Places – Page 5 – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

February 1942 – War Comes Close to Home

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 18, 2022

by David Radcliffe Eighty years ago this month, the Second World War came very close to Port Melbourne. Early in the morning of February 26, 1942, a small float plane, launched from a Japanese submarine, conducted a reconnaissance flight around Port Phillip Bay, observing the port and other facilities. That morning, Marlene Firman and her younger sister, Gloria, were sound…

Bismarck Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 4, 2022

by David Radcliffe Around Port Melbourne there are streets, like Bain Street, that once existed but have since disappeared. There are many more streets whose name has been changed. In April 1878, a cluster of intersecting streets in the south-western corner of the rapidly expanding Sandridge were gazetted as shown below.1 One of these was Bismarck Street. Note the self-referential nature of…

The Leading Lights

Places, Planning & Preservation, Port Melbourne HistoryJanuary 28, 2022

Port Melbourne's beacons, also known as the leading lights, define the centre line of the Port Melbourne Channel. The light was visible for 14 nautical miles. Until superseded by more recent technology, the beacons guided vessels safely to the piers. In 1923 once the new Railway Pier, later Princes Pier, was fully operational, the Melbourne Harbor Trust wrote to…

103 Beach Street (formerly The Beacon Cove Foodstore)

Places, Planning & PreservationJanuary 13, 2022

July 2021 The site was purchased by Sydney-based developer Ilya Melnikoff in July 2021 for $16.65 million. This will be only their second project in Melbourne - the first being in Albert St, East Melbourne. The 1400 sq m site was acquired from Melbourne developer V-Leader, which paid $11.2 million for it in 2017. The development will be re-branded as Pier…

Barkly Avenue

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 3, 2021

Surely such a grandly named boulevard would be one of the more prominent streets in Port Melbourne. Nothing could be further from the truth. Barkly Avenue is a short laneway off Garton Street, tucked in behind Crockford Street. It is named in honour of Sir Henry Barkly who was Governor of Victoria when the Borough of Sandridge gained separation from…

Smith Street and Smith Reserve

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 5, 2021

Two streets, one in Port and one in South Melbourne, as well as a section of Port Melbourne's Railway Reserves, bear the name Smith. And that doesn't take into account the curious occurrence of, what is now, Frangipani Court also being referred to as Smith Street in the Sand's & McDougall Directories from 1915 to 1974. But why are…

GMH Social Centre

Places, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 10, 2021

Former GMH Social Centre. Photograph by David Thompson. The former General Motors-Holden Social Centre is tucked away off Salmon Street. Constructed in 1945 by Richmond builder, E A Watts Ltd, the building hosted concerts, balls and all manner of GMH employee functions but, primarily, was their canteen. Typical fare in the mid-1990s included French Onion soup (70c), Beef Stroganoff ($3.50) and…

Derham Street

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 2, 2021

Frederick Thomas Derham was born in Somerset, England, in 1844 and arrived in Melbourne with his family in 1856. Derham's first business undertaking was as a mercantile broker with Callender Calwell & Co. In 1864, he married Ada Anderson with whom he had three sons and a daughter. Ada died in 1874. Derham had met Thomas Swallow, founder of Swallow…

The Mystery of Dubbeldan’s Lane

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 4, 2021

Research by David Radcliffe and David Thompson In July 2021, Allan Marshall posted a photograph of Doubledan's Lane, Port Melbourne from Building and Real Estate magazine, February 1916 (above) on the Born and Bred in Port Melbourne Facebook page stating that he had checked period maps but couldn’t find any mention of the location. Allan posts old photographs of Port on…

My Favourite Port Melbourne Place – Answering the Call

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 22, 2021

by Vicki Radcliffe When Margret Bride announced that she would be looking for new members to do a short presentation on their favourite Port Melbourne place, I immediately thought of the foreshore of Port Melbourne beach and, more specifically, the bronze memorial statue of a sailor looking outwards to the bay. This statue intrigued me right from the first time…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians