Coode Island, an almost uninhabited industrial area, is 4 km. west of Melbourne. It was formed in 1886 when canal was cut through the Sandridge swamp to provide a straightened stream for the Yarra River. The boundaries were the canal on the south, the Maribyrnong River on the west and the Yarra meander on the north and east. Its area was 97 ha. It was named after Sir John Coode, an English harbour engineer who was engaged by the Melbourne Harbour Trust to select the optimum route for the canal as part of the Port of Melbourne.
Steam driven machinery digs the Coode Canal – the new course of the Yarra ~1880s
Healesville is a township 52 km. east-north-east of Melbourne, just south of the Watts River which is a tributary of the Yarra River. Upstream from where Healesville is situated gold was foundat New Chum Creek in about 1859. By 1860 New Chum was a village. However,it was the creation of tracks to the more distant Gippsland and Yarra Valley goldfields in the 1860s that resulted in a settlement forming at Healesville and its survey as a town in 1864. It was named after Richard Heales, Premier of Victoria, 1860-61.
The first land sale at Healesville was in 1865,and in the following year there were thirty business premises, includingsix hotels and a primary school. Healesville was also selected as a sitefor “neglected black and half-caste children and an asylum for infirm blacks.” Thus the Coranderrk reserve on Badger Creek, south of Healesville,was created in 1865.
Healesville was situated on the most convenient coach route to the goldfieldsin the Woods Point area, and it was the place where fresh horses were takenfor the ascent to Fernshaw and Blacks Spur. In 1881 The Australian Handbookdescribed Healesville as –
As the Gippsland goldfields declined some miners took up farm occupations in Healesville. Timber cutters found employment, and hop gardens were established.In 1881 the railway had been opened between Hawthorn and Lilydale, 12 km.south-west of Healesville. Expectation of the railway’s extension to Healesville stimulated business and population growth. In 1889 the railway link was opened, two years after the Healesville shire had been created on 30 September,1887. The scenery of Fernshaw was more readily reached from the Healesville train terminus and tourism entered Healesville’s local economy. Gracedale House of 60 rooms was built in 1889.
Farming developed in the newly cleared Don and New Chum Creek Valleys.Upstream on the Watts River the Maroondah Weir was built in 1891, the watershed requiring the removal of the Fernshaw township and curtailment of timber cutting. In 1893 the library and Mechanics’ Institute was opened. Despitethe limit put on timber cutting, Healesville’s economy grew – day outingsand travel to cool mountain retreats brought hundreds of people. The Australian Handbook’s description of Healesville in 1904 was –
Orchards and vegetable growing increased their acreages, along with a successful increased tobacco plantation. Elaborate country-retreat residences were built alongside hotels and guest houses, and a Tourist and Progress Association was created before 1914. In the 1920s the Association published “Healesville, The World-famed Tourist Resort”, listing over 40 beauty spots and 20 hotels and guest houses. The construction of the Maroondah Dam in 1927, replacing the weir, brought several hundred workmen to Healesville.Their departure, and the onset of the 1930s depression exposed Healesville’s restricted range of industries. Timber and tourism were not stable enough for sustained growth. Notwithstanding the depression, the 1930s saw increased motor tourism, partly bypassing Healesville, and decreased railway patronage.Only 10% came by rail in Easter, 1934. Tourism was still active but a local newspaper commented that Healesville would be “heaps better off callingitself the good-time town instead of the world-famed-tourist-resort – that’sgot whiskers on it.”
In 1934 the Sir Colin Mackenzie Sanctuary for Australian Fauna and Flora was opened on land that was formerly part of the Coranderrk reserve. The Healesville Sanctuary became one of Victoria’s premier tourist attractions.
The outbreak of the second world war stimulated timber cutting, which initially concentrated on harvesting trees damaged in the extensive Black Friday bushfire of January, 1939. The early postwar years saw a resumption of traditional Healesville tourism, while petrol shortages lasted, but motortravel gradually made Healesville a wayside stop for many travelers. The Australian Blue Book described Healesville shire in 1949 as –
Forestry operations in he 1940s had increased Healesville’s population,and continued activity was required to sustain them. During the 1950s theshire unsuccessfully contested the Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Worksview that the watersheds should be kept unlogged. Small industries makingfoundation garments, knitwear, electrical appliances and soft drinks contributedto a much needed diversification of employment activities. The Golf Houseguest house was taken over the for RACV Country Club in 1951. In January,1957, a new hospital was opened and in 1961 the central school (1952) wasreplaced by a high school. A new swimming pool was opened in 1964.
Healesville shire until the 1950s had undergone only minor boundary adjustments. However, the relatively close Yarra Glen had more in common with Healesville than with Eltham shire, and the Yarra Glen district wasadded to Healesville shire on 18 June, 1958. Northwards, Buxton went toAlexandra shire on 1 October, 1963. Healesville remained the larger commercialcentre in its shire, having 64 commercial establishment compared with 35in Yarra Glen in 1988.
The township has a comprehensive range of facilities. In addition tothe shopping centre there is a district hospital, Queens Park with a swimmingpool and sports facilities, a showgrounds and sporting complex, five churches,halls, Catholic school and State primary and high schools.
Healesville shire ceased on 15 December, 1994 when part was united withparts of Whittlesea city and Diamond Valley shire and most of Eltham shire to form Nillumbik shire. The other part was united with Alexandra and Yea shires and parts of Whittlesea city and Broadford, Euroa and Eltham shires to form Murrindindi shire on 18 November, 1994. At that time Healesville shire contained the localities of Badger Creek, Christmas Hills, Toolangiand Yarra Glen.
Healesville’s census populations have been 207 (1881),907 (1901), 2,035 (1933), 3,566 (1954) and 6,264 (1991).
Healesville shire’s census populations, after most of the significant boundary changes, were 5,941 (1961), 9,670 (1981) and 11,755 (1991). The urbanisation of Healesville shire was reflected in the median house price rising from 70% to 80% of the metropolitan average between 1981 and 1986.
Further Reading:
Symonds, Sally, “Healesville, History in the Hills”, PioneerDesign Studio, 1982.
Southbank, on the south side of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne’s central city area, was first defined as an area for redevelopment by the State Government in 1984. Two years later the Government published a strategy document for there development process.
Southbank’s eastern and western boundaries are St. Kilda Road and Montague Street. Its southern boundary is irregular in shape, but south of the Westgate Freeway. Nearly half the area was owned by the State Government or its agencies when the area was defined.
Southbank is crossed by transport routes laid outwith no particular regard for Southbank itself. The reason for this is that the early routes originally traversed undesirable swamp or flat land: City Road more or less followed the track from Port Melbourne to Melbourne; the railway line (1854) followed the convenient ground from Melbourne to Port Melbourne; Kingsway was plotted to join King Street, Melbourne,to a south-eastern exit point; and the Westgate Freeway (1980s) was plotted to carry freight around instead of through the central city.
The industrial settlement of Southbank was part of the settlement of South Melbourne. Early wharves, building trades and a few noxious industries were displaced by manufacturers and warehouses. The wharves fell into disuse as port facilities were moved downstream, particularly after the low bridge joining Spencer and Clarendon Streetswas opened in 1929.
The completion of the Arts Centre complex at thenorth-east corner of Southbank in the 1980s was followed by the Jennings Southgate development immediately westwards. Southgate “Arts and Leisure Precinct” was opened in 1992 with 37 specialty shops, numerous restaurantsand 67,000 sq. metres of offices. It has a Yarra bank promenade and an attractivevista across the river. It is linked to the city by a `coathanger’ pedestrian bridge over the Yarra River. A Lutheran Church (1991) replaced the one nearby which was exchanged for the redevelopment.
In mid-1993 the Crown Casino was begun, replacing the temporary casino in the World Trade Centre. The casino complex was opened in 1997 and includes 350 gambling tables and 2,500 machines. There are a500-room hotel, the Palladium ballroom, shops, restaurants, a 14-theatrecinema and space for over 8,000 parked cars. Most of the complex runs 24hours a day. Kings Way is bridged by the complex. A 1,800 seat Lyric theatre is due for completion in 1999. The temporary casino’s gambling was considered to have reduced central city retailing and the effect of the entertainment and dining facilities in the Crown complex – as well as Southgate – are expected to put added pressure on central city retailing and entertainment.
On the west side of Clarendon Street, overlooking the Yarra River, the Melbourne Exhibition Centre was completed in 1996.It has 30,000 sq. metres of clear-span exhibition space. It absorbed a partially completed building for a new Museum of Victoria (1992-3), and the site contains the Polly Woodside sailing shop and maritime museum along the South Wharf.The Clarendon Street frontage contains the registered Tea House building,originally a stationer’s warehouse (1888).
Elsewhere in Southbank, new buildings include headquarters for the Herald-Sun and the Australian Broadcasting Commission, office buildings converted to apartments and newly constructed apartment buildings A notableapartments site is on the demolished Price Henry’s Hospital, nurses’ homeand car park. Underneath the Kings Way overpass the one time City Road primary school, later the J.H. Boyd Domestic College, became a campus of the Western Melbourne Institute of TAFE.
Further Reading:
Butler, Graeme, and Lewis, Miles, South BankArchitectural and Historical Study, 1983.
Priestly, Susan, South Melbourne: A History,Melbourne University Press, 1995.
The Diamond Creek is a tributary of the Yarra River joining it at Eltham. The Creek’s headwaters are in the Kinglake ranges, just beyond St. Andrews. Its name probably came from crystalline minerals observed on the bed of the creek.
The township of Diamond Creek is 23 km, north-east of Melbourne, just above Eltham, where Arthurs Creek joins Diamond Creek. Settlement was attracted to it rather later than the more open areas of the Plenty River and the Yarra River, and the first white inhabitants were mostly timber getters and paling splitters. Gold seekers opened up the Caledonia diggings further upstream in 1855, which were named after the Caledonia run (1841) situated near where the diamond Creek township was later created. In 1863 the Diamond Reef was discovered resulting in substantial gold mine workings, which coincided with the formation of the township. A post office, Methodist church and a school were established by the following year. In 1886-7 the township was surveyed and named Nillumbik – the name of the Parish and the town’s town name which continued to be used until the turn of the century.
