Duigan Family
JOHN ROBERTSON DUIGAN (1882 - 1951)
The following profiles of John Robertson Duigan and Reginald Charles Duigan are compiled mainly from letters and articles in the Duigan Family Archives, interviews with members and close friends of the family and personal observations. Reference to several well researched articles listed below, was necessary at times when documents with dates, titles and places were missing from the records.
John Robertson Duigan, the eldest son of John Charles Duigan and Jane Robertson Duigan, was born in Terang, Victoria on 31st May, 1882. He was educated at Brighton Grammar School, obtaining his Matriculation Certificate in 1898. Further studies were taken at the Working Men’s College, later named the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. He then attended the City and Guilds of London in 1902 and the Battersea Polytechnical College, obtaining engineering certificates. He worked for the Wakefield and District Light Railway Company in 1906, before returning to Australia in 1907 to work for G. Weymouth Pty., Ltd., an engineering firm in Melbourne. Before this time, he showed no special interest in aviation. In 1908 he returned to his parent’s property, ‘Spring Plains,’ Mia Mia, which was managed by his brother Reginald.