Studdert Lane is a left hand lane on the Hume Highway about 300m before the Towrang Road turnoff.   

The Towrang Valley Progress Group requested the Goulburn Mulwaree Council agree to this signage in memory of the late Mick Studdert (aka Charles) who lived nearby at Danganelly Native Plant Nursery all his life and was a valued member of the Towrang community.  

Members of Mr Studdert’s family gathered for the installation.

His son, Andrew said the family was honoured with the erection of the sign. 

He thanked the Towrang Valley Progress Group, who lobbied council with the proposal.

“The name is appropriate as this road was put in as part of a subdivision my parents made back in 1990,” Mr Studdert said. 

Danganelly was built in 1855 by John Brabham. 

“My grandparents Charles and Geraldine (nee Cripps Clark) Studdert bought Danganelly in 1935, which they named after a Studdert family home in County Clare, Ireland. 

“The property is located at 50 Towrang Road and today is comprised of 200 acres. 

“My grandfather who had lost both his parents, was 16 years old when his uncle Dr William Burkitt brought him and his brother out to Australia in 1912.  The two brothers worked for the doctor between various rural holdings, centred on “Spring Ponds” at Bungonia. 

“Charles saw service during the Great War in the Middle East with the 15th Light Horse Brigade and returned to manage the Spring Ponds property.  My grandfather died in 1936, just one year after realising his dream, from complications attributed to his war service.

“My grandmother Geraldine and her young family managed to keep the property at Danganelly during the depression and managed to increase the original holding of about 350 acres to some 600 acres. 

“My father, also Charles, and known as Mick, was fated to leave school at 16 and help run the family property.  Geraldine and son had a lot of assistance from immediate neighbours and the Towrang community in general and of course, as was typical for the day, socialised with these neighbours playing cricket and Tennis and attending local dances. 

“My father, Mick, excelled as a ‘farmer’ and was a good horseman being a member of the inaugural Goulburn Polo Crosse team.  At an early age he also became a proficient wool classer and was employed as such at Pomeroy station for many years. 

“On his marriage in 1953 to Pamela Moyes, my grandmother retired to live in Goulburn.  Mick and Pam reared three boys on the small property with much hard work.  Pamela was a respected nursing sister in the children’s ward at the Goulburn Base Hospital and Mick supplemented the farm income with contract fencing and property management until 1985 when he and Pam started the Danganelly Native Plant Nursery which is still operating today. 

“In about 1990, with a growing family to provide for, my parents undertook a land subdivision with two blocks comprising a total of about 100 acres located off the Hume Highway between Boxers Creek and the Towrang turnoff.  The subdivision required the construction of an access road off the Hume Highway. 

“The last few years of my parents lives spent in semi-retirement, revolved around their children, grandchildren and their plant nursery.  Pamela died suddenly in 1998 and Mick managed to stay on working in his nursery every day where he died at home, peacefully, after a short illness in 2016. 

“In 2016 Charles (Mick) Studdert was awarded, posthumously, the NSW Rural Fire Services medal for 70 years of service.  Charles was also a foundation board member of the Towrang Stockade Trust formed in about 1965 to preserve and maintain the sites many historic relics.

The property today is under the custodianship of Andrew and Debbie Studdert.  In 2002, Andrew took over management of the property and the nursery while working in a career position with the local NSW RMS, from which he retired in 2016.”