St Kilda Landscape, 1854-1864

St Kilda

1854-1864


This extraordinary account of St Kilda's early streets, buildings and landmarks is from the reminiscences of Frederick Revans Chapman, who arrived as a boy in Melbourne in 1854 and later became a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand. It was published in the Victorian Historical Journal, Royal Historical Society. Many thanks to Ben Smith of Elwood High School who typed this article for the St Kilda Historical Society for the Duke of Edinborough Award in 2003.

Preface to article:

‘These reminiscences formed the subject of a paper by Mrs Harrison Moore on ‘South Suburban Melbourne', which was read before the Victorian Historical Society on 26th October 1914. With Mrs Moore's consent, more extended extracts from the original manuscript were collated than were possible on that occasion. There was some condensation and re-arrangement as seemed necessary to to present a connected description of the localities referred to. Mr. Chapman's manuscript was subject to the revision of two of his brothers, Messrs. Chas W. Chapman and Ernest A. Chapman, who were resident on Melbourne and in some instances notes made by them have been incorporated onto the text.'

We arrived in Melbourne from Tasmania by the City of Hobart in November, 1854 when I was a very small boy (Mr. Justice Chapman was born in New Zealand in 1849) - number five in a family of which the eldest was not yet fourteen years old - and almost immediately went to reside on a house in Toorak which had been taken by my father (The Hon. Henry Samuel Chapmen (1803-1881), Judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, 1843-1852 and 1864-1875. Between 1854 and 1864 he resided in Victoria, entering the Legislative Council in 1855, and later holding the offices of Attorney-General and Acting Judge of the Supreme Court) at a rental of 500 pounds for one year.

There were at this time, no buildings along St Kilda road, after passing the structures utilized as an Immigrants home and as temporary military barracks, until the Beach-road (Fitzroy Street) was reached, except that, just before reaching the point at which the Dandenong road (as Wellington Street) reaches the Brighton road, there were elevated water tanks (Erected by the South Yarra Water Supply Company (incorporated 1855) and supplied by means of a pipe line from a pumping station on the Yarra, about the site of present Chapel-street bridge), an adjoining a small police barracks.

A little way back from St Kilda-road, somewhere near the present High Street (Prahran), there was a house-perhaps two-facing Punt-road. A large reedy swamp occupied the site of Albert Park Lake, and beyond it were sandhills stretching from a muddy creek near Sandridge (Port-Melbourne) to Beach-road, where the wreck of captain Kenny's ship lay on the sands, still surrounded by fragments of her boats, and was then. Or a little later, used for bathing. Beyond a stretch of country which for years afterwards remained a waste, rose the green knoll of Emerald Hill, with a small suburbs (Now South Melbourne) grouped round it, and a few shanties, inhabited later by Chinamen, had been stuck up on the sandhills. The then recently-opened railway to Sandridge passed through the sand wastes and a bulrush swamp.

The building of the Church of England Grammar School, Domain-road, was commenced on 1956, and four of us brothers where enrolled there in the opening year-1858. Even down to 1861 the land between the Grammar school and Toorak road was vacant and unfenced, and so was the greater part of the large triangle up to St Kilda. That large piece of land was covered with gumtrees, and blackfellows camped there every year. Watching them throwing boomerangs and climbing trees was the delight of the Grammar school boys, who walked home to St. Kilda and Windsor. We knew these blacks and established friendly relations with them. They built the rudest break-winds of branches, and had no other shelter.

I have no clear recollection of the occupation of the left-hand side of the Toorak-Road from St. Kilda-Road to Chapel-Street in the early days; but later-in the early sixties, after the railway was made (Railway communication was established between Melbourne and Prahran in November, 1860)- there were villas along there and shops beyond Punt-road to Chapel-street, among them being the residence of Mr. Claud Ferrie, the Sheriff of Melbourne, between the present line of the railway and Chapel-street. Opposite to him there were rough fields sloping down to Smith's tannery on the banks of the river. Chapel-street ended abruptly in a large cutting. As boys we watched with interest the lengthening of this cutting until one day we saw it was pierced through, and an iron bridge was disclosed beyond. (Opened about October, 1857.)

