Places – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

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…

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…

Mitchell Crescent

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 7, 2025

by David Thompson Mitchell Crescent is a private street that runs through the public housing estate between Nott Street and Bay Street curving towards Rouse Street at the back of the Exchange Hotel. The large block on the western side of Bay Street between Rouse Street and the beach served as the cable tram depot from 1890 until the tramway…

The Pumping Station – The Beazley Family Connection

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 13, 2024

For many years the Beazley family were fisherfolk, working the Bay and selling their catch from the garage next to their home in Dow Street. Leonard 'Dugga' Beazley was the last of the fishermen retiring in 2016 after participating in the buy-out of the Port Phillip Bay commercial fishing licences. But the Beazley family also had a close association…

Johnston Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 6, 2024

by David F. Radcliffe Johnston Street runs from Graham Street to Beaconsfield Parade, one block back from Pickles Street. It was gazetted in 1865 along with many other streets on the eastern side of Sandridge Lagoon: Rouse Street East, Graham Street East, Liardet Street East, Esplanade East and Pickles Street. This was before any bridges crossed this dominant water feature.…

McCormack: A Slender Street in Two Parts

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 1, 2024

by David F Radcliffe In her 2014 article on McCormack St, Robyn Clinch sketched the life of publican Thomas McCormack, after whom the street was named. The McCormack family lived on the southern part of this slender street between Bridge Street and Esplanade East. McCormack Street also extends northward from Bridge Street to Spring Street East. Each part has a distinct…

Growing up in Port Melbourne

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 18, 2024

Jim Sinclair extracts from an interview conducted by John May and Janet Bolitho on 30 June 2020. Where and when were you born Jim? I was born in 1924 in Cruikshank St, in Port Melbourne. My father was a fireman at Eastern Hill Fire Station. I don’t know what my mother did when she was working. She must of…

Little Cruikshank (aka Little Pickles) Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 4, 2024

by David F Radcliffe Little Cruickshank Street runs between Liardet and Bridge Streets, providing access to the rear of properties on Cruickshank and Pickles Streets, Port Melbourne. This right-of-way was formed when the Crown Land on the eastern shore of the Sandridge Lagoon was surveyed and sold in the 1870s. Entrance to Little Cruickshank Street from Liardet Street It was never…

Melville (aka Malvery) Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 6, 2024

by David F Radcliffe Melville is a difficult-to-find street near the Port Melbourne Tennis Club; blink and you miss it. When the Crown Land south of Graham Street between Ross and Clark was surveyed and sold between 1868 and 1869, Albert Street was the only internal access road.[i] Melville was created as a private right-of-way in the late 1870s when…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians