FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY

FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
taking approximately 30 years to fill .
Now it is known as Debney's Park.
The Debney family was also active in local affairs, with George Washington
Debney serving on the first council of the Flemington- Kensington Borough in
1883.
Robert Mosley's Cordial Factory in Boundary Road was another highly
s uccessful local enterprise . It was first begun by Ann Mosely, who would mix
the drinks at home, whilst her husband, Robert, delivered them after
finishing work at the Gasworks .
A booming trade enabled Mosely to take over
a disused skin store in Boundary Road, which was converted to accomodate
Mosely died in 1935 but
mixing vats , fillers, a boiler house and stables .
the company remained a family concern until its sale in 1970.
Religiou s Pursuits
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With the industrial, commercial and residential growth of the district came
the need for institutions of learning and religion .
The first churches in
the area were the Methodist chapels:
the early timber church and it~ brick
successor of 1865, next to the old Common School, now incorporated as a music
room at Debney Park High S~hool.
Kensington Methodists
established
themselves in April 1882 also in a small wooden church; having been
originally granted a reserve facing Parsons Street as early as 1856.
Although numerically significant in the nineteenth cent~ry, the Methodist
population, by 1981, had dwindled to approximately 200.
Dalgety & Co. Stores Newmarket Railway Yards, Now Demolished (SLV.)
(West Bourke Times 15.8.1901 ) .
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
Before 1876 , Anglicans in Flemington and KenSington were forced to travel to
St . Mary's Hotham , until the new weatherboard building on the Crown grant
near Manningham Road and Royal Park opened .
The church was named St .
Georges, but was still part of the Parish of St. Mary's until October 1878.
In 1916, the church was accommodated in a brick building that had previously
been used as a hall for church activities .
There was again the problem of
location matching population centres . As St. Georges was situated on the edge
of the parochial district, in 1925, a new dual purpose church- hall was opened
on the more central and recently subdivided Travancore Estate (qv) .
Holy Trinity, . KenSington held its first service in a small hall in McCracken
Street and in November 1887 opened its church, the present day Holy Trinity
Centre .
Before 1879, Holy Trinity was part of the Footscray Parochial
District, then St. Georges and in 1888, the separate Parish of Kensington was
formed . In 1891 over 4,000 inhabitants of Flemington and Kensington, a large
percentage
of the population, were professed members of the Church of
England .
At this time, Presbyterians were also prominent, numbering nearly
1,400.
Their first sevices were held in the Flemington and Kensington Hall
in Racecourse Road in 1883 and a Kensington Presbyterian Church was
established soon after. In June 1888 the foundation stone for the Flemington
and Kensingtn Presbyterian Church was laid.
Catholicism is now the most Widely practised religion in the Flemington
district. In 1981, 31.6% of the population were Catholics compared to 1,705
in 1891. This is largely due to the influx of immigrants from Ireland, Italy
and more recently Vietnam, in the twentieth century.
Late last century the
first St. Brendan's was erected on the block of land purchased for the Roman
Catholic Church, in Church Street near the corner of High Street, in 1881.
A year later St. Brendan's school was built next door and was conducted by
t~e Sisters of Charity from St.
Columba's, Essendon. By 1912 the Sisters of
Mercy had taken charge of the school and a general move was made to the
present Wellington Street site.
The Convent of Mercy and Teachers' Training College began in 1909, in a house
called Aisla, on Mt. Alexander Road, which had been owned by the renowned
brewer,McCracken. This grand house was demolished in the 1970s to make room
for a library wing. In 1910 the new brick infant school opened in Wellington
Street and in 1914 St. Brendan's new senior school was built on the adjoining
land.
At the end of World War I the school claimed about 500 students,
although the establishment of Debney Park High School diminished numbers.
Immigration from the end of World War Two into the 1960s, accounted for a
The
period of rejuvenation and a growing student population of· around 600.
present St. Brendan's Church was built in 1923 whilst the Presbytery(qv) next
Holy
door, built in 1886, had previously been the house of James Urie.
Rosary Church, Kensington began in Derby Street in 1902 and soon moved to a
brick church on the corner of Ormond Street.
The church school started in
In 1928, Holy
1915, with the senior school opening twelve years' later.
Rosary commenced a new brick church in Gower Street, Kensington.
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Government Education
The fir st school in the Flemington district was demonination~l and was opened
by the Independent Church in Boundary Road on 1st January 1854. William Cork
was the headmaster and there were 42 enrolled students.
Later known as
Flemington State School No . 258, it was closed down when North Melbourne No .
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
1 Kensington Primary School SS2374, McCracken Street,
Commenced 1881.
2 Flemington Primary School SS250, Travancore Estate •
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Page 21
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
2586 was opened in 1883.
Another early school began in a small cottage in
The next year it moved to a new
Flemington village on 5th December 1853.
school room and teacher's residence built on land purchased by the Church of
England near Flemington Bridge . This building was also used for worship, but
the school was forced to close in 1858, owing to the withdrawal of financial
assistance from the Denominational Board .
The Flemington National School began in 1858 in premises owned by Hugh Glass
and under the Common Schools Act, it became Common School No . 250 . In 1868
the school moved to a new building in Mt . Alexander Road (now part of Debney
Park High School) and in 1924 it was relocated in a new building on its
present site as part of the Travancore Estate .
The story of Kensington Primary School No . 2374 is one of numerous ad hoc
additions and continually overflowing classrooms until World War 1.
At a
cost of 1,636 pounds, the first three- classroom bUilding in McCracken Street
was opened in May 1881.
Initially 228 children were enrolled and by 1898
this had dramatically increased to 1,000 students.
Attendances dropped
following the re- organization of Education Department Policies in 1910 and
again after World War 2, due to the mass exodus of families of the outer
suburbs.
In June 1949, there were only 451 students and half the day rooms
were not in use.
Local Government
Local go vernment of the area has also had 'a chequered history.
In 1862
Flemington, together with Essendon,was proclaimed a boroug h.
Edward Byam
Wight of the firm Watson and Wight and resident at ' The Ridge' Kensington, was
E.B. Wight ' s House, The Ridge, North of Kensington Road,
near the Ridgeway c.1866 (ECC )
~
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
appointed its first chairman. Within a few years, however, it was felt that
the interests of the southern section of the Borough were being neglected by
the Council.
Flemington and Kensington were not receiving a fair proportion
of rates expended in their territory.
In 1881 there was a move for
independence and a ratepayers association was formed.
By May 1882, the new
Borough of Flemington and Kensington was functioning, with Robert Pridham as
its first mayor.
The borough offices were housed in Racecourse Road until
1901 when the new town hall was built in Bellair Street.
The town hall,
designed by the borough's architect, Evander McIver, was built, after much
controvesy, at a cost of 6,000 pounds.
It served as a town hall for only
four years as, in November 1905, Flemington and Kensington, together with
North Melbourne amalgamated with the City of Melbourne to become the new
Hopetoun Ward. The town hall then became the Flemington- Kensington Municipal
Buildings, being used as a meeting place and for community activities.
In
World War I, it was the scene of angry meetings both for and against
conscription and in 1919 it was used as a local hospital during the influenza
epidemic.
The Twentieth Century
At
the turn of the twentieth century,
the Flemington-Kensington Borough had
The Metropolitan Board of Works
sewerage system had been connected to most houses and, four years' later,
electricity was introduced.
In 1906, after a long battle with the State
Parliament to recognise the needs of the western suburbs, the trams came to
the area, introducing to Flemington Streets a mass of poles and wires and 'an
2,500 dwellings and a population of 12,000.
323 Racecourse Road, Former Flemington and Kensington Hall:
once housed municipal offices and meetings prior to 1901 •
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
air of American smartness', according to the contemporary account by James
McJunkin. One tram route extended from Flemington Bridge along Mt . Alexander
Road to Essendon, whilst the other digressed left into Victoria Street,
running along Racecourse Road, to Epsom, then Union Road and finially
finishing at the Maribyrnong River . Flemington was further in~orporated into
a metropolitan- wide transport system under the Melbourne Tramways Board in
1925, when the tram along Mt . Alexander Road was extended from Flemington
the 500
Bridge to the new West Coburg route in Abbotsford Street, ending
metre walk needed to interchange .
Another inovation was the electrification
of the Melbourne railway system: the testing for which took place on the
Flemington Racecourse spur line .
In these early decades, most the paid workers in Flemington and Kensington
Many were wharf
were skilled tradesmen and of working class origin.
labourers in West Melbourne, whilst others worked in the nearby abbatoirs,
saleyards and tanneries.
The more comfortable lower middle-c lass had their
breadwinners in the railways, in small local businesses and the post office .
The upper middle-c lass, connected with the area's industries and trades,
chose Essendon and parts of Moonee Ponds to reside in, as desirable, semirural suburbs.
Large properties were subdivided there yielding regular
street layouts and large allotments, in contrast to the already fragmented
nature of Flemington and Kensington.
Perhaps one of these middle classes, a
teacher's son named Hal Porter, is said to have joined Kensington residents
for a brief time reputedly in Bellair Street where he watched the Gothic
shapes of the distant university from, it is said, a cast iron balcony.
