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Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne
Town Hall, 333 Bay Street, Port Melbourne

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…

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Meeting – Mon 26 March 2018, 7.30pm

MeetingsFebruary 27, 2018
Our guest speaker in March will be Jim Penaluna, "A Port Melbourne Boy". Jim was born and bred in Port Melbourne. He worked and played sport in Port all his life.   In his early years he lived in Clark Street close to the Graham Street Primary School then went to South Melbourne Technical School. He joined General Motors Holden’s as a apprentice…

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More Fishermans Bend Migrant Hostel Memories

Port Melbourne HistoryJune 22, 2017
This week's story comes to the PMHPS from Bill Hankin: Fishermans Bend Migrant Hostel. Entry in Hall St off Lorimer St. courtesy of Allan Marshall "I arrived at Fisherman’s Bend hostel in November 1952 aged 5 with my parents Cliff and Josy Hankin and my younger brother, John. We came to Australia on the New Australia from Southampton with stops at Suez,…

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Ibis

Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 23, 2015
Geoff Deed, who grew up at 41 Nott Street, offers this story from his boyhood in the fifties: 'There was a family called Fletcher that lived in Rouse St - just the mother and the son. His name was Jeffrey - with a 'J'. There was no father. (Maybe he was killed in the war?) Through the window of their place you could…

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Birth and demise of Holden at Fishermans Bend

Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 27, 2014
It was a defining moment for the nation. It heralded Australia becoming a self-reliant manufacturer. It happened in Fishermens Bend on 29 November 1948 when Prime Minister Ben Chifley revealed Australia’s first mass-produced car, the Holden. Prime Minister Ben Chifley at General Motors Holden Factory The following day, The Argus reported: 'About 400 guests of General Motors applauded when curtains were drawn back…

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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…

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‘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…

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PMHPS acknowledges the generous support of the City of Port Phillip.

 

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Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians

We respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet and work, the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation and pay respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.