Where Chapel-street crossed Toorak-road there was a public house at the south-west corner (Ayres Arms, later the New Bridge Hotel). Behind it were some small streets and houses in considerable numbers, in one of which a Mrs Neil kept a small school, attended by my brother and myself. As school children must have their ‘tuck shop' we found one in the shape of a small greengrocer's at or near the street which led to our school. Here we were served by a man with long arms, who worked in his shirtsleeves. I have been told since that his name was Graham Berry. (Afterwards the Hon. Sir Graham Berry, member of the Legislative Assembly and Premier of the Colony (1875 and 1877-1881).

Looking towards Toorak there was, on the right, only one house near the road front, from the corner of Chapel-street to Williams-road. This was Mr. Ryder's, and must have stood near the middle of the block, the rest of which was unfenced. In Chapel-street, nearly opposite the Ayers' Arms Hotel, but a little further south, was a painter (whose name, I think, was Keen), had a shop, a gaunt unfenced building standing by itself, with a glaring sign. On the left-hand side of Toorak-road, down below the corner of Chapel-street, there was a gully in which was a clump of tea-tree scrub, by which the blacks used to camp. Like those already mentioned, they came down periodically from Gippsland, but I only once saw them at that spot. Excepting near the corner, where the scrub grew, the land on this side was roughly fenced all the way up to Williams-road. It was divided into large sections, and upon it three or four suburban residences stood far back from the road, at wide intervals.

A description of one of these residences is supplied by Mrs. Jessie M. Eddington, daughter of the late James Montgomorie Bell, a well known early Melbourne merchant, who, in the year 1855, went to reside with her parents at ‘Tivoli' on the banks of the Yarra, a little east of Chapel-street; the adjoining properties up to Williams-road, being ‘Rockley', ‘Coma Vista' and ‘Como'. Tivoli' was a house of eleven rooms, built of brown stone from the riverbank, and was said to have been erected by G. A. Robinson, the Protector of Aborigines, under whose supervision the blocks were carried up the steep hill on the heads of blackfellas. Here were enjoyed the comforts of flower and kitchen gardens, orchard, and hay-field, with the adjuncts of bee-hives, poultry-yards, pig-stye and rabbit warren; but there still lingered reminders of more primitive conditions.

"When we first lived there," Mrs. Eddington says, "snake killing was quite common, and native cat and opossum hunts were of nightly occurrence." Privately owned-vehicles were used for communication with the town, but "on Sundays in summer time we usually travelled to Melbourne in our own double-handed paddle boat to attend service at John Knox Church, Swanston-street, but as it was a rather long time, particularly for us children, from breakfast till the return to dinner, we always took a picnic hamper in the boat, and each had his own horn tumbler and drank with avidity the clear pure water of the Yarra". The last one, before coming to Williams-road, was "Como," the residence of Mr. John Brown. Beyond Williams-road the first part of the block was fenced with split rails right down to the Yarra, but the frontage of the fenced piece was merely a mass of small wattles. Then came a smithy (probably about the corner of Wallace-avenue), kept by one Ross; then a road line which led to our house (which may have been about present Douglas-street); and then more open ground up to Notley's Hotel.

Towards the river between Williams-road and Orrong-road, there were several enclosed areas, in one of which lived Mr. Balbirnie, (R. A. Balbirne, the lessee of the first bridge across the Yarra, opened in 1846 .The name of his house is perpetuated by the present Balmerino-avenue) who died during the year we were there. Next to him was the official residence of the General Commanding the Forces, occupied then or later by General Macarthur, (Lieut. -General Sir Edward Macarthur (1780-1872), Commander of the Forces, 1855-1862 and Administrator of the Government, 1856) and afterwards I think by General Pratt. (Lieut. -General Sit Thomas Simpson Pratt (1797-1879), Commander of the Forces, 1860-1862).

These residences probably had their southern boundaries about Bruce-street, and must have been occupied very early, as they had fine gardens. In the wide unfenced block that lay around our house, from Ross's smithy up to Government House fence, were a few residences, chiefly cottages. A Mr Musgrove, of the Customs Department lived in a cottage near us, behind Ross's smithy, and some people named Bazan lived at the back of Notley's Hotel, and between and around these two houses a village was growing up.

The large house rented as Government House had large paddocks and grounds facing Toorak-road, the gate being in a hollow beyond at the top of the hill. These grounds stretched down to the Yarra, on the bank of which, below a bluff, was then or later the Governor's boat-house. When we were privileged to go into the Government House garden we saw that it was full of fine fruit-trees. Beyond it was a block of land extending to the next crossroad which ran down to the river (I presume the present Kooyong-road), and noticeable on account of the immense size of the gum trees standing on it.

Beyond these large trees was a clear piece of land overlooking the river. Here someone had tried stonecrushing or brickmaking, and there stood idle upon it an immense wheel of stone (perhaps what is called a Chilian mill) round which, in 1854, traditions had already begun to gather. Beyond Kooyong-road was the swampy mouth of Gardeners creek, where in later years I shot waterfowl. On the south side of Toorak-road from Williams-road eastward, lived several well known people. Mr. (afterwards Judge) Skinner occupied, I think, the house then recently vacated by Mr. Westgarth, but of this I am not sure. Mr. Hammil and Mr. Blackwood lived opposite Toorak village, and a side street led down to their houses, which was I suppose Orrong-road.

I think there was also a small shop on Toorak-road, nearly opposite Notley's Hotel (possibly at the corner of Canterbury-road), and rather nearer Melbourne was a cottage inhabited by two brothers, John and Hugh Stephenson. At the top of the hill, on this side, lived a Mr. Ross (we knew at least three people in Toorak of this name), who, when we went to see him, gave us to our great delight, bunches of grapes from his vineyard. This little patch of grape-vines was some years later cleared away to make room for the church, of which Mr. Fellows was the first incumbent. Beyond Ross's garden was a piece of ground covered with immense gum-trees similar to those on the opposite side, and from this point Gardiner's Creek-road led out to the open country. Perhaps between twenty and thirty houses and cottages would be a liberal estimate of the number that stood between Chapel-street and Kooyong-road, reckoning right down to the river on the one side and nearly as far on the other.

Speculation must have begun to operate at an early date in the block facing Toorak-road between Williams-road and Government House fence, as up to our time it had never been fenced as a whole. When we were taken down to the river we crossed the fields through two fences to Williams-road, which was obstructed by a pond. Thence we crossed to the river bank at a point clear of the ‘Como' swamp, where stood one great willow tree.

At the end of the year at Toorak, my father was offered renewal of his tenancy at 250 ponds per annum, but he had already decided to move to St. Kilda, where he bought a house standing near 5 acres of ground at the south-west corner of Alma-road and Williams-road or Hotham-street, since occupied by Mr. J. B. Were, and later by Mr. T. a'B. Weigall. This was, at the time, the last house in St. Kilda. Beyond it to the east were downs of fern and scrub, and one might walk to the racecourse Hotel at Caulfield passing only one house, held by a dairyman named Tierney, and seeing a few more in the distance.

From Toorak to Alma-road, Williams-road passed partly through the open country and partly by houses, but the country was so thinly inhabited that it marked the outer most limits of the suburbs, even in times considerably later than 1855. Road lines were marked out, and fences followed these, but houses were few. The land was scrubby and of little intrinsic value, but there were in it patches of better grassland where the cows of the residents pastured. Just at the end nearest Toorak-road there were large gum trees along both sides of Williams-road. There was one small house called Taranki Lodge, inhabited by Captain Lucas, on the left-hand side overlooking St. Kilda. There was none for a considerable distance. A muddy gully-over which, probably about 1856, a stone culvert was built-crossed the road, and ran across country towards Chapel-street. (The locality of present Hawksburn, The culvert referred to was the first public work carried out by the Prahran Municipal Council, which came into existence in February, 1856).

The Mount Erica Hotel, a lonely shebeen, which could be seen from Chapel-street, stood at the corner of Williams-road and High-street, and a few years later something like a small township began to cluster around Williams-road, midway to Alma-road, having among the houses one small shop. My recollections of St. Kilda begin about Christmas, 1855, and end abruptly in March 1864, and between these two points they may prove somewhat vague as to actual dates. Alma-road was fairly well settled. Starting eastward from the Brighton-road it was thus occupied. On the left stood the house of Mr. Matthew Hervey, M.L.C., well back, its entrance being on Brighton-road. Mr. Herveys garden and paddocks stretched all the way to Chapel-street, and extended about half-way down to Wellington-street, meeting Dr. Blacks property of ‘Cintra' on the Chapel-street side. The paddock at the corner of Alma-road and Chapel-street had a ragged gorse hedge.

Across Chapel-street there was a block of unfenced land stretching to Bull-street (now Westbury-street). In later years the railway was made through this. It must have been reserved unsold, excepting the Westbury-street frontage, and had many scattered gum trees upon it. Except for a brick cottage at the corner of Alma-road and Bull-street, about three others along Bull-street, and a small Roman Catholic Chapel and presbytery facing Dandenong-road, this whole block was absolutely vacant and unfenced. Alma-road as a made street ended at Bull-Street. Beyond this a track wound through tussocks, thinly scattered with wattle trees, and a few small gums. As boys we got a hold of a tomahawk and helped demolish the wattle trees.

The block from Bull-street to Hotham-street, on the north side, must have had two or three small cottages upon it facing Alma-road. Parts of it were unfenced, and at the eastern end opposite us, was Mr. A. Michie's (Afterwards the Hon. Sir Archibald Michie, Attorney-General, 1857-8 and 1870-71, and Minister of Justice, 1863-1866.) brick house, which stood well back from Alma-road, with a back gate to Hotham-street. A cottage with an orchard of fairly old fruit-trees was the only building on this block facing Bull-street, and between Fulton-street and Dandenong-road there was no house except the brick residence of Mr. South. A solicitor, which stood at the corner of Dandenong-road and Bull-street.

From there to Hotham-street there was no house facing Dandenong-road, nor was there any house facing Hotham-street on this part of the block. Hotham-street frontages were offered for sale by auction before 1864, nut very few were bought. Perhaps about 1860 there were two or three houses built on the south side of Fulton-Street, rather near the Bull-street end; and on the north side of Fulton-street, about the middle of the block, stood, in 1855, two houses one of which, I think, was then inhabited Mr. Cowederoy, and the other by Mr. Bronckhorst. These two and Mr. South's were the only houses on the block for some years after 1855. The rest was unfenced.

To return now to our starting point, and take the south side of Alma-road. At the south-east corner of High-street was a very small shop occupied by a tailor named Thomas Earls. He did not remain there long, but moved to a shop on the other side of Brighton-road below Inkerman-street, the shop he vacated becoming a well known fruit shop at a time when such things were very rare. Earls told me on the very day that the news of the victory at Alma reached Melbourne (In December, 1854) he got a board, painted ‘Alma Road' on it with his own hand, and nailed it against the weather boards of his timber-built shop. The name seems to have been tacitly adopted. It certainly was quite fixed when we went to live there. Inkerman-road and Balaclava-road must have on as the news of the successive battles arrived. From Earl's shop eastward to Chapel-street there was very little vacant ground on the south side of Alma-road. First came some ramshackle buildings, constructed, according to my recollection, of palings, on a fairly large scale, which in the earliest parts of this period were used as a coaching stable- I suppose for the coaches or Buses (Tighe's) which carried the passenger traffic of Brighton-road.

There came an open piece of ground-perhaps an acre-thickly studded with wattle-trees, among which a few stray blackfellows occasionally camped. Then a few dwelling houses, and then a fairly large paddock enclosed with the garden and house where resided Mr. Heales (Hon. Richard Heales, M.L.A. (1822-1864), Premier, 1860-61, and President of the Board of Land and Works, 1863-4.), who afterwards became premier, but who was known to us at that date as one of the owners of a saw-mill at Dandenong. His property ran straight through Argyle-street, and on the formed footpath in the front of his house stood a very large wattle-tree, which had been spared on account of its splendid size. Later someone ran into it at night, and a reforming age considered that it was somewhat out of place in the middle of a footpath.

Beyond Heales' there where two perhaps three small residences, and at the corner of Chapel-street lived Mr. Jennings, a solicitor, who, in the early fifties, had gone in heavily for building as a speculation, and had overdone it. Beyond Chapel-street there was a large unfenced field which in the sixties two houses were built. Then came the large house bought by Mr. T. T. a'Beckett (Hon. Thomas Turner a'Beckett (1808-1892), a member of the Legislative Council, 1858-1878.), who, I think, also occupied the next paddock, which stretched up to where the railway afterwards crossed Alma-road, and in which he kept his cows.

Then came a small cottage, for a time occupied by an old lady called Skinner, whose daughters kept a school and went out as governesses. When they left the house it became the office of Mr. Randle, who, if I am not mistaken, was the contractor of this part of the Brighton Railway. There were, I think, three more houses up Bull street, the corner one, in a fairly large garden surrounded by a high iron fence, being occupied by Mr. (Later Sir James) McCulloch (Hon. Sir James McCulloch (1819-1893), member of the legislative Assembly, 1856-1877, and four times Premier between 1863 and 1877.) who was the captain commanding the East St. Kilda company of volunteer artillery, in which, in1864, I was a private. At the Southeast corner of Alma Road and Bull Street was a patch of curious cottages, I should almost say huts, of corrugated iron, built hastily to meet the tide of immigration, and removed long before 1864. They stretched down the East side of Bull Street, and one, perhaps two, of them faced Alma road. Facing them on the West side of Bull Street there were residences all the way down to Inkerman road. In one of those lived Mr. Sircom, and in another Mr. Davis, the drawing master at the grammar school.

This latter gentleman stated that he tried to dig a well on his premises, but struck running water, so that buckets and other things disappeared as if in an underground river. (Mrs. Harrison Moore says:- " I have heard that many of the vaults at the St. Kilda cemetery cut into these underground streams.) From Bull Street the South side of Alma road was vacant, until our own fence near the corner of Hotham Street was reached. On this open ground, (On which two or three houses were built before 1864) on the side towards our fence stood three or four white barked gumtrees of enormous size- particularly the two nearest to the road. Down towards Inkerman Street stood another with a hollow trunk into which a number of boys could crowd. About the block also stood a sprinkling of peppermint trees of smaller size. Our house was one of Mr. Jennings' speculations, and I think my father gave 1,500 pounds for it. He sold it in 1864 for 1,300 pounds to Mr. J. B. Were (Jonathan Binns Were, C.M.G (1809-1885) a prominent early Melbourne merchant and financier.)

East St. Kilda ended at Hotham Street as far as the line of Alma road was concerned, although it extended a little further along Dandenong and Inkerman roads. Beyond us, on the left, with a small gate near the corner, was the cemetery, in which a diligent search revealed a few scattered graves hidden in the scrub. Then came a wide uninhabited block commencing at the Springs, used by those inhabitants that had no tanks, and who came from considerable distances to procure water from a barrel that was sunk in the small swamp. The unfenced land continued up to a shallow swamp just beyond the top of the hill, known to the local cowboys as Water Flat. Here vehicles had to swerve to avoid the lagoon.

Some ways back from the road, on the left, Mr Ambrose Kyte built a large house, about 1862 or 1863, but I do not think that it was yet inhabited when we left in 1864. This house, which stands in what is now known as Hughden-road, was afterwards occupied by Mr. Younghusband, and in recent years was purchased by Hon. Andrew Fisher. (Ambrose Kyte was the merchant who subscribed the sum of 1,000 pounds towards the expenses of the exploring expedition of 1860-61 with which the names of Burke and Wills are indissolubly associated. He was a member of the legislative assembly from 1861 to 1866 and died in 1868. -Ed.) While it was in course of erection it was our great delight to visit to receive our first lessons in boxing from Joe Kitchen, champion middleweight, who was employed there as a French polisher. There was a horse-pond in the ground, in which I once rescued a cousin of mine from drowning. Beyond the land that Mr. Kyte fenced for his house was a large vacant area stretching across to Dandenong road.

Then came a solitary house in a garden just beyond the end of the swamp, but I cannot now remember whether it was there in the fifties or came later. Beyond this there was, as far as I can remember, no house on the left side of the track- for it was now only a driving track - until the Racecourse Hotel was reached. There was a large swamp on the left, sometimes called the Black Swamp, but which we were told was really Le-man Swamp, where there were plenty of ducks, coots, and divers. On the South side of Alma road, commencing again from Hotham Street, there was nothing until Water Flat was reached, though in later years a pound was located opposite the cemetery.

On the face of the hill, opposite to where Sir Archibald Michie afterwards lived, were built the new kennels, in charge of a man whom we all new as "Blind Alick", although he was not blind, he used spectacles of immense power. Mr. Purcell, senior, and his son Mr. Charles Purcell, must have some functions connected with the Hunt Club, which owned the kennels, as we often saw them out with the hounds. We boys were greatly delighted when the whole pack swarmed into our paddock and garden one morning, and we enjoyed the sight of the riders jumping our fence and smashing both it and the flowers. The rage of our Irish gardener knew no bounds as he rushed down to encounter the invaders, but as he came back with a smile so broad that it seemed to threaten permanent injury to his features I presume he was duly "squared."

At the top of the hill a large paddock was enclosed in the early sixties, right opposite Mr. Kyte's, but no house had been built up there by the time we left. From the springs a small rill ran down a shallow gully towards Inkerman road, but I have no recollection of any houses in that valley save that at a later date that were built near Inkerman road. On the other side of Water Flat swamp or lagoon the track swung back again to the right, finally reaching the Racecourse Hotel, at the junction of Balaclava and Dandenong roads.

Just beyond Water Flat a cow-keeper named Mrs. Cronin had a small house near the road, and there were one or two other dwellings near Le-man Swamp, one at least with a considerable patch of fruit trees about it. Apart from these houses, the whole country on the right side of the track as far as the Racecourse Hotel was open unfenced scrub, the land being of poor quality. The hotel stood alone, near a third swamp,(In a plan of "Portions marked at Caulfield," by H.B. Foot in 1853, this is called "Paddy's Swamp." It's site is now occupied by Caulfield Park. -Ed.) but on towards Oakleigh the country improved, and there were fences on both sides, and large gum-trees. Thus the great block of land from Alma road to Inkerman road, beyond Hotham Street, was almost vacant until 1864, when a few houses began to spring up near Inkerman road. Sometime in the early sixties, drains were cut to lower the water on Water Flat and Le-man Swamp, and I can remember no other course that the surplus water could take then to follow the line of Inkerman road, probably going on to join the big ditch made to join the swamp near the Village Belle, which had it's outlet at the Royal Hotel, at the south end of the present Esplanade.

West of Brighton road the north side of Alma road was occupied as follows: At the corner, always known as "Ireland's Corner" stood Mr. R.D. Ireland's (Hon. Richard Davies Ireland (1816-1875), member of the legislative assembly, 1857-1867, Solicitor General 1858-59, Attorney General 1860-1863.) strange looking, odd-shaped house, with entrances from both streets. Thence to the end of the road were a few houses, with an unfenced piece at the farthest corner. On the south side a house in a large garden stood opposite Earl's shop, and at the far end of the block lived Captain Gilmore. Somewhere between these two stood a large iron church (Congregational), but I do not think it was in existence as early as the middle fifties. The other houses on the block I cannot recall.

Inkerman road, West of Chapel street was fairly well inhabited in the very early times. Between Chapel Street and Hotham Street it was filling up very rapidly. When we went to St. Kilda in1855 there was very few houses along the section between Westbury and Hotham streets, but that part of the suburb made rapid progress. A public house was built on the Southern side, shops and small houses sprung up, and by 1864 there was a sort of growing township there: but in the middle fifties we found little to obstruct us in walking buy any route we chose out to Red Bluff. The wide fields were gradually enclosed and houses were built, and after the railway was opened,(The railway from Melbourne to Brighton (via St. Kilda) was opened in December, 1859. -Ed.) Inkerman road became a cottage district. The five acres from our Southern boundary to that street was fenced, but not built on, and a still larger block opposite was unfenced, while to the last there were open fields all about.

On the South side of Inkerman road, about the middle of the block beyond Hotham Street, Mr. Campbell had a boy's school, and next to him was Finlay's Market Garden. On the left side of Campbell's the land was vacant down to the corner, but later on a large house was built there, erected, I think by Mr. Macdonald, but later inhabited by Mr. Bronckhorst. Beyond these three places, on the rise of the hill, were houses, and beyond this again towards Balaclava-road there were others, but I cannot place them. I think Sir George Stephen(Sir George Stephen (1794-1879), a distinguished advocate for the abolition of slavery in British colonies, who was knighted in 1837, came to Victoria in 1855, and practised as a barrister for a number of years.) lived somewhere out there, He always carried in his pockets a few samples of sand, coarse and fine, which he gathered from the sandy hills there, warmly advocating it's value as building sand.

From Hotham Street outwards on the North side of Inkerman-road there were no houses in the early days, but later a sort of little village sprung up where the gully and the springs ended, just opposite Campbell's school. Speaking generally, Balaclava road only began to collect a population after the railway station was established. Before that there were a few scattered residences only, and wide stretches of open country. A few superior houses, large, we thought them, then went to form the exceptions to the general statements that the suburbs ended at Hotham-street. Looking Southward along this latter street there were, some distance beyond Inkerman-road, four or five houses with gardens which gave the locality an old-established appearance. Beyond the point where the railway bridge was afterwards erected country was open or lightly fenced out towards the sea. After the railway was made it gradually became more and more enclosed.

I remember our excitement when one day, probably in 1857, 200 blacks from Gippsland arrived suddenly in Hotham-street, trooping towards Elsternwick. An hour or two later, a solitary gin appeared, and we gave her something to eat. She followed the tracks of the tribe in the dusty road, and when we asked her if she could see her husbands tracks, she pointed them out to us amid hundreds of others, and started to follow them at a run, pursuing an irregular course such as he had taken when carelessly strolling with the mob. In the evening we followed the blacks, hearing that they were going to hold a corroboree, and found the whole tribe camped at a place where the trees were fairly thick. There were no residences near, save for a house or two along Brighton-road, some distance away. I think the spot must have been somewhere not far from where, in later years, Sir Frederick Sargood built his fine house.("Rippon Lea," near the present railway bridge at Hotham-street, Elsternwick. _Ed.) Here we stayed until midnight, mixing with the blacks, listening to their chants, and watching the strange and grave dances of the corroboree circle.

Wellington-street was pretty well occupied in early times. On the South side, near the high street end, lived Dr. Llewellyn, and near the corner was a chaff cutting works operated by means of a horse walking on an endless band of rollers. Somewhere near Chapel-street lived the Fowler family, two members of which, Jane and Annie Fowler, where drowned in the wreck of the Royal Charter. At the corner of Chapel-street, some way from the road, in a large piece of ground stood old Dr. Black's house, "Cintra." On the north side of Wellington-street, at the end near Punt-road, was the well-known drapers shop of Excell Bros., and a little further east, the grocers shop of Boberski and Eckersley. Somewhere about there was also Mumby, the baker, and midway towards Chapel-street the Governor Gipps Hotel, a large corrugated iron building.

On the South side of Dandenong-road, beyond the cemetery, the land was vacant until the point where the point where Wattletree-road branches off. There stood a house in a garden, and perhaps one or two more. Then the land fell away towards the swamp, and there were no more houses until the Racecourse Hotel was reached. On the North side of Dandenong-road stood a public house on the corner of Chapel-street and a terrace adjoining it must have been built soon after 1855. Then for half the distance to Hotham Street were a few houses. Then came vacant land to Hotham-street, on which a terrace was built perhaps in the early sixties. Beyond Hotham-street, opposite the cemetery gates, where two houses, the nearer one of which was occupied by Mr. Sargood in 1856, and later by Mr. C.B Brewer, afterwards a County Court Judge, who moved there from Fulton-street. The other was owned by Mr. Davis, the bookseller. Then there were no more houses until the residence of old Mrs. Chomley (mother of Judge Chomley) was reached. This stood absolutely alone, it seemed to me, as if a small boy, amid a wilderness of scrub and heath, and already the garden had an old look.

Near the entrance to Wattletree-road stood some low-roofed sheds, known as the old kennels. The hounds were kept there in the Fifties, until the new kennels were built, which was probably before the Sixties. Wattletree-road run through fenced country, but with only a farmhouse here and there. This describes the country across to Toorak-road. Malvern had a name, and the nucleus of the suburb, though it was hardly a village. Here lived Horrace M. Wright, a well-known barrister, who died young. His house, "Coldblow" had a fine fruit garden around it, and we took a delight in visiting him, and seeing his collection of guns, rifles, swords and other weapons.

From the Malvern Hill we used made our way through post and rail fenced paddocks to Gardeners Creek. All the country there was in farms, save that two or three residences stood facing a road, which may have been Malvern-road. One of them was the house of Mr. Damyon, the Russian Consul. Beyond the creek was Boroondara, a farming district. All about here was our favourite opossum shooting ground when we grew bigger, and I can fix the date of our most successful raid as September 1863. On4e sign of coming civilisation that I recollect at Malvern was a building erected about 1862-63 in Wattletree-road and labelled "Quadrille Club."

There was a stretch of open country on the East side of Punt-road, across which we walked to school. About the present Charles-street was an iron foundry, (Enoch Chambers') and at that part of High-street were some shops and houses. Then there was another large piece of open country stretching from Chapel-street to St. Kilda road, through which ran later the Brighton Railway and the temporary "loop-line" connecting it with St. Kilda Railway. By means of these and other pieces of vacant land we could walk nearly all the way from our house in Alma-road to the Grammar School in open country, the only areas of nature of town we passed being Chapel-street and at the part of High-street before we mentioned.

