by Margaret Bride
Jetty at Sandridge, State Library of Victoria
For over 100 years Town Pier jutted out to sea from the end of Bay Street an extension of the route from the city of Melbourne to the ships in Port Phillip Bay. This was the site of the first small jetty built by the Liardet family soon after they built…
Bay Street at Beach Street (2021). Photo: David Thompson, PMHPS Collection.
For more than 150 years Morley’s Coal Depot has stood on the south-east corner of Bay and Beach Streets. William Morley was a prominent local merchant in Port Melbourne in the years of the gold boom. In 1860 he was elected as the first chairman of the Sandridge Council. The…
The rows of modest, cheek by jowl, Victorian cottages, in many streets in Port Melbourne, provide a glimpse of what it would have been like to live here in the mid-to-late 1880s. What was then is now intermingled with 21st century vehicles and a growing city skyline.
Albert Street (2021). Photo: David Thompson, PMHPS Collection
This intermingling of then and now…
In 1927 the Duke and Duchess of York (future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, later the Queen Mother) visited Australia for the official opening of Parliament House in Canberra.
After the ceremonies, the royal couple returned to Victoria by train alighting at Montague so they could say goodbye from an open car at brief civic receptions outside South…
David Radcliffe
Recently the PMHPS acquired a magnificent picture showing a distinguished visitor being officially welcomed to Port Melbourne. But who is this dignitary resplendent in his ostrich feather festooned bicorne hat? Is it the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) in 1920 or the Duke of York (later George VI) in 1927? Turns out it was their younger brother Prince…
Prince's Visit ~ May 1920 ~ Nott Street Maypole Squad. State Library of Victoria
Often at the Society we come across a photo that stops us in our tracks because we want to know more. This is one of those photos. Many times there are no clues in the picture to help determine what it might be but in this case…