The area became a mixture of bushland and small farms, and orchards had a period of strong prosperity from the mid 1880s to about 1912. A horticulturist society was formed in 1884. Diamond Creek/Nillumbik was described in The Australian Handbook, 1893, as –
The opening of the railway line from Eltham to Hurstbridge in 1912 coincided with the decline of orcharding. Fruit from Doncaster, Nunawading and interstate from Tasmania had superior marketing. Ironically a Government cool store was opened in 1913. The railway line allowed better access for excursionists and picnickers, but wealthy Melburnians built their weekenders and spacious residences in other country retreats. Diamond Creek remained a pleasant backwater, with no ostentation or evidence of wealth.
The pressure of metropolitan expansion in the postwar years affected Diamond Creek and the townships further south in the Diamond Valley. Population growth was enough by 1964 for the creation of Diamond Valley shire. Substantial residential growth in Diamond Creek came in the 1970s.
There is a shopping centre near the railway station and a second centre, separated from the first by the railway line and the large Diamond Creek reserve. The reserve has several recreational facilities. There are two state primary schools, a Catholic primary school, a secondary college and a large community centre.
Diamond Creek’s census population’s were 1,127 (1911) and 669 (1933), indicating how the decline of fruit growing decreased the number of small farms. There were no published census figures for Diamond Creek in the postwar years.
Further Reading:
Edwards, Dianne, “The Diamond Valley Story”, Shire of Diamond Valley, 1994.
East Melbourne is a residential and commercial suburb which retains a number of religious and institutional buildings on land grants made during the nineteenth century. It borders central Melbourne’s Spring Street, and its other boundaries are Victoria Parade, Hoddle Street/PuntRoad and the Yarra River.
The Government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, prepared a plan for East Melbourne in 1837, with roads correctly running north-southand east-west on contrast to the skewed directions of central Melbourne’s streets which took their axis from the direction of the Yarra River. Hoddle’s plan had a grid layout north of the extension of Flinders Street, i.e. WellingtonParade, and the north-south Police and Government Paddocks from WellingtonParade to the river. The plan was not implemented, and settlement leap-frogged East Melbourne to Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond.
An early resident of East Melbourne was Charles La Trobe, Superintendentof the Port Phillip District, who was obliged to buy at auction the landhe had chosen at Jolimont, off Wellington Parade, as the place on whichto erect his transportable dwelling. He bought the land at his opening bidin 1840. La Trobe’s cottage survives on a reserve across the Yarra River,near the Botanic Gardens.
Numerous reservations were made for churches and schools, particularlyalong Albert Street. Two early ones were St. Peters Church of England, GisborneStreet (formally opened 1848), on the spot known as Eastern Hill, and onthe other side of Gisborne Street , the St. Patricks Cathedral and school.On an adjoining block to the south the Presbyterian, Lutheran and Unitarianchurches were given reserves, and Melbourne’s first Scotch College was alsobuilt there. Eastwards, at Eades Street, land was reserved for the CatholicParade College (named after Victoria Parade), and a Presbyterian institutionwhich became Presbyterian Ladies’ College (1875).
These reservations are north of a larger reserve which became Fitzroy Gardens. To the east of the Gardens the Church of England was granted land on which were built Bishopscourt (the Bishop’s Palace) and Holy Trinity Church (1864). Land was put aside for Government institutions along Spring Street. On the north-east corner of Spring and Albert Streets land for a school was set aside. On that site the National Model and Training Schoolwas opened in 1854, becoming a continuation and high school (1905-33), before being replaced by the Australian Medical Association’s College of Surgeons(1935). To the south a reserve for a legislative assembly was laid out.
South of Wellington Parade the land comprised the Police Magistrate’sand Government Paddocks, initially occupied only by Captain Lonsdale’s residencesouth of Spring Street and by the La Trobes. By the mid 1860s five recreationalovals were marked out: the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Richmond Cricket Ground, East Melbourne Cricket Club ovals (two), and an oval in Gosch’s Paddock,south of Swan Street. In addition the Hobson’s Bay Railway Company had ane asement to Richmond (1863) over the park and the Friendly Society’s Gardens (now Olympic Park), and Scotch College oval were marked out. Lastly therewere the Victorian Volunteer Engineer’s Depot and Gustav Techow’s National Gymnasium, west of Jolimont.
When the La Trobes left Victoria, Sir James Palmer (former owner of the Hawthorn punt and Mayor of Melbourne), bought their property. Private streets were laid out, including two named Agnes and Charles after the La Trobe’s children, and a quiet residential precinct emerged, save for a footwear factory with the La Trobe’s cottage in its back yard until the ricketty remains were saved in 1959.
Most of the East Melbourne land left for private occupation was sold in 1852-3, and the land east of Simpson Street was sold in 1858. ResidentialEast Melbourne was convenient for Parliamentarians and Government officialswhen the Parliament was transferred from St. Patrick’s Hall to the new reservein 1856. It was also convenient for City merchants and professional people.The most famous was Cliveden Mansion, opposite Jolimont railway station.Built in 1887, the mansion was replaced by the Hilton Hotel in 1969.
East Melbourne has several open spaces. The largest, first named FitzRoy Square, was initially a dumping ground for refuse until handed overto the council in 1855. The council had the good fortune to engage a landscape gardener, James Sinclair, who laid out the Fitzroy Gardens. Some twentieth century additions to the Gardens include Cooks’ cottage (i.e. Captain JamesCook’s parents’ cottage), Ola Cohn’s fairies’ tree, sculpted from a bluegum, and a model Tudor Village presented in appreciation of Victoria’s assistance during Britain’s postwar food shortages. Nearby are the Treasury Gardens,laid out on a former reserve for Government offices. They, too, had beena dumping ground until a large gully was filled in during the 1870s. There are also two small neighbourhood parks, Darling Square and Powlett Reserve.
The easterly Albert Street/Victoria Parade corridor has several notablebuildings additional to those for which Crown reservations were made. Closest to central Melbourne is the I.C.I. building, built in 1958 and Melbourne’s tallest until 1961. Proceeding east there are (or were) the Salvation ArmyTraining garrison (1900), Jewish Synagogue (1877), Baptist Church and offices(1855), Metropolitan Fire Brigade’s Building (1892, with a look-out toweron Eastern Hill), and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital (1878). Furthereast is the Victorian Artists’ Society and Conservatorium (1892), and theMasonic Centre on the site of the old Presbyterian Ladies’ College.
Eastern Hill and vicinity had the Model School, Scotch College, PresbyterianLadies’ College, a Jewish School, St. Patricks College and Parade College.Only the last-mentioned survives in East Melbourne.
The Victoria Brewery (1854) grew to occupy a large site in Victoria Paradeat Powelett Street, but it was decommissioned in the 1980s and convertedto apartments in the next decade.
The medical industry’s strong presence in east Melbourne is evident fromdoctors’ rooms along Albert Street and the Mercy and Freemason’s Hospitals(1935 and 1937), in Clarendon Street. St. Andrews Hospital (1934), is onthe old Scotch College site in Lansdowne Street.
Despite all these institutional uses, residential occupation has beenstrong in East Melbourne. This had been evident in church attendances andin the opening of the Yarra Park primary school (1874) in an area whichwas subdivided from Yarra Park in 1881. The Victorian Infants’ Asylum wasgiven land in this subdivision, evolving to the Berry Street Babies’ Home,which has widened to child and family care.
East Melbourne’s residential building stock was mature by the 1890s depression,and gradually declined in desirability as mansions were internally convertedto flats and cottages were let go. By the early postwar years the prospectof redevelopment was evident, and municipal and private improvement endangeredthe urban fabric. When the Melbourne council cut down some mature elm streettrees, it galvanized the formation of the residents’ East Melbourne Group. This coincided with the publication of the ground-breaking Early Melbourne Architecture (1953), followed shortly by the National Trust (1956). Attentionwas focused on East Melbourne’s built heritage and nearly all of East Melbournewas specified as an historic precinct in the Register of the National Estate,1981. Fifty buildings were separately registered. Over seventy buildingsand structures, including the I.C.I. building, are on the Victorian Heritage Register.
East Melbourne’s building stock was enlarged during the 1990s when theYarra Park school and adjoining land was used for apartments, and when therailways yards west of Jolimont were reduced. The railways had taken theland in 1921 when it was the East Melbourne Cricket ground and part of YarraPark, and when the stabling facilities were withdrawn the land was sold for private-sector housing.
The Melbourne Cricket Ground dates from 1853, having also become a homeground for several football clubs. It has a seating capacity of 100,000,and its curtilage was enlarged when light towers were erected for nightevents (1984).
On the other side of the railway line part of Flinders and Yarra Parks was taken in 1985 for the National Tennis Centre, the Government’s initiative to replace the Kooyong venue. These mass entertainment facilities, together with those at Olympic Park, draw very large crowds. Train services from Richmond and Jolimont and tram services along Swan Street and WellingtonParade carry many patrons, but private cars cause traffic and parking congestion. East Melbourne’s streets have intersection roundabouts and resident-only parking. Residents gain respite from urban congestion with handsome road verges and the Fitzroy and other gardens.
East Melbourne’s median house prices from 1987 to 1996 were about 160% above the median price for metropolitan Melbourne.
Ivanhoe is a residential suburb 9 km. north-east of Melbourne, south of Heidelberg. The land occupied by Ivanhoe was one of several portions adjoining the Warringal (later Heidelberg) village surveyed in 1837. Sales occurred the following year and, the Ivanhoe portion was considered to be of unusual fertility and landscape appeal. It had Darebin Creek on the west and the Yarra River on the south. By the 1850s there was an Ivanhoe village, a name derived form Sir William Scott’s novel, and used from 1853. A school was opened in the Anglican church.
During the 1850s smaller farms were taken up and by the next decade there were two hotels, market gardens, orchards, an elementary racecourse and “gentlemen’s villas”. A state primary school which replaced the one in the Anglican church, was opened in 1881. The Australian Handbook, 1904, described Ivanhoe as –
This entry not yet available.
Between 1910 and 1930 Ivanhoe underwent residential development. From being a pretty township with handsome villas, a church school, a golf links and a population of 2,013 in 1913, it had 5,016 persons in 1921 and 7,701 persons in 1933. The Victorian Municipal Directory described it as –
During the 1920s the Ivanhoe Girls’ Grammar School (1903) and the Boys’ Grammar School (1915) had growing enrollments. Another primary school in East Ivanhoe was opened in 1930. In 1937 the council offices of Heidelberg city were transferred from the old Heidelberg village to a new art deco civic centre in Upper Heidelberg Road, Ivanhoe. The move acknowledged that Ivanhoe’s shopping and commercial area was the more prominent of the two. Ivanhoe gained direct access to suburbs south of the Yarra River when the Burke Road Bridge was opened in 1926.
The areas of Ivanhoe which are distant from the railway station and shopping centre completed their residential development in the postwar years. Ivanhoe West, adjoining the Darebin Creek, has several Housing Commission dwellings and a small shopping area. The Bellfield primary school was opened in 1951. Ivanhoe East, adjoining the Yarra River, is famed for the Boulevard which overlooks the public golf course and Yarra Valley. Each Christmas residents decorate their houses and gardens and the display attracts many onlookers. There is an active strip shopping centre near the A.V. Jennings Beauview estate (1941). To the north is Eaglemont, which was developed during the prewar years, the attractions being its elevated position and proximity to a railway station.
Ivanhoe central has maintained its retailing dominance, with a combination of strip shopping and the Ivanhoe Plaza. There is a bowling club and tennis court near the shopping centre, and a croquet club, another bowling cub, tennis courts and ovals in parklands a little to the south nearer the river.
View of Ivanhoe from the clock tower of Heidelberg town hall in Ivanhoe, Heidelberg 1937
South Melbourne, between the south bank of the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay, originated at the elevated area first known as Emerald Hill, 2 km. south of Melbourne.
Emerald Hill, an old volcanic outcrop, stood out from the surrounding swamp land and had greener vegetation. Its elevation above the Yarra delta attracted the initial settlement. During Summer, the swamp land dried out and it could be used for recreation or military training.
Settlement south of the Yarra Rover was focused on Sandridge (Port Melbourne), which was linked to Melbourne by a track from a pier at Sandridge beach. Land sales in today’s South Melbourne were few during the 1840s, but in 1852 a survey of Emerald Hill resulted in the auction of subdivided lots. Grants of land were made to the Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and Wesleyan churches, and the pick of the blocks was given to the Melbourne Protestant Orphan Asylum. Settlement of Emerald Hill happened quickly and within two years its residents were complaining that the Melbourne city Council was not giving them value for their rates. On 26 May, 1855, Emerald Hill was proclaimed a separate borough.
At the time of the survey of Emerald Hill in 1852 a temporary township was created west of St. Kilda Road, south of the river. It was Canvastown, a low-lying area with tent accommodation for gold-field immigrants. It lasted for two years and gave its name to the first school (1853) in the area at the corner of Clarendon and Banks Street.
Slightly later in Emerald Hill, church primary schools were opened: Presbyterian (1854), Catholic (1854), Anglican (1856) and the Orphanages, Protestant (1856) and Catholic (1857). A mechanics’ institute was opened in 1857.
The opening of the Melbourne to Hobsons Bay railway in 1854 did not benefit Emerald Hill very much because it skirted the area, but the Melbourne to St. Kilda line (1857) had an Emerald Hill station by 1858.
The land around Emerald Hill remained unsuitable for housing or industry until it could be drained. The Victoria Barracks, on higher land in St. Kilda Road, was built in 1859, and the military freely roamed the area: rifle butts were in Albert Park and a shore battery was at the end of Kerford Road for the defence of Port Phillip. In 1863 massive floods inundated the surrounding area and the few optimistic infant industries.
Although flood mitigation did not gain a significant boost until the Coode Canal (1887), land reclamation, drainage and river embankment works encouraged settlement on the flat area. In the 1870s cottages were built at Montague, but the road levels were above those of the housing lots. Small sites, ill-drained yards and accumulated rubbish created a culture which provided the ill-famed larrikin push the “Montagues”. A better housing outlook was created at Albert Park, particularly when the lagoon was excavated to form a lake for boat jaunts. In 1875 The Australian Handbook described Emerald Hill as –
On 1 March, 1872, Emerald Hill was proclaimed a town which led to the council moving its town hall from Cecil Street to the site occupied by the Protestant Orphan Asylum. The orphanage was persuaded to take a larger site at Brighton in exchange, and it retained the balance of the site around the new town hall. Thus the Emerald Hill precinct was formed and kept intact until sold to the State Government in 1973 by the orphanage’s successor, the Melbourne Family Care Organisation. While the town hall move was under way, John Danks was mayor. His time as a councillor ran from 1871 to 1880. Danks hardware foundry and supply of plumbing material was a major industry.
State schools replaced church schools: the Eastern Road school (1877), the Dorcas Street school (1881), the City Road school (1884) and Montague (1889), all grew to become crowded, as the population of South Melbourne more than doubled in twenty years, reaching nearly 42,000 in 1891.
Before trams came to South Melbourne, Clarendon Street emerged with a main retail strip. The Anglican and Presbyterian churches turned their Clarendon Street frontages over to commercial development.
Industries along the river side had been mainly noxious, imparting unpleasantness to the growing residential areas. The Harbor Trust (1877) forced the industries to move downstream, and manufacturing replaced them, drawn by the better access across the Falls (Queens Street) Bridge and the construction of South Wharf. The Montague work force supplied wharf labour.
Football clubs were formed in the 1870s and in 1879 the South Melbourne club with red and white colours took its place in the Victorian Football Association. It was one of the founding clubs of the Victorian Football League in 1897. Emerald Hill town changed to South Melbourne on 25 September, 1883.
Tram lines along Clarendon Street and Park Street were opened in 1890, along with the connection made to the city seven years before with a steam ferry between Clarendon and Spencer Street. Manufacturing and food-processing industries expanded back from the riverside. The giant red brick Tea House building, originally a stationer’s warehouse (1890), is a surviving example in Clarendon Street. Notable food processors were Hoadley’s Chocolates (later Allens Sweets) and Sennits ice-cream. In the later era of neon lights the Sennits bear and the flashing Allens confectionery sign became night time landmarks.
Textile mills, timber merchants and furniture trades set up in the 1880s. Clarendon Street, in addition to having many food and drapery retailers, had furniture retailers. Maples, Tyes and Andersons began in South Melbourne and grew to become metropolitan chains. Crofts grocers, later a self-service pioneer in the early postwar years, also began in South Melbourne.
Education broadened to secondary level with a technical school (1919-92), St. Joseph’s technical school (1924-88) and the conversion of the City Road primary school to the Domestic Arts School (1930). Another was the transfer of the Melbourne Girls’ High School to MacRobertson Girls’ High School, in a corner of Albert Park, in 1934.
From Emerald Hill’s beginning with the Orphan asylums, welfare has had strong community support in South Melbourne. The Montague kindergarten opened in 1909, along with Methodist and Catholic kindergartens within a few years. Baby welfare and child hygiene centre were opened during the 1920s. When a South Melbourne local, Harold Alexander, was appointed Town Clerk in 1936, the council deepened its interest in welfare activities. The charitable community-chest and increased rates from commercial properties help to fund welfare activities.
In 1949 The Australian Blue Book described South Melbourne as –
At that time South Melbourne was receiving the first postwar migrants, who increased in the nest two decades. Cricket and football was played beside the South Melbourne Hellas Soccer Club (1959), and adult migrant English classes were run at the Eastern Road primary school. Riverside industry expanded, and the Montague kindergarten closed in 1959. Montague was disappearing, but its sons had enlisted in record numbers for the second world war, and reportedly had been good fighters.
South Melbourne has a strip of land on the west side of St. Kilda Road from the river to the end of the Albert Park. Part of it came from severance form the Albert Park reservation in 1875, providing sites for boulevard mansions. Closer to the river there were several institutional land uses: the Homeopathic (later Price Henry’s) Hospital, 1882, the immigrants’ Home (1852-1911) coming after the health Canvas Town and the Victoria Police beside the Barracks. On the site which would ultimately be the Arts centre complex there were the Green Mill, Wirth’s Olympia and (later) the Trocadero and Glaciarium entertainment venues.
In the postwar years Melbourne’s central business district spilled down St. Kilda Road. Land was cheaper and the council encouraged development attracted by the increased rates.
In 1944 the State Government agreed with South Melbourne’s council that the Wirth’s circus site should be reserved for a cultural centre. Postwar shortages delayed the project, and the first part of the Art Centre was opened in 1968.
As culture officially came to South Melbourne gentrification came to its residential area. The Emerald Hill Precinct is a registered historic area, and inspired conservation initiatives both private and municipal. By 1981 the population was less than half its postwar figure, and local support for the football club had waned. Its premierships had been won in 1909, 1918, 1933 and 1945, with only one finals appearance in 1970. In 1982 the Swans became the Sydney Swans, and the Lake oval lost its main tenant.
The particularly noticeable changes since the 1960s have included high-rise Housing Commission flats (Emerald Hill Court, 1962, and Park Towers, 1969), the Westgate Freeway (1975-95) and the development of Southbank. On a smaller scale there were the conversion of the South Melbourne Gas Works to a park (1992) and the conversion of the Castlemaine Brewery to the Malthouse Theatre (1987).
In common with inner residential areas, South Melbourne’s house prices have outpaced the metropolitan trend. In 1987 the median South Melbourne house price was 37% above the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and in 1996 it was 70% above the metropolitan median.
On 18 November, 1993, the area of South Melbourne defined as Southbank and extending to Docklands was annexed to Melbourne city. On 22 June, 1994, South Melbourne city was united with St. Kilda and Port Melbourne cities to form Port Phillip city.
South Melbourne municipality’s census populations were 8,822 (1861), 25,374 (1881), 41,724 (1891) 46,873 (1921), 32,528 (1961) and 17,712 (1991).
Further Reading:
Allom Lovell Sanderson Pty. Ltd., “South Melbourne Urban Conservation Study”, 1987. Daley, Charles, “The History of South Melbourne”, Robertson and Mullens, 1940.
Priestley, Susan, “South Melbourne: A History”, Melbourne University Press, 1995.
Albert Park, a residential area with a large regional park and lake, is 3 km. south of Melbourne. It was named after Prince Albert, the Consort of Queen Victoria.
There are two Albert Parks, one the large recreational parkland and the other the adjoining residential area which spread southwards from South Melbourne’s Emerald Hill in the 1870s and 1880s.
The parkland was like much of the land in the Yarra delta, swampy, grassed with sparse tree cover, and with occasional lagoons, some quite large. The lagoon in Albert Park was one of those. The land was used for seasonal grazing, recreational hunting, rifle practice at the Butts (the original name of the Albert Park railway station) and for military training manoeuvres between the Victoria Barracks, St. Kilda Road, and the battery on Port Phillip Bay at the end of Kerford Road.
In 1857 a railway line was opened through Albert Park from Melbourne to St. Kilda. A short-lived rail loop from Windsor to St. Kilda (1859-62) passed through the south of the parkland. On 22 July, 1862, the parkland was temporarily reserved from sale, and permanently reserved two years later. In 1875 the land between St. Kilda and Queens Roads was severed from Albert Park and sold by the government as housing allotments. Between 1862 and 1875 Albert Park was reduced from 385 ha. to 231 ha., the loss being accounted for by the Queens Road severance and an earlier severance on the St. Kilda side.
The St. Kilda Cricket Club obtained permission to site its oval at the south end of the park in 1857 and the South Melbourne Cricket Club gained a permissive occupancy at the other end in 1862. The St. Kilda Bowling Club obtained its parkland site in 1865 and the Middle Park Bowling Club in 1903. A third cricket ground, now the Albert Cricket Ground, predated the Queens Road severance. Its neighbouring tennis courts (1889) became the site for major championships until the Lawn Tennis Association built the stadium at Kooyong. In 1908 the Davis Cup was played there.
Albert Park, 1997
In 1871 the Albert Park lagoons were used for boating, and the Albert Park Boat Club was formed the following year. Between 1873 and 1880 the lagoons were excavated to form the lake, and the excavated material used for land reclamation and embankments. The embankments were strengthened with timber piles and a promenade built. Municipal refuse tipping was also used for land reclamation, and dairy cattle grazed by agistment. Fresh water from the Yarra River was connected to the lake in 1890.
The suburb of Albert Park extends from the St. Vincent Gardens to Beaconsfield Parade and Kerford Road. It was settled residentially as an extension of Emerald Hill, South Melbourne. In 1854 a land-subdivision survey was done from Park Street, South Melbourne, to the northern edge of the parkland (Albert Road). St. Vincent Gardens were laid out and the surrounding streets became the best address for successful citizens. Street names commemorated Trafalgar and Crimean War personalities.
In 1874 the State primary school was opened, which within twelve years had 1,400 pupils. Its proximity to the beach encouraged swimming, and its 1905 squad included future champions, among whom was Frank Beaurepaire.
In 1903 The Australian Handbook described Albert Park as –
(The description includes the adjoining area of Middle Park.)
Albert Park developed a strong shopping strip along Bridport Street and Victoria Avenue, along which a cable-ram service had been opened in 1890. The tram also opened up the South Melbourne beach to people who lived further away.
During the prewar years some nibbles were taken out of the Albert Park. A precedent had been set in 1882 by the St. Kilda Park primary school (after much opposition), and the South Melbourne Technical School (1918) and the MacRobertson Girls’ High School (1935) were sited in Albert Park. The Army occupied large areas between 1941 and 1950, and in 1953 an Army officer proposed a racing Grand Prix in the park. Several races were held until stopped by the Government in 1958. The Army relinquished bits and pieces of space during the next twenty years.
Commercial uses such as the Carousel restaurant raised some money for park maintenance, but the end of Army rentals caused further financial stringency. Rents from South Melbourne and St. Kilda Football Clubs for their home grounds ended when they went elsewhere in 1982 and 1964.
During the early 1990s the lake was emptied to remove weed infestation, and Melbourne Water assumed management from the local committee of Management. On December, 1993, the State Government announced that the Australian Formula One Grand Prix motor race would be held in the park. Notwithstanding the protests by a Save Albert Park group the first race was held in 1996. The race circuit required trees to be cut down and facilities demolished, but funds were injected for replacement facilities.
Albert Park suburb has houses which are larger and built more of brick than weatherboard compared with South Melbourne. They have maintained their appeal to home buyers. In 1987 the median house price in Albert Park was 60% above the median for metropolitan Melbourne, and in 1996 80% above. The socioeconomic level is reflected by the outdoor cafes in Bridport Street. At the western edge of Albert Park the South Melbourne gas works was made into a park in 1982 with creative workshops and a gallery.
Dinghy Race on the Albert Park Lake.
Further Reading:
Barnard, Jill and Keating, Jenny, “People’s Playground: A History of the Albert Park”, Chandos Publishing, 1996.
Priestley, Susan, “South Melbourne: A History”, Melbourne University Press, 1995
Hawthorn is a “middle-ring” residential suburb 6 km. east of Melbourne. Its surface rises immediately east of the Yarra River valley, and it has the Gardiners Creek on its south.
The municipality of Hawthorn (1860-1994) was bounded by the two river valleys, Burke Road on its east and Barkers Road on its north.
The Hawthorn township reserve was surveyed in 1837. It was immediately east of the Yarra River where Church Street meets Burwood Road. Farm-size allotments were also surveyed in Hawthorn in 1843 and sold during that decade. The township site is readily recognised by the Gothic Revival Christ Church (1853) and the Hawthorn primary school (1853) north of Burwood Road. On the south side of Burwood Road, on a knoll overlooking a bend in the Yarra River, is “Invergowrie” (1852), a homestead situated on land which was later subdivided by the theatrical entrepreneur, George Coppin, in 1871. It contains several houses on the register of the National Estate and is a Conservation Area.
Invergowrie was set in Burwood Park, the name given to Burwood Road which became the district’s main road out of Melbourne which had bridged the Yarra River (1851). Less clear is how Hawthorn was given its name. Early spellings had a “e” on the end, but that was dispensed with in the gazaettal of the municipal district in 1860. Hawthorn/e may have been named after a visitor who called on Hoddle, or settled on during a conversation between the owner of Burwood Park, James Palmer, and Governor LaTrobe, who thought that the native shrubs looked like flowering Hawthorn bushes. There was also a bluestone house “The Hawthorns” built in Creswick Street in 1843.
Hotels were opened along Burwood Road: the Hawthorne at Barton Street (1852), the Governor Hotham at William Street (1855) and the Tower at Camberwell Road (1876). After the railway was extended from Burnley to Hawthorn (1861) the Railway Hotel was opened nearby in 1869. In 1854 Hawthorn along with Kew and Camberwell, became the Boroondara Road District, and in 1860 Hawthorn became a separate municipality.
By 1865 Hawthorn’s population was about 3,000 persons. Its first town hall had been built and its landscape was populated with market gardens, residences of “persons engaged in Melbourne in business” and several brick fields. The first Presbyterian church in the Hawthorn area was built in Glenferrie Road in 1864, and several Hawthorn Presbyterian congregations resisted union with the Methodist church one hundred years later. The Hawthorn municipality has many large well-built churches, particularly in Glenferrie and Auburn where to this day they are the dominant shapes on the skyline. In terms of the municipality’s growth it was around Upper Hawthorn, now Glenferrie, where houses and shopping were attracted in the 1870s and 1880s. The railway was extended to these areas in 1882 and a horse tram service in 1890.
The middle-class attraction of Hawthorn was shown by its private schools. By 1890 when it became a city, it ranked with St. Kilda as the area with the most private schools per head of population. In 1903 The Australian Handbook described Hawthorn as –
In 1916 the Hawthorn Tramways Trust opened the electric tramline along Burwood Road, Power Street and Riversdale Road, replacing the horse tram. The Trust’s depot was at the corner where Power Street meets Riversdale Road, where the line was met by another Trust line from Princes Bridge from Melbourne, via Swan Street, Richmond. Hawthorn thus gained a second city to suburbs route, parallel to the railway line.
Burwood Road became a mixed retail and manufacturing thoroughfare. Factories included carriage builders, wood turning and furniture, clothing and, most famous of all, Fowlers home bottling factory and warehouse. The absence of a tramline would have discouraged shops rather than factories.
Slightly east of the Hawthorn railway station Grace Park was laid out in 1897. Ten years earlier a spur railway line was opened to Kew, running along the east side of Grace Park. It closed in 1957. On the other side of the line the Glenferrie oval became the home of the Hawthorn Football Club. The Club, founded in 1873,was in the Victorian Football Association until it joined the League in 1925. It transferred to the Princes Park oval, Carlton, as its home ground in 1974. Adjoining the oval is the Hawthorn baths. Tennis has been well provided for at the Grace Park Courts, producing champions such as Frank Sedgman, Mervyn Rose and Margaret Smith (later Court).
The Council was able to provide parks on several filled clay pits during the years before the second world war, although some pits were worked well into the postwar years.
Town Hall, Hawthorn, c.1912.
(Image courtesy Tony Davies, London, U.K.)
During the inter-war years Hawthorn municipality’s population grew from about 25,000 to about 40,000 persons. Entertainment and shopping tended to be around the Glenferrie Road area. Hawthorn central had its established homes, riverside parklands and a medium-sized shopping centre around the railway station. The Australian Blue Book, 1949, described the Hawthorn municipality as –
Despite the reference in the Blue Book to residences of a very superior class, the housing stock in Hawthorn west and central was old and contained many cottages in a run-down condition. The larger house were suitable for conversion to rental flats. The demolition of old residences for new flats became a local issue by the 1970s. By 1981 over 45% of Hawthorn’s housing stock was flats, compared with 26% in Kew. In contrast to many inner-urban cities Hawthorn’s postwar population decline was nearly arrested by the flats, falling by only a few thousand between 1947 and 1971. The loss of some prominent houses was obvious, such as at the corner of Glenferrie and Riversdale Roads where a service station was built, only to be replaced with a Chinese restaurant (1973) which failed and was replaced by an ice-cream outlet replete with pagoda decor. By way of contrast on an opposite corner was Melbourne’s longest running private lending library, run by two elderly ladies.
Despite the rapid growth of flats in Hawthorn there was a contrary trend to the preservation of many of the surviving larger homes. Internal subdividing walls were removed and flats were converted back into homes. Other large buildings were converted into more sensitively designed apartments. The boom in period real estate peaked in the late 1980s. An active preservation area was around St. James Park, adjoining Hawthorn’s original town site. Preservation extended to a quite costly refurbishment of the Hawthorn railway station buildings, some of which had been transferred many years before from the first Flinders Street station in central Melbourne.
St. James Park is one of several open spaces in Hawthorn, most of which are linear ones along the edge of the Yarra River.
In 1996 the median house price in Hawthorn was about $250,000, a shade more than twice the median for metropolitan Melbourne.
One 22 June, 1994, Hawthorn city was united with Camberwell and Kew cities to form Boroondara city. Hawthorn city included Auburn, Barker, Glenferrie and Hawthorn East.
The census populations of the Hawthorn municipality were 2,342 (1861), 6,019 (1881), 19,585 (1891), 40,464 (1947) and 30,006 (1991).
