Port Melbourne History – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

A streetcar named desire?

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‘!…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Streets and Reserves of the Fishermans Bend Estate

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryApril 4, 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…

The Whitaker Family: Braidwood to Montague

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 21, 2025

by David F Radcliffe Allan Whittaker, a stevedore, was shot by police at Hogans Flat, near Princes Pier, on 2 November 1928. The injuries he sustained resulted in his untimely death on 26 January 1929. He was 38. These events have been commemorated annually since 2013. A short film, An Ordinary Life: The Story of Allan Whittaker, released in…

Ada Polson

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 7, 2025

Margaret Bride writes about her mother, Ada Florence Bellion, born in Port Melbourne in 1891. A very early photograph of Ada, aged about 3, shows a sturdy child with a mass of curls. Her deep auburn coloured hair led to her nick-name of Bluey when she was a young woman. Ada, circa 1894 My Mother, Ada Florence Bellion, was born in…

Meet the Borowski Family

People, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 21, 2025

by David F Radcliffe When writing Changing Fortunes in 2020, I could not find any photographs of the many people and families featured in the book. Through writing their stories, I came to know them, even though I had never ‘seen’ them. Just before Christmas 2024, Rudolph and Mary Borowski, who lived at 47 Spring Street East for nearly fifty years, suddenly…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians