Brunswick East

Brunswick East is an inner-urban suburb 6 km north of Melbourne. It lies between Lygon Street and the Merri Creek, and adjoins Carlton North and Fitzroy North at its southern border.

Brunswick East is within 900 metres of Sydney Road which formed the spine of Brunswick when it was first settled. An early industry in Brunswick East was bluestone quarrying, and there were numerous farms. In 1882 land subdivision centered on Evans Street was released for residential purposes.

The swampiness of some of the land was modified by drainage works, and a primary school near Lygon Street (named Brunswick South), was opened in 1886. Another subdivisional sale at the northern end of Lygon Street occurred in 1887, and another school opened in 1888, and the East Brunswick Omnibus Company began its horse bus service along Lygon Street the next year.

Lygon Street became a successful shopping strip, wider than Sydney road, and retaining its period character one-hundred years later.

An old stone quarry was filled in and became Fleming Park, the home of the East Brunswick cricket and football clubs (1919). In 1916 the tram along Lygon Street was electrified, putting the site of Brunswick’s first textile factory, Prestige Hosiery (1922), within easier reach of its workforce. A returned servicemen’s housing area was begun in 1923, identifiable by the Maori Street names, probably in acknowledgment of the Anzac War tradition.

There are eight neighbourhood parks and reserves in Brunswick East, with another being formed over the former Brunswick tip. Next to the Merri Creek is the Brunswick Velodrome, and in the 1980s the Council began its support of CERES, a site for low-energy demonstrations and sustainable ecology, also near the creek.

Another tram service, along Nicholson Street, was opened in 1956.

Brunswick East has a primary school (1893), and the Brunswick East Secondary College, which closed in 1992, was actually in Brunswick.

Brunswick West

Brunswick West is a residential suburb 6 km. north of Melbourne. It lies between the Moonee Ponds Creek and central Brunswick with the Royal Park lands at its southern border.

It was the last area to be settled residentially in the former Brunswick municipality, being somewhat remote from north-south public transport services. Settlement in fact predated the opening of the Melville Road tram line in 1925-7. The area’s first primary school, west of Hoffman’s brickyard, opened in 1888.

An early, although unsuccessful, residential subdivision was in the north-west, at the Hopetoun Estate in 1892. Ten years later the area came under a State Government Closer Settlement Scheme, attracting about 200 residents. It was named Moonee Vale. The south-west was more attractive, being closer to Melbourne and less flood prone. Subdivision lots were larger than in Brunswick central and Brunswick East, and the predominant house design was the Californian bungalow.

Little or no shopping was developed apart from two small areas along the Melville Road tram route (1926). Schools, however,were plentiful: Brunswick North, originally Moonee Vale (1925), Brunswick South West (1927) and Brunswick North West (1929).

The last area to be subdivided into its present allotments was the Closer Settlement area at Moonee Vale, during the 1940s and early 1950s. Cream bricks and flats dot the postwar landscape.

Brunswick West has an array of linear parks along the Moonee Ponds Creek, but some of them must be reached by crossing the Tullamarine Freeway along the creek valley. There are two small reserves along an unused railway reservation and the large Dunstan Park with ovals.

Brunswick West has higher median house prices than the easterly parts. The prices have also risen faster than the metropolitan average, reflecting the suburb’s gentrification during the late 1980s and the 1990s. In 1987 Brunswick West’s median house price was a shade under metropolitan Melbourne’s, and in 1996 it was 144%.

Parkville

Parkville, a residential suburb in three parts with Royal Park at its centre, is 4km. north of Melbourne. On its west is North Melbourne and on its east is Carlton.

Parkville is situated on a plateau with relatively shallow soils, which made it suitable for grazing but not agriculture. As the plateau is mostly mudstone or non-basaltic material it has not been wanted for quarrying, unlike Brunswick to its immediate north. In about 1845 a reservation for a park or open space was approved by the Governor of New South Wales (after a request for a smaller area by the Melbourne Town Council), extending from North Melbourne to Carlton and comprising 1,036 ha.

The population increases after the gold rushes resulted in severances from the reservation for urban growth, and Royal Park of about 283 ha. was proclaimed. In time further severances occurred: 1858, for an experimental farm of 575 ha. in the north-west: 1861, for a zoological garden of 20 ha., for the Acclimatization Society in the middle of Royal Park;1868, three areas for houses, forming Parkville North, South and West; and 1875, a further area enlarging Parkville South from Park Drive to Gatehouse Street, which enclosed a watercourse which later formed the linear Ievers Reserve.

