Melbourne Australia

EAGLEMONT
Eaglemont is an elevated residential suburb 10 km. north-east of Melbourne. It is part of Ivanhoe. The name is probably derived from Mount Eagle, a Crown Grant property acquired by Thomas Walker, N.S.W., in 1838. Walker was the author of "A Month in the Bush of Australia" (1838) and he was one of the representatives of the Port Phillip District elected to the New South Wales Legislative Council in 1843. He sold the property to John Browne, father of the author Rolfe Boldrewood.
Until the turn of the century Eaglemont was a place of large estates and scattered houses. The depression caused some houses to be vacated, and the plein air school of painters were able to cheaply rent one at the Mount Eagle Estate, shortly after railway access was made possible by the extension to Heidelberg in 1888. Mount Eagle and the surrounding area were already renowned for fine views and appealing landscape. As Ivanhoe underwent rapid subdivision in the years before the first world war, Eaglemont was something of an elevated country retreat. A golf club was established in 1898, leaving the site in 1910 for one near the Rosanna railway station. A tennis club was formed in 1912. The move by the golf club and the formation of the tennis club coincided with the subdivision of several estates, which were provoked by a direct rail link to Melbourne in 1901. In 1902-3 Harold Annear, architect, designed three stylish and innovative house at 32, 34 and 38 The Eyrie. In 1915 Walter Burley Griffin laid out an estate of three streets (Glenard Drive area), and other subdivisions bear evidence of his landscape ideas. When the Eaglemont and Mount Eagle estate was subdivided for housing the advertisement stated that all streets were one chain wide and planted with choice English trees. Any house to be erected was restricted to a value of 750 pounds of more, two or three times the cost of more modest houses. That restriction has been maintained either by caveat or custom.

EAST MELBOURNE
East Melbourne is a residential and commercial suburb which retains a number of religious and institutional buildings on land grants made during the nineteenth century. It borders central Melbourne's Spring Street, and its other boundaries are Victoria Parade, Hoddle Street/Punt Road and the Yarra River. The Government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, prepared a plan for East Melbourne in 1837, with roads correctly running north-south and east-west on contrast to the skewed directions of central Melbourne's streets which took their axis from the direction of the Yarra River. Hoddle's plan had a grid layout north of the extension of Flinders Street, i.e. Wellington Parade, and the north-south Police and Government Paddocks from Wellington Parade to the river. The plan was not implemented, and settlement leap-frogged East Melbourne to Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond.
An early resident of East Melbourne was Charles La Trobe, Superintendent of the Port Phillip District, who was obliged to buy at auction the land he had chosen at Jolimont, off Wellington Parade, as the place on which to erect his transportable dwelling. He bought the land at his opening bid in 1840. La Trobe's cottage survives on a reserve across the Yarra River, near the Botanic Gardens. Numerous reservations were made for churches and schools, particularly along Albert Street. These reservations are north of a larger reserve which became Fitzroy Gardens.

EDEN PARK
Eden Park, 38 km. north of Melbourne, is 4 km. west of Whittlesea. The area was surveyed and sold between 1840 and 1854, when Ewen Robertson acquired about 400 ha. and built a twelve-roomed homestead named Breadalbane. In 1888 Robertson sold most of the land to an investor, who subdivided it into over 1,300 lots. Roads were laid out in a grid pattern over most of the subdivision, but the roads in the north-west randomly ran along contours or at right angles to some steeper contours. In all cases the land is gravelley and prone to sheet, tunnel and gully erosion. The estate was marketed as "Eden park".

EDITHVALE
Edithvale is 28 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Kingston. At the 2006 Census, Edithvale had a population of 4991. Edithvale is best known for its long beach of pure white sand and historic bathing boxes. Residents groups have set up the Kingston Boatshed Association to protect these historic treasurers originally constructed by their owners for family activities such as swimming and fishing. The waters of Port Phillip Bay provide an excellent reflection as the sun sets directly facing the shore. Edithvale Post Office opened on 20 April 1923. Edithvale railway station opened on September 20, 1919.

ELSTERNWICK
Elsternwick is a residential suburb 9 km. south-south-east of Melbourne between bayside Elwood and Caulfield South. The name is derived from "elster", the German word for magpie and the Anglo-Saxon "wick" meaning village. Charles Ebden (the builder of Black Rock House, Black Rock, 1856), also had a house in the Elsternwick area, which it is though he named Elster. The name Elsternwick came into general use in the late 1850s.
Elsternwick village was surveyed in 1856, situated on the Elster Creek, which later became the Elwood Canal. The village's location is partly occupied by today's Gardenvale. Elsternwick's western boundary is notionally in Elwood where Elsternwick Park is situated. Elsternwick primary school (1889) is nearby. The suburb extends eastwards across the Nepean Highway and the railway line, particularly along the Glenhuntly Road shopping strip for about one-and-a-half kilometres to Kooyong Road.
In 1861 the Melbourne and Suburban Railway Co. completed the railway line from Melbourne to Brighton, via Elsternwick. The effect on Elsternwick was to make its large residential estates more accessible to Melbourne rather than to provoke subdivisions. By 1880, however, some large land owners released land for subdivision and the process gathered pace during the coming decade. The tramline was opened along Glenhuntly Road (where the railway line and station intersected with it), in 1889.

ELTHAM
Eltham is 20 km north-east of Melbourne. It was surveyed as a village in 1840, near the junction of the Diamond Creek and the Yarra River, coinciding approximately with the track marked by the Ryries to provide access from their property near Yarra Glen to the Heidelberg village. The name probably derives from one of several Elthams in England. In 1857 town allotments were sold in both the surveyed site and a little northwards. The latter was promoted by a speculator as Little Eltham and it sold better and influenced the ultimate town centre. During the period of the Caledonia Diggings (centred on St. Andrews and Panton Hill), Eltham's population grew as the town became a food, produce and supply centre for the mining communities (1860s - 1880s). A post office was opened in 1854 and a flour mill, brewery, brick works and tannery later in the decade. There were also two churches, a primary school (1856), a police station and a court house. Eltham also became a stopping place en route to the Woods Point Diggings. In the 1880s agitation began for extension of the railway from Heidelberg, to serve Eltham and districts further afield such as Kangaroo Ground. The extension came to Eltham in 1902, but never to Kangaroo Ground.


Elwood Beach
ELWOOD
Elwood, a bayside suburb, is south of St. Kilda and 8 km. south of Melbourne. Its name is surmised to have come from the Quaker historian and poet, Thomas Elwood, a friend of the poet Milton. Lieut. Governor La Trobe, who had influence in the naming of places, had a high regard for Quakers. Elwood has two geographic features: the Elster Creek, with headwaters in Bentleigh, flows north-easterly to the flat landscape of Elwood, and now enters Port Phillip Bay by a straightened stream, named the Elwood Canal (1887); and Point Ormond, a little south of the canal, was the receiving place for passengers form the typhoid ship, Glen Huntly, in 1841. (It was also known as Red Bluff, but renamed after the father of the philanthropist, Francis Ormond.) Land surveys and sales of land in Elwood, south of Point Ormond, occurred in 1850-1. In the mid 1860s Elwood was a small hamlet on swampy ground, with a few properties on the higher ground south of the Point. In 1870 the area was incorporated with St. Kilda borough.


Emerald Lake
EMERALD
Emerald, a township in the Dandenong Ranges, is 44 km. east-south-east of Melbourne. The name came from Emerald Creek (also known as Ti Tree Creek) which was named after a prospector Jack Emerald who was murdered in 1858. In the same year the Emerald gold diggings were opened, centred on alluvial workings on the Emerald and other creeks. A town reserve was approved in 1859. By 1860 a rudimentary township grew near the miners' encampment. Mining was intermittent, but residents had rural pursuits such as eucalyptus-leaf harvesting for the distilling of eucalyptus oil. Settlers first selected land for farming in the late 1870s. The locality's development was marked by the opening of the narrow-gauge railway from Belgrave to Gembrook (1900) later to become the Puffing Billy scenic railway.

ENDEAVOUR HILLS
Endeavour Hills is 31 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Casey. At the 2006 Census, Endeavour Hills had a population of 25,006. The land in the area was home firstly to the Aboriginal people and was later settled by Europeans, who came after the 1830s. They mainly used the land for farming and cattle runs. Because of the many pine trees in the area, Endeavour Hills was almost called 'Piney Ridge', or 'Pine Hills'. In 1970, the name 'Endeavour Hills' was coined in honour of the two hundredth anniversary of Captain James Cook's arrival in Botany Bay. The estate was officially opened in 1974 under this name. The suburb as we know it today began with the development of a small housing estate named Endeavour Hills.

EPPING
Epping is a suburb 18 km. north of Melbourne, on the Darebin Creek. It is the terminus of a metropolitan railway line. An unnamed village reserve was surveyed in 1839 where Epping later developed. The village was named Epping in 1853, probably after Epping Forest, Essex, England, by when there were a hotel (1844) and a Catholic school. The Epping Road Board was established a year later. In 1870 the area around Epping became Darebin shire, which was re-named Epping shire in 1893 until united with Whittlesea shire in 1915. By the time the shire was created Epping township contained several churches, hotels and a state school as well as church school. Farmers of Irish origin predominated, but English, Scots and Germans settled there. There were several dairy farms. The Melbourne to Whittlesea railway (1889-1960) had a station at Epping, and the main areas to benefit were the transport of milk and quarry products.


trams outside Essendon Airport
ESSENDON / ESSENDON NORTH / ESSENDON WEST
Essendon is 10 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley. At the 2006 Census, Essendon had a population of 18,213. Essendon and the banks of the Maribyrnong River were originally inhabited by the Wurundjeri tribe of the Kulin Aboriginal peoples. In 1803 Charles Grimes and James Fleming were the first known European explorers into the Maribyrnong area. In 1851 the gold rush opened up the Moonee Ponds District with miners travelling along Mount Alexander Road to Castlemaine. Essendon Post Office opened on 18 August 1856.

EUMEMMERRING
Eumemmerring is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 33 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Casey. At the 2006 Census, Eumemmerring had a population of 1672. Eumemmerring Post Office opened in a rural area on 1 April 1890, but closed in 1895. The name is of Aboriginal origin.

FAIRFIELD
Fairfield, a residential and industrial suburb east of Northcote, is 6 km. north-east of Melbourne. It includes a southerly portion surrounded on three sides by meanders of the Merri Creek and the Yarra River, chiefly consisting of open space and once containing institutions dating from colonial times, notable the Yarra Bend asylum. Land sales in the Fairfield area were included in those extending from Northcote to Alphington in 1840. The early villages were Alphington and Northcote (where today's Westgarth is situated). In the early 1880s a land speculator, Charles Henry James, bought up large tracts of land in the district, and sold some of it in subdivided form in an estate named Fairfield Park, apparently a name taken from Derbyshire. (James is acknowledged to have been one of Melbourne's first and most successful land boomers, but the depression of the 1890s saw him lose his Illawarra mansion in Toorak). In 1888 the railway line through Fairfield Park, from Collingwood to Heidelberg, was opened, and Fairfield Park was the junction of the Outer Circle railway from Oakleigh (1891-93). James also had a tram service along Station Street, from the station to Mansfield Street running from 1884 to 1890, connected to the railway line that between 1884 and 1888 ran only from Clifton Hill to Alphington (the line from "no where to no where"). Fairfield was thus launched with a high degree of attention to public access, and the house blocks sold well. They were reasonable value for money in that they were bigger than the standard blocks closer to Melbourne.

FAWKNER
Fawkner is a residential area 12 km. north of Melbourne with the Hume Highway on its west and the Merri Creek on its east. The area was first known as Box Forest, after a farmlets subdivision sold by John Pascoe Fawkner (above) in the early 1850s. The name was superseded by Fawkner fairly soon, although a Box Forest (Anglican) school was opened in 1846 and a Box Forest Road runs along the northern boundary of the Fawkner cemetery. (The original Box Forest subdivision is west of present-day Fawkner.)
When the area north of Coburg was entirely rural, a railway line was opened from Coburg to Somerton, where it joined the main line to Seymour, (1889). In anticipation of this the Coburg Reserve Estate Co. subdivided land for housing, citing the convenience of the North Coburg railway station and another near the present Fawkner station. The venture was unsuccessful. In 1905 the State Government approved the New Melbourne General Cemetery for the northern suburbs, one year after the new eastern suburbs cemetery was opened at Springvale. The cemetery is immediately west of the railway line and the Fawkner station was opened in 1906. Although the station only received mortuary trains at first, a small amount of housing was encourage by its presence, and ordinary passenger trains began in 1914. In 1908 a primary school was opened.
By the outbreak of the second world war Fawkner had about 180 buildings, and shortly after the war the Housing Commission built 113 houses in south Fawkner. Private-sector developers built housing and by 1960 the Moomba Park estate (700 houses) in North Fawkner was begun.

FERNTREE GULLY
Ferntree Gully, originally "Fern Tree Gully" because of the scenic gully now partly in the National Park of the same name, is mostly a large suburban area 32 km. east-south-east of Melbourne. The fern tree gully in the National Park runs along a creek between One Tree Hill and the Upper Ferntree Gully railway station. The gully became an excursion destination in the 1870s, and its popularity increased when the railway was extended from Ringwood to Upper Ferntree Gully in 1889. Seven years before, the land around the gully had been reserved for public purposes, and the reservation was given the status of a national park in 1927.
Upper Ferntree Gully is generally the eastern extremity of the locality. Its western edge is near the junction of Ferntree Gully Road and the Burwood Highway, at the Club Hotel, which had been the coach terminus for excursionists before the railway extension.

FERNY CREEK
Ferny Creek is a township in the Dandenong Ranges between the former Ferntree Gully National Park and the Sherbrooke Forest (now amalgamated in the Dandenong Ranges national Park), and is 33 km. east-south-east of Melbourne. One Tree Hill, in the upper part of the former Ferntree Gully National Park, was an elevation cleared of all trees but one and used as a survey marker in the 1860s. In 1878 land was excised from the forest around One Tree Hill for selection, and thus the Ferny Creek area was first settled. In 1893 the area was the site of a Village Settlement and in 1895 a school was opened. The area was, however, known as One Tree Hill at least until 1897 when a post office was opened and named after the nearby Ferny Creek. A mechanics' institute was built in 1905, about the time when Melburnians began building weekenders in the area.


Fishermans Bend

FISHERMANS BEND
Fishermans Bend is a locality within the suburb of Port Melbourne. It is positioned immediately to the east of the West Gate Bridge, on the south bank of the Yarra River, adjacent to the suburb of Port Melbourne and opposite Coode Island. Fishermens Bend itself was a bend in the Yarra River at Humbug Reach where the Maribyrnong River entered it. After the contruction of Coode Canal in 1886, the name then came to be applied to the land opposite Coode Island also, on the south side of the canal, and even to Sandridge Beach, Port Melbourne west, which became Garden City (renamed in 1929). Fishermans Bend was an early location for Bay fishermen of European descent, from the 1850s. Some thirty families lived on the Bend, frequently finding additional work in the docks and cargo ships. Ballast was loaded onto ships returning to Europe.
Habitation was rough shacks along the Bend, made from corrugated iron, flattened kerosene tins or wood. Water was collected from hanging out sail canvases and stored in iron tanks or casks, and milk came from a nearby farm. The last remaining shack on the Bend was demolished in 1970, to make way for Webb Dock. The primarily industrial suburb of Fishermens Bend also has a significant place in Australian transport history, being the home of several prominent historical design and manufacturing companies including the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, General Motors Holden, the Rootes Group, Smorgon Steel, Government Aircraft Factories, the Aeronautical Research Laboratory and regional facilities for Boeing.

FITZROY
Adjoining the eastern boundary of Carlton, 2 km. north-east of Melbourne's centre, Fitzroy was Melbourne's first suburb. The eastern boundary of Fitzroy adjoins Collingwood. The name comes form Sir Charles Fitz Roy, Governor of New South Wales, 1846-1855. Alexandra Parade divides the former Fitzroy municipality into Fitzroy North and Fitzroy South. In 1839 the area of Fitzroy south of Alexandra Parade was subdivided into lots of about 12 ha. and offered for sale. The area was called Newtown (which tended to extend eastwards into present-day Collingwood), and Newtown subsequently was called Collingwood. Present-day Collingwood was East Collingwood. In 1850 the area now known as Fitzroy was made the Fitzroy Ward of the Melbourne City Council. Three years after East Collingwood became a municipality, a separate Fitzroy municipality was created on 10 September, 1858, by severance of the ward from Melbourne. By then its population was about 10,000 persons. The layout of streets was mostly in the lands of private subdividers: the government surveyor had prescribed only main arteries such as Nicholson, Brunswick, Smith, Gertrude and Johnston Streets.

FITZROY NORTH
Fitzroy North, 4 km. north-east of Melbourne, is separated from Fitzroy (South) by Alexandra Parade. It was laid out in the 1850s, by and large to a design developed by government survey staff in contrast to the under-dimensioned thoroughfares and allotments arising from private speculation and development south of Alexandra Parade. The design was fitted around the north-easterly thoroughfares of Queens Parade and St. Georges Road, the latter running over the Yan Yean water-supply pipe (1857). An unrealised suburban design from the government survey department was "Merriville", but the name is acknowledged by the locality of Merri in Northcote, just over the border. The border is, in fact the Merri Creek. Suburban allotments were not sold until the 1860s and 1870s. The tram in Nicholson Street, along the western boundary, was begun in 1887 and the service along Queens Parade in the same year. Shopping strips developed along the three tram lines, Nicholson Street, St. George's Road and Queens Parade, the last one being the strongest and having the attraction of a plantation and service road protecting it from the main traffic.


Flemington Racecourse

FLEMINGTON
Flemington is an inner residential suburb 4 km. north-west of Melbourne, situated between North Melbourne and Ascot Vale. Flemington's name has either of two possible origins. The more likely is from James Watson who early in 1839 came to Port Phillip as a pastoral agent for English and Scottish investors, as well as investing for himself. He purchased land in Flemington and Heidelberg. His wife was Elisabeth Rose, whose father was manager of the Flemington estate in Scotland. (Watson also named his Heidelberg land Rose-Anna, inspired by his wife's name, and the area later became the suburb of Rosanna.) The other possible origin for the name is thought to be Robert Fleming, who established a butchery on the site later taken by the racecourse. A butchery beside the Saltwater (Maribyrnong) River would have been in keeping with the river's later use for noxious outfalls.
Flemington racecourse was first used for horse racing in March, 1840. In 1848 the Port Phillip Racing Club took a lease of the racecourse site. The first Government land sales were held in December, 1840. Flemington is traversed by Mt. Alexander Road, the route to the Bendigo gold diggings. In 1851 the Flemington bridge over the Moonee Ponds Creek was built, improving the connection to the gold diggings' road out of Melbourne. The Flemington Hotel had been there since about 1848. In 1859 the western part of Flemington was taken for a new stockyards, to relieve the congested facility at Elizabeth Street, Melbourne. Two years later abattoirs were opened near the stockyard. The move coincided with the opening of the railway line from North Melbourne to Essendon, which ran near the stockyard at Newmarket, Flemington's commercial centre.

FLINDERS
Flinders is a town located on the Mornington Peninsula at the point where Western Port meets Bass Strait. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Mornington Peninsula. At the 2006 census, Flinders had a population of 787. The town was named after the explorer and British naval officer Captain Matthew Flinders. Settlement commenced in 1854 and many pioneers and settlers are buried at the Flinders cemetery. Flinders Post Office opened on 7 March 1863 as the population grew.


Footscray

FOOTSCRAY
Footscray is characterised by a very diverse, multicultural central shopping area, which reflects the successive waves of immigration experienced by Melbourne, and by Footscray in particular. It was once a centre for Italian and Macedonian migrants, it is now a hub for Vietnamese, and increasingly, North African immigrants in Melbourne. The inner western suburbs of Melbourne were traditionally undesirable as residential areas due to the presence of heavy industry, however this has changed dramatically as nearly all of the factories have gone over the last decades, and their products now imported. From the 1950s till 1990's the affordability of housing and availability of employment opportunities in these areas have made them attractive to migrants for many years. Greek, Italian, Macedonian, Bosnian and Croatian migrants arrived in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by Vietnamese in the 1970s and 1980s. However, in recent years there has been rapid gentrification as younger people seek affordable period housing close to Melbourne city centre. Footscray was named after Foots Cray in southeast England. The Post Office first opened on 12th October 1857.

FOREST HILL
Forest Hill is a residential suburb 17 km. east of Melbourne immediately south of Blackburn and Nunawading. The area was originally known as Scotchman's Hill and Mt. Pleasant in the 1860s. An early settler was Abraham Rooks (Rooks Road is on the east of Forest Hill), who was a Wesleyan. He was associated with the Mt. Pleasant Wesleyan church (1865), which was the site of the area's first primary school. The church is now the Mt. Pleasant Uniting Church. The name Scotchman's Hill slightly predates 1860 when Scots farmers and woodcutters established a settlement. Both names gave way to Forest Hill, reputedly the name of a cottage occupied by a Captain Bunbury in 1841. The name certainly described the nature of the countryside when first encountered by white settlers.
Forest Hill is about 2 km., south of the Box Hill to Lilydale railway, which resulted in it being unaffected by early land-subdivision schemes. It was mainly a fruit-growing district, with a general store, post office (1874), and a church. A State primary school was opened in 1926. The census population in 1933 was 286. After the second world war orchards near Nunawading were subdivided for housing and Forest Hill's population began to increase. Despite the relative remoteness of the area, a site at the corner of Canterbury and Mahoneys Roads was purchased in 1958 for a drive-in shopping centre, at about the same time as Myer was planning its first shopping centre at Chadstone. Forest Hill Chase, as it was later called, was ahead of its time and its retail catchment, and took another twenty years to achieve its potential. By 1970 Forest Hill's residential form was complete, with a grid street design predating the residential configuration concerned with lessening through traffic.

FRANKSTON / Frankston East / Frankston Heights / Frankston South / Frankston North
Frankston is a small city 39 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Frankston. At the 2006 Census, Frankston had a population of 34,457. Due to its geographical location, the suburb is often referred to as "the gateway to the Mornington Peninsula". Prior to European discovery, the Frankston area was populated by Indigenous Australians known as the Kulin people. Europeans first set foot in Frankston as early as January 30, 1803, thirty two years before the founding of Melbourne, when Captain Charles Grimes and his party went ashore searching for freshwater, and met with around 30 local inhabitants. After the settlement of Melbourne in 1835, James Davey took up a large land holding in 1846, which extended from Olivers Hill to (what is now his namesake) Daveys Bay. Olivers Hill was named after local fisherman, James Oliver, who built a cottage atop the hill from where he kept an eye out for fish in the waters below. The first official land sales in the area were held in 1853, and Frank Liardet (the eldest son of prominent settler, hotelier and descendant of French nobility, Wilburham Liardet), established the "Ballam Ballam" estate in 1854. The estate was the earliest officially recorded settlement in Frankston, and was located to the east of Port Phillip Bay. Liardet's original homestead "Ballam Park" remains today, and is now heritage-listed. Frankston is taken from Liardet's christian name, Frank.