Before1800

The people of the Kulin Nation were the traditional owners of Euroe Yroke (now known as St Kilda) until European colonisation. Aboriginal people have lived in southeastern Australia for up to 60,000 years or more. Shellfish was cooked in middens or campfires at Point Ormond, huts were built beside Albert Park Lagoon, axes sharpened at the sandstone cliffs (the Esplanade) behind St Kilda Beach and gatherings held at the ancient Corroboree (red gum) tree at St Kilda Junction.

1800s

1802 An exploring survey ship under the command of Charles Grimes visits from Sydney and describes the St Kilda coastline. Two emus are sighted at Elwood.

1830s

1835 The ship Enterprise lands at Elwood on its way to the founding of a new settlement on the Yarra River called Melbourne. St Kilda hill is known as Green Knoll and later the ‘Village of Fareham’.

1839 First grazing lease granted to Benjamin Baxter who builds a stockman’s hut in Alfred Square.

1840s

1840 Scottish immigrants on the Glen Huntley fever ship are confined at Point Ormond, that becomes Victoria’s first Quarantine Station and, after the death of three passengers, St Kilda’s first graveyard.

1841 Governor La Trobe, at a picnic by the sea, names the area St Kilda after the ship Lady of St Kilda anchored off St Kilda Beach. The ship, in turn, was named after the Hebridean (Scottish) island of St Kilda. St Kilda Hill becomes a seaside resort with many holiday houses in Robe and other streets.

1842 First land sold at auction. Alfred Square becomes the first public reserve or park.

1850s

1851 Anglican Christ Church and school opens in Acland Street, the first of a score of churches that later include Catholic (1853), Presbyterian (1855), Wesleyans (1857), Free Presbyterians (1864), Congregationalist and Baptist. Gold is discovered and many depart St Kilda for the diggings.

1852 On 16 October, bushrangers rob nineteen people on the sandy track now called Brighton Road.

1856 St Kilda Railway Station links St Kilda to Melbourne with Victoria’s second railway. Visitors flood to the seaside.

1857 St Kilda’s first elected Municipal Council meets at the Junction hotel at St Kilda Junction. The George Hotel (originally named the Terminus and the Seaview), opens opposite St Kilda station. St Kilda Cup is run at the racecourse near Village Belle.

1860s

1860 The first St Kilda Town Hall opens. As the decade progresses, St Kilda is rapidly becoming the most fashionable place in Melbourne to live with many beautiful mansions and large gardens like Oberwyl. Horse drawn ‘omnibuses’ bring people from the city to experience Melbourne’s most accessible seaside resort including its fifteen hotels.

1870s

Seabath facilities such as Captain Kenney’s bathing ship ‘Nancy’ flourish on the foreshore. Wetlands are drained to make Albert Park Lake.

1871 The thriving Jewish community builds St Kilda Synagogue, the first of at least four Jewish congregations in St Kilda.

1874 Marcus Clarke of Inkerman Street publishes ‘For the Term of His Natural Life’.

1875 St Kilda’s State School on Brighton Road is opened.

1878 Esplanade Hotel built. A hundred years later it is one of Australia’s most important live music venues.

1880s

Many churches and synagogues are now prominent landmarks in St Kilda.

Melbourne, including St Kilda, is experiencing a great land boom.

1882 St Kilda Park Primary School opens in Fitzroy Street.

1886 Cable tramcars start running to St Kilda bringing thousands of day-trippers.

1888. The new St Kilda Town hall, a palatial boom-style palace by William Pitt, is completed on the corner of Carlisle Street and Brighton roads, on a former wetland where Aboriginal people once camped.

1890s

An economic depression ensues after the financial crash of the late 1880’s continues. Numbers of wealthy St Kilda families are ruined and lose their houses. Many of the mansions on the Hill are sold and turned into boarding and guesthouses.

1897 St Kilda Football Team joins the VFL from its home base at Junction Oval.

1900s

1901 The Duke and Duchess of York arrive at St Kilda Pier to open the first national parliament - St Kilda is now part of the newly federated country of Australia. St Kilda pier is the entry point for many vice-regal and other visits.

1906 Italian engineer, Carlo Catani, and the St. Kilda Foreshore Committee begin to remould the foreshore to cater for Melbourne’s amusement and pleasure zone. St Kilda is becoming a carnival resort for the masses.

1908 Elwood swamp drained and the land sold for homes.

1910s

1911 St Kilda first cinema, the St. Kilda (Bioscope) Theatre, opens at 145 Fitzroy Street.

1912 Luna Park opens – the newest and greatest amusement park in the world.

1913 Palais de Dance is built on the site of the present Palais Theatre.

1914-18 Three thousand men and boys from St Kilda enlist to fight at Gallipoli and France in the First World War.

1917 Elwood State School opens.

1920s

A decade of subdivision. Flats and small apartments replaced or altered many grand homes and gardens. Genteel St. Kilda began to lose its tone between the wars.

1920 The Victory Theatre built later becoming the Australian National Theatre, home to the National Theatre Ballet School and The National Theatre Drama School

1924 St Kilda War Memorial Hall opens in Acland Street in memory of returned soldiers and to raise funds for families. It later becomes a local cinema known as the ‘Mem’ or ‘fleapit’.

1926 Palais rebuilt after a fire with seating for 3000 patrons.

1930s

Severe Depression ensues. Gallipoli hero, Albert Jacka, becomes Mayor and fights for the rights of the unemployed, defending evictees and proposing public works for the ‘sussos’. Sly grog trading, cocaine smuggling and organised crime increase. Flat production outnumbers houses ten to one.

1931 Opening of St. Kilda Baths.

1936 The Astor Picture Theatre opens.

1937 and 1938 Polio epidemics occur.

1839 World War Two breaks out. St Moritz ice skating rink opens in Frank Thrings’s former Efftee Productions film studio

1940s

1941 St Kilda Town hall is barricaded with sandbags and trenches are dug for bomb shelters. Air raid drills practiced in schools.

1942 American troops march down Beaconsfield Parade into St Kilda. Entertainment booms. Jewish migrants arrive in large numbers. Sydney Nolan, Joy Hester, Albert Tucker and other artists live and paint in St Kilda.

1950s

St Kilda becomes increasingly ‘run-down’ associated with drugs, crime, ‘Bodgies and Widgies’, tenants, the, old and poor. Young artists and musicians benefit from the cheap housing. Acland Street's café society blossoms with the influx of cosmopolitan European migrants. Leo’s opens in 1956 and Scherezade in 1958.

1960s

Between 1961 and 1971 flats increase from 38% to 62% of all dwellings. Boarding houses and cheap rents offer a place for lower income people and artists. Red light entertainment prospers with Whisky A Go Go, Les Girls at the Ritz and ‘Vanessa the Undresser’ at the George. Germaine Greer, formerly of Elwood, publishes The Female Eunuch.

1966 On Yom Kippur the Rabbi at St Kilda Synagogue informs the congregation that the St Kilda Football Team has won the Premiership. Residents rejoice despite the team’s move to Moorabbbin in 1964. Tolarno’s Gallery and restaurant opens in Fitzroy street by Mirka and Georges Mora, making St Kilda a pivot of Melbourne’s art world.

1969 St Kilda Marina opens replacing the 1928 sea baths.

1970s

1970 Prince Charles, after swimming at Elwood describes the water as ‘diluted sewage’.

1971 Council begins to focus on the development of social services with the first municipal childcare centre opened in the Town Hall and the St Kilda Library opened in 1973 after a community campaign.

1975 High Street is widened, destroying an historic shopping precinct of 150 buildings (including the Junction Hotel), and its name changed to St Kilda Road. Traffic pours into St Kilda through St Kilda Junction.

1980s

1980 First St Kilda festival held.

1982 Elaine Miller, St Kilda’s first female Mayor, is elected.

1985 ‘Turn the Tide’ Councillors are elected vowing to protect the interests of lower income residents, create public housing and protect St Kilda from over-development.

1990s

St Kilda becomes increasingly popular licensing changes enable outdoor cafes and restaurants to thrive and inner city living becomes fashionable. St Kilda now has five government and fourteen non-government schools. Backpacker hostels multiply bringing young international visitors. Visitors flock to the Sunday Market and festivals such as the Wicked Arts Festival, Koori Day, the .St Kilda Film Festival. The annual Gay Pride March commences. Residents groups actively campaign to oppose over-development and the Grand Prix in Albert Park.

1994 The City of St Kilda is no more. St. Kilda is amalgamated with Port Melbourne and South Melbourne to create the City of Port Phillip. Mayor Tim Costello makes the last mayoral speech at St Kilda Town Hall before handing over to the interim Commissioners.

2000s

St Kilda property booms as waves of affluent new residents seek a trendy lifestyle by the sea. St Kilda Festival becomes the largest festival in Australia. The public swarms to street venues as well as renovated icons such as the St Kilda Seabaths, Stokehouse, Donovans, the Majestic and the George Hotel. The government fails to implement ‘zones of tolerance’ to ease prostitution and drug use. St Kilda is showcased in a popular TV serial ‘The Secret Life of Us’. Activists campaign to save the Esplanade Hotel.

2003 The St Kilda Kiosk on St Kilda Pier burns down 99 years after its original construction.

The Show Goes On!

Author Meyer Eidelson copyright (c)