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

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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A streetcar named desire?

Port Melbourne HistoryMay 23, 2025
by Albert Caton I was leafing through a copy of the December 2023 ‘Costco Connections’ magazine when a photograph at page 48 reminded me of the donut van that parked of a weekend between Station and Princes piers during the 1950s when I was a kid. Lo and behold, glancing at the author, Lisa Goldberg’s, text, I noticed ‘Port Melbourne‘!…

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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…

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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…

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George Furner Langley

People, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 26, 2025
A Port Melbourne man’s role in the North Africa Campaign of World War I Margaret Bride The political world map of 1913 is unrecognisable to us in 2025. The fading dominance of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa played a significant part in the events of World War I but most Australians…

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Anzac Day in Port Melbourne 2025

Port Melbourne HistoryApril 25, 2025
A crowd gathered on Beach St on a warm and breezy morning for the annual Anzac commemoration 'close to the piers where our troops embarked'. MC Dale Allchin's firm hand guided the proceedings. All speakers addressed enduring Anzac themes of courage and sacrifice while highlighting particular stories. Josh Burns MHR, Mayor Louise Crawford and Brigadier Thomas Nairn with…

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The Whitaker Family: Montague to Port

People, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 17, 2025
by David F Radcliffe The Whitaker Family: Braidwood to Montague introduces Joseph Whitaker and Alice McFarlane who married in rural NSW in 1892. It tells the story of Alice being widowed aged 27 with four young children to support, the family’s move to Montague, an industrial area in South Melbourne, her second husband Ormas Towers deserting them and the impact on…

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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.