Graham Street – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Tom Griffin

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 3, 2023

by David Thompson Thomas Griffin's grave at Lancefield Cemetery, 2024. Photograph by Daniel Brueckner. On Sunday, 8 Nov 1953 Port Melbourne Mayor, Cr E J Purchase with Crs J P Crichton and T G Douglas accompanied by the Port Melbourne Municipal Band attended the grave of the late Cr Tom Griffin at Lancefield. [1] This had become an annual pilgrimage since…

‘Roar Like a Bull!’

People, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 20, 2023

Growing up in Port Melbourne in the middle of the 20th Century by Albert Caton I was born in 1942 in the maternity ward of the Women’s Hospital in North Melbourne, the son of Edward Harold (‘Ted’) Caton and Muriel Lily (Reed) Caton. Soon afterwards, my mum and I moved to Sydney where my father was stationed in the Navy…

Turville Place

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 2, 2023

by David F Radcliffe Because Princes Street, originally called Railway Place, runs parallel to the Melbourne to Hobson’s Bay Railway, the block bounded by Graham, Stokes, Liardet and Princes Streets (Crown Block 10) is trapezoidal rather than rectangular in shape. Turville Place was created to provide access to the interior parts of the southern portion of this block. Unlike “interior”…

Church Street

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 2, 2022

Church St (highlighted), MMBW Map (detail), 1895. State Library of Victoria Church Street is the Z-shaped laneway running from Stokes Street to Nott Street highlighted above on an MMBW map from 1895. St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church, MMBW Map (detail), 1895. State Library of Victoria. The Stokes Street end of Church Street is opposite St Joseph's Roman Catholic Church which was…

Piecing Together the Past

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryNovember 18, 2022

by David F Radcliffe When researching the story of the entrepreneurial Otto Schumacher, one question proved very difficult to answer. When did the small factory he built on Esplanade East in 1890 turn into the impressive building that defined the corner of Graham Street and Esplanade East from the 1920s? With its distinctive red brick and white stucco façades and flanked…

Otto Schumacher: Entrepreneurial Engineer

People, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 21, 2022

by David F Radcliffe What many remember as the Knox-Schlapp factory on the corner of Graham Street and Esplanade East in the shadow of the former gasometer was originally the Schumacher Mill Furnishing Works. The entrepreneurial Otto Schumacher erected this facility in stages over three decades. Its facades provided a billboard proudly promoting the many products made there and engineering…

Christmas Cards

Collection, Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 10, 2021

As the ubiquitous adoption of electronic mail and text messages on smart devices has become the norm for our daily communications the practice of exchanging Christmas cards has declined enormously. It doesn't seem that long ago that mantlepieces, sideboards, desks and even office windows were crowded with festive cards. People sent cards to their friends and family, businesses to their important…

James Graham: was Graham Street, Port Melbourne named after this man?

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 5, 2021

by Margaret Bride Detail, Plan of allotments marked at Sandridge in the parish of South Melbourne / surveyed by Lindsay Clarke Assit. Surr., 1849. State Library of Victoria. In 1849 the government surveyor published a Street Plan of Sandridge showing a simple grid of streets with six blocks bounded by the newly named streets of Rouse, Graham, Stokes, Nott and Dow, names that have remained…

I’m Glad I Was There

Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 31, 2020

On Tuesday 28 July 2020, unable to meet in person due to the COVID-19 restrictions in place in Victoria at the time, the Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society held its first ever online meeting via Zoom. The topic, 'I Wish I Had Been There', was conceived by Margaret Bride and resulted in eight PMHPS members each describing an…

The Freame Families of Port Melbourne

People, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 24, 2020

by Ray Jelley ‘there was a sheep dressed up to represent Carbine II with his jockey; Bunny Hare all ready to run for the Port Melbourne Cup; saddles of mutton in fanciful designs; poultry and geese formed from the shoulders of mutton; pigeons, made of suet, flying about the windows …’ proclaimed the Standard on 18 May 1895 when describing the display in…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians