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Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne
Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne

Saucy Postcards from Swallow & Ariell

CollectionJuly 30, 2015
From the Collection - Swallow's Art Deco postcards from the 1930s (catalogue no 2929) A set of postcards from the 1930s was presented to the Society by George Derham, a descendant of Frederick Derham.  Frederick Derham was Managing Director of Swallow & Ariell Limited, manufacturers of biscuits etc. in Port Melbourne for well over 100 years.  Thomas Swallow established the firm with…

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J. Kitchen & Sons, The Candle Kings

Collection, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 11, 2015
From the Collection -  items from the J. Kitchen and Son collection  Following the sale of Symex's Port Melbourne operation and their relocation to Shepparton, records and items from their museum were donated to PMHPS. The Society is delighted that a collection so important to the industrial history of Port Melbourne will be retained within the suburb where the company operated for…

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Constructing the Port of Melbourne

Collection, PlacesMay 7, 2015
From the Collection - Charles Wynn Kiver Allison’s photo album c1920 (catalogue number 2197) Sixty-six tiny but beautifully photographed views of piers and wharves under construction are treasured in this small album. It belonged to New Zealand-born Charles Wynn Kiver Allison MIEA, who in the 1920s was the head engineer with the Melbourne Harbor Trust. Many major developments in the Port…

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Pubs in Port – a snapshot from the nineties

CollectionApril 9, 2015
From the Collection - Ron Laing’s Pub Photos (catalogue no 1287) Ron Laing was born in Scotland in 1920. During the war he was a flying instructor and in 1950 he migrated to Australia where he worked as a forklift driver and a machinist for the Melbourne Harbor Trust. After containers were introduced he worked unloading containers for an importer/exporter company. When…

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Preventing plague in Port

CollectionMarch 12, 2015
From the Collection - Rats Cash Book June 15 1903 to May 3 1904 (catalogue number 2534) This wonderful document in the PMHPS collection records action taken between 1903 and 1904 in Port Melbourne to prevent the spread of bubonic plague by paying people for dead rats. A rat bonus of 3d and later 2d a head was paid at the Town Hall…

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Stories from a Postcard

CollectionFebruary 5, 2015
From the collection - a postcard showing Nott St school in Port Melbourne This postcard was found by one of the PMHPS founding members at a Postcard swap meet.   A simple old postcard, but what a story it tells. On the front is a photo of the State School Port Melbourne and on the back is a letter from Percy to his…

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Employment at Kitchens

CollectionJanuary 8, 2015
From the Collection A photograph from the J Kitchen and Sons collection  In summer of 1854-5, John Kitchen, former grocer and candle-maker from Reading, England, arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, with three young sons and little money, to begin a new life. They were soon able to buy some cheap candle frames, and they commenced making tallow candles in a…

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Commemorating the Liardets

CollectionNovember 6, 2014
From the Collection Port Melbourne Centenary Souvenir and commemorative enamelled badges and pins PMHPS catalogue no 856 Liardet's ARRIVAL On November 15, 1839, the good ship 'William Metcalfe' anchored in Hobson’s Bay.  She carried Mr. and Mrs. Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet and their family of nine after an eventful voyage of five months… The mother and father were a little over 40 at…

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Captain Gray, Master of the Paddle Steamers

Collection, PeopleOctober 1, 2014
From the collection Scrapbook of Captain Harry Gray: Master of the Paddle Steamers PS Hygeia and PS Weeroona Captain Gray kept a scrapbook of newspaper clippings of various shipping events and stories on Port Phillip Bay from 1888 to 1976 which was donated to the PMHPS by Joyce Gray of Swallow St in 2004. The clippings include newspaper articles which…

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PMHPS acknowledges the generous support of the City of Port Phillip.

 

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians

We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet and work, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation and pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.