In the very early times Chapel-street had many vacant spaces. On the West side, about the middle, a man could be seen ploughing his farm with a bullock and horse yoked together, and on the same side, 1855 and earlier, was a small brick church, or more probably a school room used as a church, which was known as Mr. Gregory's. My mother resorted to it as the nearest church to Toorak, and afterwards as the nearest to East St. Kilda, although Mr. Seddon's church, overlooking the sea at St. Kilda was already in existence. Gregory's church was used during the week as a school, and a young man named John Sircom, whose father lived in Bull-street, taught there. We had ginger beer and bun entertainments in this church or school. About the same part of Chapel-street was a solitary draper's shop.

At this time, wherever there was a cross street. one could look up it to the barren heath country towards Williams-road and beyond, but Prahran was a suburb which grew rapidly, especially when it came to be tapped by the Brighton railway, and by 1864 it was already a place of some importance. About Windsor there was a considerable amount of building, even before the railway was opened. Beyond Dandenong Road, Chapel Street was open on both sides to Alma Road, except for Dr. Black's house. Then came a row of detached houses on the west side, running down from Mr. Jennings' at the corner at the corner to Argyle street, and faced by a vacant block of land, so that they looked across to Mr. A'Beckett's. Here lived, in later times, Colonel Pitt, afterwards distinguished in New Zealand, and Mr. C. H. Barbour, a well known squatter. Beyond this, although the country was fairly well inhabited in early times, there were many open fields.

In Fitzroy Street, or Beach Road, there were no buildings on the north side, where the park was roughly fenced. On the South side there were only scattered residences, although two considerable terraces came into existence before 1864 (Park Terrace and Gloucester terrace), and I can remember one shop - a small fruit shop looking over the sandhills which we knew as "Mother Grants." The Terminus Hotel was built in anticipation of the railway (the railway from Melbourne to St. Kilda was opened in May 1857). Its name was changed to the George some years later. From where it stands down to the corner of Grey Street stood a curious block of cottages built mainly of felt, the corner one being circular or octagonal.

Near the beach end of the street was Northcott's school (afterwards removed to about where the Esplanade meets Acland Street), one of the numerous private establishments that came to grief when the grammar school was opened. Gosletts School must have also been somewhere near there, as I well remember Charles Gosslett and his brother Joseph coming out of their gate in that vicinity. Charles Goslett, when he fell on evil days, became a master at the grammar school. His brother was a clerk of petty sessions.

There was no Esplanade in the fifties—that was a creation of the sixties – but there were good residences along there facing the sea. I do not remember where the pier was commenced, but at first it was a very small jetty, which was lengthened gradually. A few yachts were anchored there, of which I remember The Ripple and The Phantom. Beyond the Royal Hotel the country was uninhabited, scrubby, and swampy down to the red bluff; but a little way inland was the Village Belle Hotel, and around it a sort of village that grew rapidly. In 1864 I camped with a party of volunteers somewhere beyond the Esplanade. We practiced rifle shooting at the butts behind the sandhills. Beyond the Bluff was a muddy creek or estuary, with a slaughter- house upon it (about the end of the current Glenhuntly road). I think Mr. Rusden, clerk of the parliament lived around there. He was a great athlete and a prodigious walker.

When Earls, the tailor left the corner of Alma Road he set up a new shop on the west side of Brighton Road, about its intersection with Inkerman Road. This was the last shop on that side going south, and beyond it were scattered residences as far as Elsternwick. A very little way beyond Earles was quite in the country, and there, on the east side of Brighton Road, where Mr. Brunning set up his first nursery, but I can not say at what date. My impression is that he worked about the private residences as a gardener in the middle fifties.

Princes Street to Barkly Street and Barkly Street to Carlisle Street had good residences on both sides. Mr. Cropper lived a little above the park on the east side of Princes Street, and on the west side was Mr. Gurner* with a high fence to protect his fruit garden. At the meeting point of Princes and Barkly was the famous "bungalow", Miss Tuckwell's ladies school, from which, in the days of marriage at eighteen, the young ladies of the period used to march straight to the altar, having contrived, however, to do a fair amount of flirtation with Norcott's boys and others before arriving there. It was written, I remember, of one of his contemporaries, of Jack Conway, the famous cricketer, who at a later age, while still a grammar boy, played against all England in the first match—