Fishermans Bend – Page 4 – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

On the Beach

Port Melbourne HistoryJanuary 17, 2014

For these hot days, a summer photo. This is a favourite picture from the PMH&PS collection. While charming in itself, there is much to be gleaned from the background. It is taken approximately where the Life Saving Headquarters at Sandridge is today. You can see a house in the immediate background with Princes Pier and the chimney of the Starch Factory…

Beginning and ending: Holden

Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 11, 2013

Today, after weeks of uncertainty but with an increasing sense of foreboding, Holden announced that it will cease to make cars in Australia from 2017. Holden, Port Melbourne, Fishermans Bend - inseparable. This is where Australia began its journey into automobile manufacture and where it will end. There will be much more said, but PMHPS wanted to mark this sad…

More Tales from the Bend

Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 5, 2013

showing the location of the abattoir Whenever PMHPS speaks with people who grew up in Port, tales from the Bend emerge. It seems that the Bend offered the best kind of adventures a boy could have. (Girls seldom went down there). Boys roamed about in a way that would not be permitted in our safety preoccupied times. Many of these stories start…

‘A sodden expanse’ – Fishermans Bend

Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 28, 2013

Rootes Factory in Salmon St. Harold Paynting Collection, State Library of Victoria In the late 1930s Fishermans Bend was on the cusp of a major transformation to industrial development - a change that was anticipated with excitement and optimism. Charles Daley in The History of South Melbourne says: "The once-despised Fishermen's Bend - a no-man's land - under the pressure of economic…

Fishermans Bend – the past and the future

Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 20, 2013

Victoria-Australia Port Phillip Henry L. Cox, State Library of Victoria PMHPS's head is spinning with thinking about its submission to the Fishermans Bend Urban Renewal Area Draft Vision, so this week's post is about .... Fishermans Bend! PMHPS will argue that an understanding of the environmental/natural history of Fishermans Bend is fundamental to planning for its future. So lets look at this…

Metropolitan Planning 1929

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 16, 2013

Last week, Premier Napthine and Planning Minister Guy released Plan Melbourne which sets out the government's vision for Melbourne to 2050. In the Society's collection is a copy of the first plan for Melbourne prepared by the newly formed Metropolitan Town Planning Commission in 1929. While the whole report is full of interest, unsurprisingly PMHPS headed straight for the Port Melbourne references.…

The CSIRO in Port Melbourne

Port Melbourne HistoryAugust 14, 2013

This post is a fragment of a huge story. Fishermans Bend has a very strong association with science and innovation and their application to industry and manufacturing. CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, was a very significant presence in Port until the eighties. In 1938, CSIR as it was then known, leased 5.9 hectares of land at Fishermans Bend from the Government. At…

Fishermans Bend – do the maps

Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 11, 2013

On Sunday 7 July, several members of the Society attended a forum on the Future of Fishermans Bend convened by the Community Alliance of Port Phillip. To follow this discussion into the future, it is probably necessary to become familiar with the acronym FBURA for Fishermans Bend Urban Renewal Area. Background On 5 July 2012, the Minister for Planning rezoned a large area…

Fishermans Bend Migrant Hostel

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 12, 2013

Mike Brady's huge contribution to Australian life has been recognised in the Queens Birthday Honours with an AM. A less well know part of his story is the time his family spent in the migrant hostel in Fishermans Bend after their arrival in Melbourne in the '50s. The experience of life in the hostel is described in a colourful way by…

Port Melbourne’s early aviation history

Port Melbourne HistoryApril 24, 2013

Kevin O'Reilly, aviation historian, shared his astonishing collection of photographs and deep knowledge of his subject with members. What follows is not an account of Kevin's wide ranging talk - just some observations arising from it. The Shaw-Ross aerodrome was the first to be licensed. The proximity of the aerodrome to Princes Pier and to the bay was a surprise. As…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians