People – Page 3 – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Garton Street

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 1, 2023

by David F Radcliffe Garton Street is a quiet cul-de-sac at the northern boundary of Port Melbourne. Gazetted in March 1860, this short street was settled soon after, as Sandridge expanded rapidly under the population pressures of the gold rush. Today it has an eclectic range of dwellings from different eras. There is also a disused factory. The street was…

Cyril Letts Reserve

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 4, 2023

by David Thompson Cyril Letts Reserve, 2023. Photograph by David Thompson. The triangle-shaped open space between Edwards Avenue and Howe Parade remained an unidentified reserve until the early 1980s when it was named in honour of former Port Melbourne Councillor and Mayor, Cyril Letts. Record, 28 Sep 1968 Cyril was born in Wedderburn in October 1908 and came to Port Melbourne in…

William and Christiana Barlow

People, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 20, 2023

by David F Radcliffe In November 1862, William James Barlow, aged 29, married Christiana Caroline Stivey, aged 18, at Holy Trinity Church in Bay Street. They started married life in a rented four-room wooden house at the very southern end of Station Place. Christiana gave birth to their first child, James, in early 1863. Later that year, the young family…

Turville Place

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 2, 2023

by David F Radcliffe Because Princes Street, originally called Railway Place, runs parallel to the Melbourne to Hobson’s Bay Railway, the block bounded by Graham, Stokes, Liardet and Princes Streets (Crown Block 10) is trapezoidal rather than rectangular in shape. Turville Place was created to provide access to the interior parts of the southern portion of this block. Unlike “interior”…

Pat Grainger 1930 – 2023

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 24, 2023

Pat Grainger neé Herman was born in Spokane, WA in north-west USA in 1930. After attaining a BA in fine art and music theory from Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA she moved to Los Angeles, CA to study and practice commercial art. In LA, Pat worked with Art Director Les Mason and they married in 1956. In the early…

Miss Elsie Holmes

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 9, 2023

Miss Elsie Holmes was a forewoman at Swallow and Ariell, the biscuit manufacturing company, during the First World War. Her father also worked for the company, as did many other people in Princes St where the family lived. Her exceptional administrative and organisational abilities came to the fore during the First World War. She brought together a group of…

A L Nathan of the London Hotel

People, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 17, 2023

by David Thompson A L Nathan. The Record, 23 January 1923. In December 1922, Alfred Lewis Nathan retired as publican of the London Hotel, Beach Street selling the hotel to Mrs Emily Elsie Cotter of the Wayside Inn, City Road, South Melbourne intending to take a trip to Europe in May the following year.[1] A L Nathan had taken over the…

Picturing Bessie Ross

People, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 9, 2022

by David F Radcliffe After we bought our Victorian era place on Esplanade East in 2017, I wondered when it was built and who had lived here previously. This led to the discovery that the allotment on which our house now stands was purchased by Elizabeth Ross and Simon Patience at a Crown Land auction in December 1883. Who were they…

Allan Whittaker commemoration 2022

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 18, 2022

The weather settled briefly at midday on Thursday 3rd November for the Allan Whittaker commemoration. A bank of clouds over Williamstown edged closer but no rain fell. Kevin Bracken tells the Whittaker story photo Janet Bolitho In front of the recently named Allan Whittaker Centre, Kevin Bracken re-told the now familiar story of the…

Otto Schumacher: Entrepreneurial Engineer

People, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 21, 2022

by David F Radcliffe What many remember as the Knox-Schlapp factory on the corner of Graham Street and Esplanade East in the shadow of the former gasometer was originally the Schumacher Mill Furnishing Works. The entrepreneurial Otto Schumacher erected this facility in stages over three decades. Its facades provided a billboard proudly promoting the many products made there and engineering…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians