by David Thompson
After so many years having a public holiday for the Queen’s Birthday, it felt a bit strange to have one for the King's Birthday in 2023. The public holiday honouring the monarch's official birthday, at least for football followers, means a blockbuster match between Melbourne and Collingwood at the MCG and the Neale Daniher-led Big Freeze event…
During the course of researching the Society’s World War One Centenary Project we have been struck by the sheer number and variety of patriotic and fundraising events in Port Melbourne during the war years.
Sometimes the proceeds went to local causes but the majority were for some aspect or other of the war effort. There were plenty of local people…
‘On Tuesday morning [12 Nov 1918], before 8 o’clock, the 700 girls and 650 men and lads employed at … Swallow and Ariell assembled at the factory – but not to work’. They cheered the King, the Empire, the Allies, and Australia again and again. They then formed a procession with the company’s motor wagons and led by a car they…
About 7.30pm on Monday 11 Nov 1918, around the time the Bay steamers were returning from their day’s excursion, the news that Germany had signed the armistice reached the port. Suddenly a 'powerful whistle on the Port Melbourne shore echoed across the Bay'1 and for the next half hour the Bayside resounded to the grand chorus of sirens and ship’s whistles.…