motor Bus and Touring Services was dissolved in 1937 (although all parties involved appeared to be living at the same address on Mount Alexander Road at the time, so it must have been an amicable dissolution!). The business was continued by James and Catherine, until James passed away in 1944. He was fondly remembered as a loved father of Mona and Herbert, and grandfather of their two daughters Lorna and Runa. It seems Herbert continued to run the bus route after his father-in-law’s passing, and resided with Mona at the same Mount Alexander Road address where the extended family had lived together.

What began as a marriage between two young people from neighbouring Moonee Valley suburbs became the story of two families who quite literally lived and worked together, helping local residents get from A to B.

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