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

A Builder’s Signature?

Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 22, 2019
Decorative Eaves on Workers’ Cottages A constant delight of Port Melbourne is the avenues of workers cottages built during the real estate boom of the late Victorian era. Yet there is much more to these small wooden homes with their pretty iron lacework than first meets the eye. If you look up at the eaves between the main roof structure…

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Tarver Street

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryMay 23, 2019
Tarver St is a short street - only 500m long - between Prohasky and Salmon Sts in Port Melbourne. William Richardson Tarver was born in Daventry, Northamptonshire and came to Australia on the steamship Great Britain in 1857 aged 12. His brother, Thomas, had preceded him, arriving the year before on the Royal Charter. Their father, James ,established the Vulcan…

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Esplanade West

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 1, 2017
Esplanade West, Port Melbourne Little did I know that buying our house in Esplanade West, would change the direction of my life. Esplanade West is an intriguing name for a street, and it led to an early interest in how it had come to be so named. I learned about the shaping influence of the Sandridge Lagoon on Port’s history and development.…

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Anti-conscription in Port

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 19, 2016
Had you been living in Port in October 1916, you would have been very aware of the referendum on conscription that was looming on 28 October. Campaigning was intense. The question to be put to electors was: Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service,…

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Answering the Call

Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 29, 2015
Gusty winds of around 90 kph on previous days had whipped off the covers to give a premature glimpse of the Answering the Call sculpture which commemorates the Navy's association with Port Melbourne going back to 1859. The Navy is back in Port. Projects such as this have a long gestation and call on patience and dogged perseverance. As early as 1997, Don Boyle and Elizabeth…

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‘The Lagoon Question’

Port Melbourne HistoryJanuary 15, 2015
The 'Lagoon question' preoccupied the residents and Council of Port Melbourne for decades. For those readers not familiar with the extent of the Sandridge Lagoon, it is clearly shown in this map and was described by surveyor Grimes in 1803 ... a salt lagoon about a mile long and quarter mile wide. Had not entrance to the sea. The township of…

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Keeping Warm in Port

Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 23, 2014
South Melbourne Gasworks It is one of Port’s often told stories - how people ‘knocked off’ coal from the trucks taking coal to the Gasworks from Town Pier at the end of Bay Street. Emily Lock remembered "The different cargoes were a source of wonder. Some of them brought coal for the Gasworks. It was a dirty job unloading the coal into small…

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Sad record

People, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 6, 2014
Last week, Steve Tserkezidis introduced members to the wealth of resources available at the Public Record Office of Victoria. It just so happened that this week, the PRO's record of the week relates to a Port Melbourne story: Women convicted of Murder. Here is the sad story of Emma Courtenay Williams, Prisoner 6391, 1855 - 1895: 'Emma and her husband arrived…

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Foundation stories

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 10, 2013
PMHPS finds it endlessly fascinating that it is still possible to 'read' the shaping stories of Port Melbourne in its street layout - the influence of the Lagoon and the Railway in particular. Township of Sandridge 1860, State Library of Victoria This is well explained in this report: "Perhaps the most significant element of Port Melbourne's infrastructure in terms of its ability to…

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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.