From a young age most children spent their free time unsupervised by adults. Sometimes an older sister or brother would be put in charge of their siblings, the one ‘in charge’ sometimes only seven or eight themselves. The freedom enjoyed by children even involved them going to the beach to play, although they might be forbidden from going in the…
Going to the Pictures in Port Melbourne
Reminiscences on the Port Theatre at Liardet and Bay Streets and the Eclipse Theatre at Crockford and Pickles Streets in Port Melbourne.
Transcribed by the Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society
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The Vintage Port Film Society was formed in 1990 and ran for sixteen years until 2006. Pat Grainger was a member and donated to PMHPS a dossier of film schedules, programme/program notes and some newsletters from 1995 to 2006 (Cat No 4482).
The Film Society was set up by Frank and Serena Steuart and monthly screenings took place at their…
Bay Street at Spring Street (2021). Photo: David Thompson, PMHPS Collection.
Bay Street has always been both a route and a destination. Vehicles now, as then, travel north and south, but in 1840 it was no more than a dusty track leading to Melbourne.
Port Melbourne Town Hall (1883). City of Port Phillip Collection.
By 1900 it was a broad thoroughfare lined…
Hoyt's Eclipse Theatre, Port Melbourne, C1940s. Harold Paynting Collection, SLV
The Hoyt's Eclipse Theatre in Port Melbourne almost missed its silver anniversary according to an article in the Argus newspaper from 1949.
The story goes, a woman living in the neighbourhood found a newspaper from November 1924 under her lino that described the opening of “new and modern movie house”. She…