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Welcome

2007 07 East Melbourne Google EarthWelcome to the East Melbourne Historical Society.

East Melbourne is a tiny suburb adjoining the city of Melbourne bounded by Treasury and Fitzroy Gardens to the west, Victoria Parade to the north, Hoddle Street to the east and Yarra Park to the south, home of the famous Melbourne Cricket Ground. East Melbourne was included in Robert Hoddle's original 1837 plan for the city but the first private house was not built until 1853. The suburb today reflects a history of Victoria with its beautiful gardens, grand houses of the gold rush era and workmen's cottages. Cast iron lacework adorns the houses, bluestone cobbled lanes lead to old coach houses and brick dunnies. Artists, scientists, politicians, judges, educators, priests, explorers, entrepreneurs, courtesans, philanthropists and social activists lived here and many a tale is told of characters wild and exotic.

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Site statistics

Catalogue items:
2263
Biographies:
802
Building histories:
241
Gallery images:
585
Maps:
52

Recent articles

East Melbourne at Work

East Melbourne in the past was generally regarded as a purely residential suburb with little commercial or industrial activity except for the large and very visible enterprises of the Bedggood shoe factory in Jolimont and the Victoria Brewery in Victoria Parade.  But there were a number of smaller highly successful businesses, many tucked away down lanes and behind houses.  The firm o

Murray and Crow’s workshop.  State Library of Victoria, Accession no: H37116
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Reach for the Sky

Ask those who live in East Melbourne about the different styles of local architecture and they will identify the rare houses still existing from the 1850s and 1860s, the beautiful long  lines of terraces in Powlett St and the iron lace-trimmed free standing mansions which are the pride of the neighbourhood.

ICI House. Postcard. Victorian Places website.
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Harold Parsons Memorial

  In mid-May I was crossing the wedge of green space on the north west corner of the intersection of Hoddle Street and Wellington Parade/Bridge Road known as Weedon Reserve. In that small park is a monument to someone who has slipped out of the public memory, but who in his day was a celebrity as a world record-holder in motor cycling events. 

Harold Parsons memorial.  Photo Sylvia Black
Harold Parsons takes a ride.  Photo Public Records Office of Victoria
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Dr Samuel Peacock of Eastbourne House

Eastbourne House stands on the corner of Wellington Parade and Simpson Street in East Melbourne.  It is a two-storey building of 16 rooms, with a large balcony overhanging Simpson Street, and is classified by the National Trust.  It was built for Dr Samuel Peacock in 1902.  He used Eastbourne House as a residence, a surgery and a private hospital solely for female patients.

Eastbourne House.  Photo Graham Shepherd
Dr Samuel Peacock.  Photo Cyclopedia of Victoria (1903)
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Marching for Justice

On 15 March this year more than 5,000 people gathered in East Melbourne’s Treasury Gardens, many dressed in black, many carrying banners. They streamed up the steps from Parliament station, alighted from trams which had come from all over the city, and walked with determination from the nearby suburbs.

Cloth scroll with the signatures of hundreds of protestors laid out on the grass
Sculpture represents Monster Petition signed by suffragettes in 1891
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Forthcoming activities

John Glover and Me

Presenter(s): 
Dr Sue Barker
Start: 
Wednesday 17 Aug 2022 - 7:30pm
Location: 
East Melbourne Library, 122 George Street, East Melbourne
Entry fee: 
Members free; non-members $5.00

Dr Sue Barker is a descendant of early colonial artist, John Glover.  She is a local resident and well known to many of us.  

She will take us through John Glover's life and work as seen through the prism of family connections.

It is sure to be an erudite and entertaining talk.

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Yarra Park State School: it's establishment and early days

Presenter(s): 
Ian Hind
Start: 
Wednesday 19 Oct 2022 - 7:30pm
Location: 
East Melbourne Library, 122 George Street, East Melbourne
Entry fee: 
Members free; non-members $5.00

Ian Hind has been researching and compiling a history of Yarra Park State School for over a year and has uncovered a mass of material.  

He will tell us about the whys and wherefores of the school's establishment and regale us with some stories of those who made it happen.  Stories, too, of early students and what life was like for them at the school.

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Recent acquisitions

Abandoned Melbourne

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A collection of photographs taken during Melbourne's first Covid-19 lockdown in 2020.  Gavin John, an established landscape photographer, turned his talents to scenes closer to home.  Well-known sites around Melbourne, normally buzzing with people, are shown deserted.  The forms and shapes of the city are revealed without the usual distractions.

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East Melbourne & Jolimont Community Magazines 2021

Local magazine published by the East Melbourne Group covering matters of local concern. Community news.  Three issues for the year published in May, August and November

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  • 130 reads

East Melbourne Housing Classifications - review 2000

In 2000 the City of Melbourne initiated a review of property classifications in East Melbourne.  The proposal was to remove all the properties from the Heritage Inventory which had a grading of E or F.  In the future the Inventory would only include four levels of classification, from A to D.  

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Yarra Park School. Plan for installation of heaters, 1938-39

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Plan for installation of heaters and sliding doors at Yarra Park State School, Wellington Parade, East Melbourne.  Dated 1938-39 and numbered 142.

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A Cook, a book and a new look

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Newspaper clipping about the launch of a new book, Blak Cook Book, by Dr Clare Land, Dr Paola Balla and Kate Golding on behalf of the City of Melbourne.  The book features a range of stories and artworks which seek to balance the story of Captain Cook's 'discovery' of Australia with an Aboriginal perspective. 

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