Places – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Take a Seat on the USS Pennsylvania

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 31, 2025

by Peter Munro The USS Pennsylvania is one of the fifteen ships whose names are commemorated on the bench seats along Princes Pier. When completed, it was the largest battleship in the world with 12 x 14" guns that could send a 645 kg projectile nearly 21 km. USS Pennsylvania bench at Princes Pier. For two weeks in July and August 1925, its…

Rosny Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 4, 2025

by David F Radcliffe Rosny Street runs between Barak Road and Howe Parade, at the eastern end of the Fishermans Bend Estate. Nearby Williamstown Road is a clue to the origin of this street’s name. Rosny Street. MMBW Map 1942: SLV During the 1920s, the double-ended, steam powered Rosny ferried commuters between Port Melbourne and Williamstown. Built at Battery Point in Hobart for the…

Streets and Reserves of the Fishermans Bend Estate

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 30, 2025

by David F Radcliffe During the preliminary phases of the Fishermans Bend Estate development, the Housing Commission of Victoria intended to name the streets numerically, i.e, First Street, Second Street, First Avenue, Second Avenue and so forth. Later their thinking changed…. Fishermans Bend was a pioneering project for the Commission which was established in March 1938 in response to the…

Strathnaver: Luxury liner and Migrant Ship

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 20, 2025

by Peter Munro Our love affair with P & O's Strathnaver began in February 1931 when she was christened with a magnum of Australia's finest burgundy.[i] Later that year, and with a population of just over one million, Melbourne shrugged off the Wall Street panic, and a world economic depression to welcome this gleaming white, three funnelled, nine deck luxury liner: the largest ship to have ever berthed at the Port of Melbourne. Her long association with these waters, bringing many “New Australians” here in the post-war period, lasted…

Edina Avenue

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 6, 2025

by David F Radcliffe Edina Avenue is a short street, with just eight houses, on the western side of R.F Julier Reserve in the Fishermans Bend Estate. Edina Avenue. MMBW Map 1942: SLV It is named for the “Grand Old Lady of Port Phillip”, the S.S. Edina. Launched in May 1854 in Glasgow, she was something of a technological hybrid; an iron hulled, screw- powered…

Benjamin Bolton, Cash and Family Grocer

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryMay 2, 2025

by David Thompson Interior, Benjamin Bolton, Family Grocer, Port Melbourne. c1913-c1916. Photographer Algernon Darge. State Library of Victoria. If you have visited Coles supermarket, in Bay Street, via the travellator leading from the rooftop car park, you will be familiar with this photograph. Taken by Algernon Darge around 1913-16, it shows the interior of Benjamin Bolton's Grocery store. It is held…

Cumberland Road

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryMay 2, 2025

by David F Radcliffe Cumberland Road is one of a pair of curved streets that form the ‘entrance’ to the Fishermans Bend Estate. The other is Batman Road. Both run off “The Boulevard”, the bayside boundary of this estate conceived in the late 1930s to provide decent housing for working people. Both streets allude to the early European history of…

Mitchell Crescent

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 7, 2025

by David Thompson Mitchell Crescent is a private street that runs through the public housing estate between Nott Street and Bay Street curving towards Rouse Street at the back of the Exchange Hotel. The large block on the western side of Bay Street between Rouse Street and the beach served as the cable tram depot from 1890 until the tramway…

The Pumping Station – The Beazley Family Connection

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 13, 2024

For many years the Beazley family were fisherfolk, working the Bay and selling their catch from the garage next to their home in Dow Street. Leonard 'Dugga' Beazley was the last of the fishermen retiring in 2016 after participating in the buy-out of the Port Phillip Bay commercial fishing licences. But the Beazley family also had a close association…

Johnston Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 6, 2024

by David F. Radcliffe Johnston Street runs from Graham Street to Beaconsfield Parade, one block back from Pickles Street. It was gazetted in 1865 along with many other streets on the eastern side of Sandridge Lagoon: Rouse Street East, Graham Street East, Liardet Street East, Esplanade East and Pickles Street. This was before any bridges crossed this dominant water feature.…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians