Princes Street – Port Melbourne Historical and Preservation Society

Brewster’s Lane

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJune 7, 2024

by David F Radcliffe Brewster’s Lane disappeared from Port Melbourne twice. First, it was erased from local memory after the name of this small roadway changed in 1889. A century later, all traces of the laneway were lost when the area was redeveloped. The aerial photograph below shows the location of the former Brewster’s Lane. Former Brewster's Lane (1946), State…

Miss Elsie Holmes

People, Port Melbourne HistoryMarch 9, 2023

Miss Elsie Holmes was a forewoman at Swallow and Ariell, the biscuit manufacturing company, during the First World War. Her father also worked for the company, as did many other people in Princes St where the family lived. Her exceptional administrative and organisational abilities came to the fore during the First World War. She brought together a group of…

A L Nathan of the London Hotel

People, Port Melbourne HistoryFebruary 17, 2023

by David Thompson A L Nathan. The Record, 23 January 1923. In December 1922, Alfred Lewis Nathan retired as publican of the London Hotel, Beach Street selling the hotel to Mrs Emily Elsie Cotter of the Wayside Inn, City Road, South Melbourne intending to take a trip to Europe in May the following year.[1] A L Nathan had taken over the…

Memorial to George Sangster

People, Places, Port Melbourne HistoryMay 6, 2022

by Margaret Bride Sangster Memorial. Photo: Janet Bolitho. Sangster Reserve occupies the small triangular piece of land behind the Port Melbourne Bowling Club between Princes and Nott Streets. The area includes a children's playground and nearby there is an art deco style electrical substation. Just inside the Nott Street entrance is this monument commemorating the life of George Sangster, once a…

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…

An afternoon in the Park

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryJuly 27, 2017

Molly Lowrie, aged about 8 with her younger sisters Nancy, Betty, Patsy and Lorna in Crichton Reserve, Port Melbourne, 1929. My mother Molly Lowrie, aged about 8, with her younger sisters Nancy, Betty, Patsy and Lorna taken in the Crichton Reserve, opposite their home at Princes Street Port Melbourne, in 1929. While the two-storey Nott Street School building in the background…

Why Bother Going to the Riviera?

Port Melbourne HistoryDecember 1, 2016

Port Melbourne foreshore (at Princes St) around 1947. PMHPS Collection. This image from the PMH&PS collection shows the foreshore at the foot of Princes Street, Port Melbourne, taken from the jetty that covered the main drain outlet around 1947. As a boy, I lived further along Princes Street and this was "my" beach. By the late 1950s, much of the planking on…

Anti-conscription in Port

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 19, 2016

Had you been living in Port in October 1916, you would have been very aware of the referendum on conscription that was looming on 28 October. Campaigning was intense. The question to be put to electors was: Are you in favour of the Government having, in this grave emergency, the same compulsory powers over citizens in regard to requiring their military service,…

Better than a Horse on a Merry-Go-Round

Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 6, 2016

My grandfather Bert Cosham, with my cousin Barry Bond, in the lane, Princes Place, at the rear of his house at 94 Princes Street Port Melbourne in 1948. Along the lane is the wall at the rear of St Joseph’s Priory in Stokes Street, while the church hall in Rouse Street seems to be impaled by the chimney of Swallow…

First Flush at the All England Eleven

Places, Port Melbourne HistoryOctober 29, 2015

corner Princes and Rouse Streets, Port Melbourne, October 2015 This unprepossessing corner was once the site of the All England Eleven Hotel. The hotel was demolished in 1953 according to this account in The Herald of this week's date: "If you stand in Princes Street, Port Melbourne and look in through the windows of the derelict All England Eleven Hotel, you…

Acknowledgement of Traditional Custodians