Port Melbourne History – Page 27 – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Answering the Call

Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 29, 2015

Gusty winds of around 90 kph on previous days had whipped off the covers to give a premature glimpse of the Answering the Call sculpture which commemorates the Navy's association with Port Melbourne going back to 1859. The Navy is back in Port. Projects such as this have a long gestation and call on patience and dogged perseverance. As early as 1997, Don Boyle and Elizabeth…

First Flush at the All England Eleven

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 29, 2015

corner Princes and Rouse Streets, Port Melbourne, October 2015 This unprepossessing corner was once the site of the All England Eleven Hotel. The hotel was demolished in 1953 according to this account in The Herald of this week's date: "If you stand in Princes Street, Port Melbourne and look in through the windows of the derelict All England Eleven Hotel, you…

Walking the War in Port

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 23, 2015

This week, PMHPS received a commendation for its Port Melbourne First World War Centenary Project at the Victorian Community History Awards. This article draws on the resources created by the project. Chance, rather than conscious choice, led to a walk on Port Melbourne and the Great War coinciding with the 21st October – the final day of the departure of the first convoy from all…

Cruising

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 16, 2015

Melbourne’s cruise ship season starts on 27 October when the Noordam berths at Station Pier. Over almost the next eight months there will be 83 other liner visits the pier. As the Noordam is a regular visitor, you will not expect the chief of its owner, Holland America Line, to send a message to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull thanking Australians for…

Loss of a tree

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 9, 2015

Tasmanian blue gum on Liardet Street, December 2007 Not a trace remains of the huge Tasmanian bluegum that was such a presence on Liardet Street for many years. Tasmanian bluegums are not indigenous to this area, of course. Perhaps the tree was planted in the eighties when there was renewed interest in Australian trees. Earlier this year, I spoke with the arborist who…

Redevelopment sites in Port Melbourne

Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 24, 2015

Sandridge Motors, near the Graham Street overpass, is for sale by Exrpession of Interest. According to the board, the land is zoned General Residential with a maximum height limit of 18 metres (6 storeys). The Clare Castle Hotel on the other side of the overpass is also for sale. It too is on land zoned General Residential "offering excellent future development…

An Almost Forgotten Man

People, Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 17, 2015

Margaret Bride writes: This is a story told to me by my Grandmother and also by my Mother. The period is some time in the ten years before the First World War, perhaps about 1910. Johnny was a young man with a moderate intellectual disability who lived with his mother in Port Melbourne, I think in Graham Street. Johnny was paid…

Fire at Port Theatre, Bay Street, Port Melbourne Sunday 30 August 2015 - Courtesy MFB Facebook Page

Part of Port’s history up in smoke

Port Melbourne HistorySeptember 3, 2015

3 September 2015 Fire at the former Port Theatre, Bay Street, Port Melbourne Sunday 30 August 2015 - Courtesy MFB Facebook Page Another piece of Port Melbourne’s history may have been claimed by fire. The building that was once the Port Theatre, on the corner of Bay and Liardet Streets, was severely damaged by fire last Sunday. Around 80 fire fighters…

Electric Sparks

Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 27, 2015

I've been reading a lot of newspapers recently but not the Leader or the Weekly Review that appear in our mailboxes each week these days, I've been reading the Port Melbourne Standard from the time of the First World War. The National Library of Australia have digitised all the weekly editions of the Standard from those war years and added them…

Port’s Woman Test Cricketer

People, Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 14, 2015

Peggy Antonio was born in Port in 1917. Her father, Francis Antonio, died when she was 15 months old. He was a Chilean docker of French and Spanish parentage. She learned to play cricket with boys in the streets around her Port Melbourne home. In 1930 after completing a shorthand and typing course, she got a job making boxes in Raymond’s shoe…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians