Moonee Ponds Creek, 1915

Two boys at the Moonee Ponds Creek, Brunswick West, circa 1915. 

Courtesy Museums Victoria. MM 111126.

It's hard to visualise now, when the Moonee Ponds Creek has been reduced to little more than a concrete channel in places, but since the first land sales in the area in the 1840s the Creek has been an important feature of this western perimeter of Brunswick and Coburg (and beyond). 

Perhaps you've never thought about why it's called Moonee Ponds Creek but it was actually a series of marshy ponds when European settlers arrived and this area was a large floodplain. Near its entry to the Yarra River (in the area known as Batman's Lagoon) its salt water marshes were extensive and early next year this area will be the subject of a major exhibition at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria. But more news on that later.

If you're interested in reading about the history of Moonee Ponds Creek, you will find more in Moreland Council's Thematic History of the area. You will find that here. It's a searchable document, so just search for Moonee Ponds Creek. There is much else of interest in this document, so beware - it's a bit of a rabbit hole!

The other resource you might find interesting is Moonee Valley Council's Our Moonee Ponds Creek website. You can look at that here. It doesn't just look back at the history of the creek, but outlines future planning possibilities and asks people to get involved. Well worth taking a look.

And if you'd like to read a little more about the saltwater lagoon I mentioned earlier, you could do no better than to seek out David Sornig's new book Blue Lake: Finding Dudley Flats and the West Melbourne Swamp. It's a terrific read and won the 2019 Judges' Special Prize at this year's Victorian Community History Awards. There's a bit of social history there, as well as the geographic. It's a neglected part of Melbourne's history and this book is a well worthwhile addition to your reading list. You can read more about the awards here. 

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297 Lygon Street, Brunswick East has been sold

Not long ago, on one of my walks around the area, I took these photos of the side wall of Carbone Master Tailors at 297 Lygon Street, Carlton. 

It was a pleasant surprise to see the Robur Tea advertisement still visible on the side of the building and it brought to mind the days when our family were almost exclusively tea drinkers and our preferred brand was Robur. 

Our neighbours were dedicated Lipton tea drinkers. It was always tea leaves, of course - I'm talking about the days before tea bags. They collected the cards that came with the packets of tea and I'd spend hours going through them and working out which were missing and try to organise swaps with kids at school. I wasn't a dedicated swap carder like my sister, but I did love those little cards (they were quite a bit smaller than swap cards).

Back to 297 Lygon Street ...

The building was erected in the late 1920s in what Heritage Victoria call the Interwar Greek Revival style. It is located on the west side of Lygon Street between Albert and Victoria Streets. It is now Carbone's Master Tailors, but from 1929 when it was built, until the mid-1930s it was the home of the Perfection Knitting Mills (previously in Rathdown Street, Carlton and later in Peel Street, Collingwood). It's hard to believe now, but there were quite a few knitting mills in the Brunswick and Coburg area. It has also been the premises of a shirt manufacturer and a paper bag manufacturer.

I only found a few references to Perfection while it was based in Lygon Street, a reminder that the 1930s Depression years were terrible times and that ladies' hosiery (stockings) were a valuable commodity - easily hidden and there must have been good black market opportunities.

 Age, 30 July 1931

I noticed the Robur tea ad that sparked my interest in February 2018, mostly because it was being painted over to make way for Carbone advertising and it seemed to me a metaphor for what is happening all around our suburb. This photograph tells it all - no words needed.

The building was sold in June 2019, and we can only hope that it won't be the victim of yet another high rise development in this corner of Brunswick. 

And by the way, as I write, a building is going up in the space next to Carbone, so the ad on the wall is now well and truly gone.

Making your Deb - Coburg, June 1946

Age, 21 June 1946

They look happy, don't they? Debs were a big deal in the 1930s right through to the 1960s, although by my era (late 1960s) they were a bit old hat. Still lots of girls made their debut and still do.

Don't suppose anyone recognises any of the faces?

And here's a photo from the Coburg Historical Society collection of the Deb Ball held in 1937. (ID number 15789)

You can find more Coburg images from the Coburg Historical Society collection here and here.

Housing Commission dwellings go up in East Coburg, January 1946

Age, 12 January 1946

The State Library of Victoria has some interesting images of the newly constructed buildings in this Housing Commission Estate, all by photographer Lyle Fowler and all donated in 1994 by local man Harold Paynting. They include:

Newly completed houses, c1945-1949. 

Image H94/150/96. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Kitchen interior. Note the ice chest to the left of the sink. 

Image H94/150/18. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Bathroom interior. Note the gas bath heater and the pedestal basin. All the mod cons! 

Image H94/150/19. Courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Barkly Brick Company chimney demolition - 1946

Herald, 10 January 1946

Long before the days of Barkly Square there was a brickworks on the site. Established in 1909, it closed altogether in 1962. As you can see here, a one hundred foot (30.5 metre) chimney was demolished in January 1946. 

It would be great to hear from anyone who remembers those days, or has any stories to relate about the site in its various incarnations.

DIY veggie growing - Brunswick, 1946

Herald, 14 March 1946

Biographical note: Frances Charlotte White was the wife of Robert John White, a plate layer. They married in 1914 and lived in the Kew/Auburn/Glenferrie area for a number of years before moving to West Brunswick where they lived at 67 Whitby Street. In the late 1960s or early 1970s, Frances, then widowed, moved to Lower Templestowe where she died in April 1976 aged 87. (Sources: Victorian BDM indexes and Victorian electoral rolls)

A note on Whitby Street: Whitby Street runs parallel to Victoria Street, near Pearson Street. It is named after Edward Whitby, who lived in Brunswick from the 1840s and built the house known as Whitby House, now #28 in the early 1850s. It has changed over time with alterations and additions, especially in the 1920s and later on it was subdivided into flats. Even so, it is one of Brunswick's earliest surviving houses and a rare example of the Gothic Revival style homes built in the Melbourne in the 1850s. You can read more about Whitby House here.

Whitby House, December 2010. Courtesy Tim McKenna.

1956 views of Pentridge from the air

Argus, 8 May 1956

It's a pity this image is so dark, but at least the labels help you work out where everything is located. 

The reporter mentions the waves from the prisoners from the 'painfully tidy' grounds of Pentridge, but my attention was caught, too, by her description of the 'miles of washing - the housewife's banner - [that] billowed on the line.' 

Those were the days. I wonder how many of the lines were those new-fangled Hills Hoist, introduced a decade earlier. 

Or perhaps (and possibly more likely in the older areas) they were the old prop washing lines, strung out along the back yard.

Monday morning in New York City, 1904.

I had a prop washing line in my tiny miner's cottage backyard in Bendigo in the early 1980s and then again in the late 1990s when I moved to Brunswick. Now I just have drying racks that I move near the heating in the winter and put outside in the sun in the summer. Thank goodness I don't live in an area where hanging my clothes out to dry is controversial or illegal. Read about that here and here. 

Brunswick's Gillbrook Pottery

From the catalogue for the Royal Melbourne Show, 1895. 

Royal Agricultural Society website.

Recently, while I was doing something else altogether, I stumbled across this advertisement for Brunswick's Gillbrook Pottery in a wonderful catalogue for the Royal Melbourne Show of 1895.

As well as noting all the entrants, their addresses and the animals etc that they have entered, it's full of such fantastic advertising of the era that I'm sharing some of them with you here, even though they're not related to Moreland.

So here we go. Enjoy! 

And if you want to explore the history of the Royal Agricultural Society - or just indulge in a bit of nostalgia, check out their fantastic Virtual Museum here. 

Pau Street - named in honour of a French General

Pau Street  in Coburg North was created in 1919 and named after General Paul Pau, leader of a French Mission to Australia in October 1918, just before the Armistice. 

Group portrait of Lieutenant General Sir John Monash KCB, with General Pau and members of the French Mission about to leave for Australia, in the grounds of Corps Headquarters. Back row, left to right: Major Burr; Captain Simonson; unidentified; Brigadier General T. A. Blamey CMG DSO; unidentified; unidentified. Front row: unidentified; unidentified; Gen Monash; Gen Pau; unidentified. Taken July 1918, Picardie, France. Image EO2751. Courtesy Australian War Memorial.

During their visit to Victoria, the French Mission visited the Coburg State School Infant School for the planting of a memorial avenue of honour in memory of 35 old boys of the school who lost their lives during World War One.

You can read about that here.

No one lived in Pau Street for many years. In fact, its first Sands and MacDougall Street Directory entry was not until 1951. Here it is on the 1930 Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) map - no buildings in the street.

MMBW detail plan 3497, Coburg. Date 1930. Index map 12E. State Library of Victoria online collection.

(Courtesy street-directory.com.au)

Near Pau Street are other streets named after other World War One figures and places, including:

Allenby Street, named after Field Marshall Sir Edmund Allenby.

AWM image H15646. Cairo, WW1. General Sir Edmund Allenby on the steps of the YMCA Anzac Hostel. On Allenby's left George Willliam Thomas Shapley, manager of the hostel.

Elliott Street, named after 'Pompey' Elliott.

AWM image E02855. Picardie, Somme, Amiens Harbonnieres Area, France, 9 August 1918. Brigadier General H. E. 'Pompey' Elliott, General Officer Commanding (GOC), 15th Australian Infantry Brigade, standing at the door of a captured German Divisional Headquarters near Harbonnieres.

French Street, named after Field Marshall John French.

AWM image H12244. France. 19 August 1915. Field Marshal Sir John French who had been appointed on 4 August 1914 as Chief of the British Expeditionary Force to France. (Donor Imperial War Museum Q28858)

Lens Street, named after a town in northern France where Australian troops fought. It's where the Canadians fought the Battle of Hill 70. You can read about that here.

AWM image H09627. Lens, France. c. 1918. The northern area of the town showing severe war damage. (Donor British Official Photograph L1804)

Louvain Street, named after a Belgian town ravaged by the Germans. You can read about it here.

From The Irish Story website. Read more about the sacking of Louvain (Leuven) here.

The destroyed city of Louvain in 1915. Read more about it here.

Mercier Street, named after Cardinal Mercier, a Belgian clergyman and figurehead of civil resistance to the German occupation of Belgium during World War One.

Image from Cardinal Désiré-Joseph Mercier's Wikipedia entry.

Roosevelt Street, named after President Theodore Roosevelt, US President and supporter of the allies during World War One. It was to be called Mannix Street, but Coburg Council rejected this suggestion. Read more about that here. 

Image of President Theodore Roosevelt from Wikipedia.

Sturdee Street, named after Admiral Doveton Sturdee, a WW1 naval commander.

Vice Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, Flag Officer Commanding the Fourth Battle Squadron, on the quarterdeck of HMS HERCULES, 1916/17. Wikipedia.

(The basic information on the origins of these street names comes from the 1993 edition of Street Names of Coburg)

Street Names of Coburg - a continuing story

from the Coburg Courier, December 1993.

It was Les Barnes who began the work of chronicling the history of Coburg through the story of its streets in his 1965 publication Street Names of Coburg. Since then there have been two more revised editions of this work, thanks to that other driving force of our area's local history - Laurie Burchell.

By the mid-1990s, Laurie and his team of Coburg Historical Society researchers had added well over 100 new entries and amended and added many more. It was a major undertaking in those days before the internet. The many, many resources we have available to us online today make the task of today's local historian both easier and harder. Sometimes you feel like you're drowning in the sea of information coming your way!

At the time of publication of the second edition of the book in late 1993, Laurie Burchell noted that there were 549 streets in Coburg and that the origins of 165 of those were unknown. 

(This third edition was published some time in the second half of 1994. Unfortunately, the date of publication has not been included, but there is a reference in the Foreword to the death of Les Barnes earlier in the year, confirming that it is a 1994 publication.)

Twenty-six years on and there are many more streets in Coburg and many more stories to be told. With the amount of subdivision and building work going on in the area, new streets are being created all the time.

It's time to revise and update the history of our streets. I'm working on it. My database includes the entries from Street Names of Coburg (I'm developing a similar one for Brunswick). I've added the streets in the Pentridge Village Development and the Kodak Development, plus anything else new I can discover. Once I've finished the foundation of the Coburg section, I'll work on Brunswick. 

It's a big task, but it's satisfying to build on the work of those who began it all those years ago.

If you want to take part in this project, please let me know by emailing me at gcheryl52@gmail.com.