Parkville South is the largest of the three residential areas, and before its 1861 severance it included land and a showground used by the Port Phillip Farmers Association and Melbourne council markets for horses, pigs and cattle and for hay and corn. The pastoral activity at the south end and the model farm at the north end were linked by grazing and agistment over Royal Park which lasted until the 1920s, keeping up to four dairies going in Parkville.

An early surviving example of a Parkville house (1873) is at 44 Morrah Street, a single storey cottage with an attic. More often,t wo storey terraces or semi-detached houses were built, with considerable moulded and wrought iron decoration. All of the residential part of Parkville South is a Conservation Area under the Register of the National Estate. The balance of Parkville South (i.e. the markets area), was given over toan enlarged University High School (1929), Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Dental Hospital (1944 and 1963). In 1957 another severance next to Parkville South was made for the Royal Children’s Hospital, which was opened in 1963.

Parkville South has a few shops along Royal Parade and Naughton’s Hotel is a popular venue for residents and for University students from across Royal Parade.

The University of Melbourne is bounded on three sides by Carlton, but is in the Parkville postcode area.

Parkville North is linear shaped, with Royal Parade as its main frontage and The Avenue as a crescent-shaped western boundary.It contains research, educational and theological institutions, numerous blocks of flats and some notable Queen Anne Federation-style houses.

Parkville West is the smallest of the three, facing FlemingtonRoad near the Flemington Bridge railway station. The surrounding traffic noise was made louder when the area was chosen as the entry point for the Tullamarine Freeway. Fortunately Royal Park provides an expansive “backyard”.

In both world wars Royal Park was a site for Army camps. After the second world war the housing shortage persuaded the Victorian Housing Commission to use “army huts as transit camps”. The settlement at Royal Park was named Camp Pell, lasting for ten years, frequently being used to accommodate families who had been evicted by the Commission’sslum reclamation program. Camp Pell gained a degree of notoriety, with some residents being classed as incorrigible, but communal facilities were scarcely uplifting. By the late 1950s the residents were rehoused in Commission estates at Heidelberg West, Doveton, Preston, Maidstone and Broadmeadows. Camp Pell primary school ran from 1952 to 1956. When Camp Pell closed, Royal Park was free of occupation whether by crowded housing or grazing stock, and Melbourne Council embarked on a program of building ovals, cricket pitches, hockey and netball facilities and a baseball venue in it. A public golf course is north of the Zoo. The north-west corner’s model farm, however, was kept aside for the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, social welfare facilities and the Mount Royal Hospital and accommodation for elderly persons. Mount Royal’s occupation began in 1878 when it took over a disused Industrial School for children, situated in Royal Park.

Parkville and Royal Park have tramlines along Royal Parade and through the park to Brunswick. A train line also crosses the park, intersecting with the tramline near where a railway station is provided for the Zoo.The train line also had an Inner Circle connection running eastwards toFitzroy North.

Parkville’s median house price in 1987 was 267% of the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and figures at approximately that level have been maintained. The price level signifies the desirability of houses in Parkville, and the regard in which they are held by the residents. This was never more evident than in the 1980s when rear extensions to a house by a well known football player resulted in litigation amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars, ending with the Council granting money to pay the litigants’ costs. The “Wade Case” made town planning history.

Brunswick

Brunswick is an inner-urban suburb 6 km. north of Melbourne. It is bounded on the west and the east by the Moonee Ponds and Merri Creeks respectively.

On its south it adjoins Melbourne city and Yarra city (east of Sydney Road). Its northern boundary is Moreland Road. These suburban boundaries corresponded with the municipal boundaries (1857-1994).

Brunswick was subdivided into farm allotments which were sold in 1839. Most purchasers were speculators who looked forward to further subdivision. The allotments ran east and west from the main thoroughfare, Sydney Road. One of them was resold to Thomas Wilkinson and a partner. They named the property Brunswick Park, in honour either of the late Princess Caroline of Brunswick (late wife of King George IV), or in honour of the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert of the royal house of Brunswick. The streets each side of Wilkinson’s property are Victoria and Albert. Wilkinson became Brunswick’s first mayor.

Within ten years of Brunswick’s farming activities the gold rushes caused a demand for building material. Bluestone was found mainly throughout the eastern half of Brunswick and clay west of Sydney Road. An early site of brick and pottery products was at the village of Phillipstown, just east of Grantham Street (1852). A school was opened there in 1853.

Sydney Road was the main route to several gold fields, and attracted commercial and civic development. In 1840 Wilkinson donated land in Sydney Road for Brunswick’s first (Wesleyan) church, which provided the first school in 1849. The Presbyterians opened a primary school in 1855 and the Catholics in 1860. In 1875 the Presbyterians and the Wesleyans combined to open a larger school, which became the Albert Street or Central Brunswick School.

By 1856 an Anglican school was opened in Brunswick East. Schools and residential expansion came later to Brunswick West, along with Moonee Vale.

The clay deposits and Sydney Road were in close proximity to each other, and several hotels were opened in Sydney Road by the mid 1850s. The oldest remaining one is the Sarah Sands (1854, not 1846 as inscribed on the structure), at the southern end of Sydney Road. On 29 September, 1857, Brunswick was proclaimed a municipality, becoming a borough later on. Council chambers were built near Albion Street, about one kilometre north of Brunswick’s subsequent civic centre.

By the early 1850s the stone quarries were nearly worked out, but plenty of brick yards replaced them. In 1863, when Brunswick’s brick makers had opened eight yards, the largest was opened near Pearson Street. It was named the Hoffman Patent Steam Brick and Tile Company, after the Hoffman steam brick kiln. Hoffman’s later made pottery, ceasing in 1960 when its quarry became a tip.

In the late 1860s Brunswick’s future civic centre became evident around the intersection of Sydney Road and Dawson Street when the mechanics’ institute (1868) and St. Ambrose’s Roman Catholic Church (1869-71) were opened. The Anglican church of Christ had been there since 1857. A new town hall was opened in Dawson Street in 1876.

Since the mid 1860s Australian Rules football had been played in Brunswick, often among teams drawn from brick yards, and in 1879 the United Potteries Club became the Brunswick Football Club.

Apart from the brick yards there were numerous farms and large residences in Brunswick. The land boom in the 1880s resulted in many of the properties being subdivided and some of the mansions demolished. By the 1920s nearly all the subdivisions were completed. During the 1880s Brunswick’s north-south spine was given two public transport routes: trains to Coburg in 1884, about two hundred metres west of Sydney Road, and trams in 1887, along Sydney Road to Moreland Road. The railway cheaply transported pottery products. Brunswick municipality’s census population more than tripled in ten years to 21,000 in 1890. It was proclaimed a town on 13 April, 1888.

As well as causing land subdivisions to fail, the 1890s depression caused unemployment and exacerbated social divisions. Sydney Road was the venue for the Orange Day procession, and during the fourth annual procession in 1896 there was a confrontation with the Catholic community, many of whom were Irish. The St. Ambrose church was by then a strong parish. Shortly after the recovery from the depression The Australian Handbook, 1903, described Brunswick as -

In 1897 the first labour political organisation was formed, the Brunswick Branch of the united labour party. The future Australian Prime Minister, John Curtin (1885-1945) joined the Brunswick Branch, having worked in a pottery and played for Brunswick Football Club. He became the local State Parliamentarian (1902-10) and later Commonwealth Parliamentarian (1910-34).

Until 1916 the Sydney Road spine was the only public transport corridor in Brunswick Commercial, retailing and entertainment activity concentrated along Sydney Road for its entire length through Brunswick and northwards up into Coburg. It rivalled the mighty Smith Street, Collingwood, lacking only the large department stores. Brunswick became a city on 15 January, 1908, whereupon civic progress moved beyond notions of reticulated utilities and road-making. The swimming pool was opened in 1914 and the first of several parks was formed over a former claypit. Residential settlement expanded northwards with the opening of a primary school and a railway station in 1924. (It had also spread to Brunswick East and expansion to Brunswick West was under way.)

In 1922 the first of Brunswick’s many large clothing and footwear factories, Prestige Hosiery, opened. The growth continued through to the large Fletcher Jones factory in 1952.

Brunswick’s association with left-wing politics was manifested in 1931 with the formation of a branch of the Communist Party and its participation in a campaign to stop legislation which would have outlawed free speech and the right of assembly. The occurrence of these events in Brunswick was linked to public agitation by unemployed workers during the depression.

Secondary schools in Brunswick included the technical school (1916) and the girls’ high school (1924).

The Australian Blue Book (1949) described postwar Brunswick as -

Postwar Brunswick had many European immigrants settle in its area. Since the 1880s, and again in the 1920s and 1930s, Italians settled in Brunswick, a well-known one being the father of Bartholomew (Bob) Santamaria, who became a prominent Catholic layman. Large numbers of Greeks settled there, mostly after the war, along with Yugoslavs and others. In 1976 the proportions of Brunswick residents of migrant background included Italian (15%), Greek (9.3%), Lebanese/Turkish (4%). Many found employment in textile and manufacturing industries. The Greek Orthodox Church was opened in 1969 , in a former Methodist church.

The 1970s and 1980s, however, saw the collapse of protective tariffs, loss of local employment and gentrification of Brunswick. Between 1980 and 1995 three-quarters of Brunswick’s factories closed. As a point of contrast, the Melbourne College of Textiles moved from Pascoe Vale to the former Millers Rope Works, Dawson Street, in 1992.

Gentrification has been equally visible. In 1986 the median house price in Brunswick was 86% of metropolitan Melbourne’s. Ten years later it was 109%. The Sydney Road shopping area underwent a decline, particularly in 1982 when Coles Barkly Square drew patronage away from the southern end of the strip. The congested traffic condition detract from Sydney Road’s ambience, but the Sydney Road Development Committee (1991) has worked hard to reverse the decline.

West of Sydney Road there are the Brunswick Football Ground, sports facilities, and parklands and ovals on former claypits (Hoffmans). The technical school has become a Special College, adjacent to the RMIT School of Design and Printing. Along the railway line to Coburg and Upfield the South Brunswick station was renamed Jewell (after Parliamentarian James Jewell), and North Brunswick renamed Anstey (after the prominent Commonwealth Parliamentarian, Frank Anstey).

The census populations of the Brunswick municipality were 3,014 (1861), 6,222 (1881), 24,141 (1901), 54,348 (1933), 51,560 (1971) and 41,100 (1991).

On 22 June, 1994, Brunswick city was united with most of Coburg city to form Moreland city.

Coburg

Coburg, a residential suburb 8 km. north of Melbourne, was also a municipality from 1874 to 1994. The municipality was bordered on the south by Brunswick city and on the west and east by the Moonee Ponds and the Merri Creek valleys. Much of the land is overlain with basaltic lava flows.

In 1837 the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, surveyed the Coburg area between the two creeks, subdividing it into allotments of between 53 ha. and 287 ha. A village reserve was marked out where the former Pentridge Gaol and Coburg cemetery are now situated. Among the first purchasers were John Pascoe Fawkner (a Melbourne “founder”), Faquhar McCrae (magistrate and speculator) and Arundel Wrighte (squatter and speculator). Fawkner had two lots, totalling 517 ha. A road to Sydney was marked out along the western side of the village reserve.

Some allotments near the Sydney Road were subdivided as small farms, and the village reserve was named Pentridge in 1840, probably after Pentridge, Dorset. A Sydney Road Trust was formed in 1840, principally involving McCrae and Fawkner who were antagonistic to each other. McCrae built La Rose (now Wentworth House, at 22 Le Cateau Street), in 1843. In addition to the Pentridge village there were villages called Bolingbroke to the west and Newlands to the north.

In 1850 the Port Phillip authorities chose Pentridge as a site for a penitentiary, sufficiently remote form Melbourne and on a road with nearby road-making materials to keep the felons employed. By then churches had been built by the Catholics (possibly as early 1844), the Wesleyans (1849, preserved at the corner of Sydney Road and Bell Street and on the Register of the National Estate) and the Anglicans (1849, next to the Wesleyans, and on the Victorian Heritage Register). Pentridge’s first school opened in 1850 in the Anglican church and others followed in 1853 (National School), and 1854 (Wesleyan). The National School became Coburg primary school.

In 1859 the Pentridge District Road Board was formed, changing its name to Coburg on 21 January, 1869. The change came from residents wanting to dissociate their place name from the gaol, and Coburg was chosen because of the Royal visit by Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe Coburg. The Sydney Road attracted numerous hotels and commercial premises, and two thirds of Coburg’s rateable properties were under 4 ha. in 1865. Friendly societies were formed: Manchester Unity (1863), Druids (1867), Rechabites (1868) and a St. Patrick’s Society (1870). By 1870 there were 1,300 people in Pentridge village and surrounds and 645 in the gaol (including warders and their families).

Coburg was proclaimed a shire on 24 December, 1874. The most populous trade or profession was warder (80), followed by 60 farmers or market gardeners, 54 quarrymen and 28 retailers. Market gardens were near the Merri Creek and most farmers grew hay for Melbourne’s increasing numbers of horses. In 1884 the railway line from Melbourne to Coburg was opened, the station being close to the village. A tram service to Moreland, south of Coburg village, began in 1887. The transport links provoked a boom in residential land subdivisions, predominantly in the south of the shire. Residents, however, found work on farms or in neighboring Brunswick’s factories, and Coburg was described as a pretty suburb with charming valleys.

In January, 1905, Coburg was proclaimed a borough, in evidence of the four-fold growth in its population since 1880. In 1914 the Brunswick and Coburg Tramways Trust was created, replacing the antiquated horse-tram service. Electric trams ran along Sydney Road to Coburg North by 1916. Sporting and swimming facilities were provided in that decade along with the laying out of some parklands, but a public library was not. The Coburg lake and parkland became a popular recreational area until the 1930s.

Coburg had experienced intermittent infectious outbreaks and the influenza outbreak after the first world war provoked Coburg into opening Victoria’s first Truby King health centre. By the 1920s Coburg’s developed area extended about one kilometre either side of Sydney Road, but the War Service Commission encouraged servicemen to settle and build on Coburg’s relatively cheap land. Local industries grew: the Lincoln Mills (garments), Invicta Manufacturing, Dawn Vices, bottle, plaster and timber-milling factories provided local employment. The Coburg electorate returned Labor candidates to the State and Federal Parliaments. New housing westwards was followed by the Coburg West primary school (1917) and eastwards with another school in 1926. Coburg was proclaimed a city on 1 April, 1922.

Gaffney Street became the address of many factories, maintaining employment through to the postwar years. Textiles and garments were the main outputs, but paint, chemicals and engineering goods were significant. Coburg technical school was opened in 1954 five years after the College of Textiles. Sydney Road’s shops became a service retailing area as well as one for comparison shopping. Neither east nor west between the boundary creek valleys is there any other shopping centre apart from a medium-size one at Pascoe Vale South. The trams and motor traffic along Sydney Road make the strip very busy. Its viability has been maintained by rear-of-shop parking areas and the building of supermarkets.

Between 1947 and 1981 the proportions of Coburg municipality’s residents who were born overseas increased from 9 to 34%. Over one-third of them were Italian, and one-eighth were Greek. There are several Catholic schools and churches in the municipality. Later immigrants from Middle Eastern countries have opened two Islamic colleges and a mosque in Coburg.

Coburg has been affected by tariff reductions for garments and textiles. The Lincoln Mills closed in 1980 (although later used by smaller firms) and the Government Clothing Factory was sold in 1981.

The area around Pentridge has changed. A teachers’ college was opened in 1959, later becoming a campus of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, and a combined primary/secondary school after Coburg and Newlands high schools were closed. On 1 May, 1997, the Pentridge Gaol was closed.

Coburg municipality contained Pascoe Vale, Pascoe Vale South, Coburg North and Moreland. Most of it was united with Brunswick city to form Moreland city on 22 June, 1994.

The median house price in Coburg in 1987 was 82% of the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and in 1996 it was 93%. In 1997 the median price increased sharply as home buyers chose Coburg as an affordable location next after the inner suburb of Brunswick which had house prices beyond their reach. In 1996 the median personal income of persons 15 years or more was $239 a week, compared with a metropolitan median of $331 a week.

Coburg township’s census populations have been 1,033 (1861), 2,370 (1881), 6,772 (1901) and 9,454 (19110. The municipality’s census populations have been 5,272 (1891), 9,505 (1911), 33,118 (1933), 70,771 (1961) and 53,100 (1991).

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