Newmarket Railway Yards on Flemington Racecourse Spur Line
During Testing for the Suburban Electrification, 1916 (SLV)
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGT0N CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
Travancore Estate
However the area did provide one comparable haven for the middle classes. An
ideal area became available with the final subdivision of Watson's old
The home and estate had been bought in 1910 by the
Flemington Estate .
lawyer, horse racer and breeder Henry Madden and renamed 'Travancore' .
Travancore was the British army post, in India, where Madden regularly
exported horses for their use and like many in the horse trade at that time,
had
accumulated vast profits .
In 1918, the area north of the mansion was
subdivided giving five residential streets .
Madura, Lucknow, Cashmere,
Mangalore and Baroda, all Indian locations, gave their names to the new
thoroughfares and the blessing for the further amassment of profits in the
name of India . The subdivided blocks had small frontages as the surveyor had
envisaged rows of terraces.
Many of the purchases, however bought double
Different in character and period
blocks in order to erect detached homes .
to much of Flemington's housing these were mainly of the Californian Bungalow
Type, to be augmented by the later Italian villas, built in brick.
Seven
years later, in 1925, a section of the Golf Links to the east of Travancore
and running along the Moonee Ponds Creek. was also subdivided.
Mooltan and
later Delhi Streets were then made available for housing yielding house types
as late as the 1950s but generally pre-war.
Though not formed until this
period, Mooltan Street had long been a short cut from Moonee Ponds to
Melbourne.
Pockets o~ duplex maisonettes had been built prior to the Seond War but it
was not until the 1960s, that a new re-developent stage began: blocks of
privately developed flats began appearing, dotted throughout Flemington and
Kensington where the old mansions had retained large sites among the
cottages. The first prefabricated multi-storey Housing Commission flat block
was completed at Flemington in 1964: creating new concepts in structural
design. community housing and the scale of residential building.
More
socially significant, however, was the occupation of these by recent
immigrants, which meant that Flemington and Kensington have been heavily
populated by Italians, Greeks, Yugoslavs, and more recently, Vietnamese.
Immigration of non-British persons had commenced with policies adopted in
1947 whilst, in parallel the Housing Commission had developed John Wren's
A multicultural flavour has
racecourse at Ascot Vale for public housing.
enriched the previous white Anglo-Saxon working- class character of the area.
Flemington and Kensington today are at their core, residential suburbs ringed
by land given over to intense industrial activity, the abbatoirs, the
cattleyards and the famed racecourse.
All of these perimeter uses are
located just as they were from the area's beginnings. Heavy traffic thunders
along Macaulay and Racecourse Roads, like the herds of cattle did years
earlier and horses and racing are still strong identifying features of the
Flemington and Kensington area.
Prepared and researched by Penny Johnson, B.A.(Hons.) History.
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FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
CONCLUSION
Identifiable Eras:
fell - monge ri ng on the Saltwater River 1840shors e racing, training and breeding 1840spastoral areas 1847village centres
(government and
private
subdivi sion) 1849- gold traffic route 1851 village
centres
(post- gold
- additional
population) 1860- , 1870- railways 1859- 60 . • •
industrial growth along the Moonee Ponds Creek
with swamp reclamation 1870s
land speculation c1885- (housing , industrial,
commercial growth)
- economic depression c1892- l898
- Federation era renewed economic activity (housing,
industry, commercial growth) c1900- l0
- World War One, c19l4- l8 development cessation
- Post War residential c1918- 25 expansion,
government financed, and private ie . Travancore Estate.
World economic depression, c1928- 32
development cessation
- Momentary recovery, c1932-9
- World War Two, development cessation c1939- 53
Pbst- war expansion formulated natural
population increases and new
immigration
policies,
public
housing
emphasis,1947- post- war housing and general c1953- building
recovery begins
- Housing Commission Flat and private flat development
1960s
-
(Refer to Section Two for individual building and area histories . )
Page 26
FLEMINGTON AND KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
GENERAL SOURCES
(Including abbrieviations used in text for illustration sources)
G. Aldou s, The Stopover That Stayed, A History of Essendon, ( Esse ndon , n. d. )
Australasian Builder and Contractor's News
Au stra lian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)
Bailleau Library Map Coll ection (BL) , Melbourne Univers ity
D. L. Bernstein, First Tuesday in
Cup, (Melbourne, 1969)
Bill;s and
~enyon ,
November The Story of the Melbourne.
Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip, (Melbourne 1974)
M. Cannon, The Land Boomers (MUP , 1966) .
M. Cavanaugh &M. Davies, The Melbourne Cup 1865- 1982, (Melbourne, 1983) .
M. Cavanaugh, The Caulfield Cup, (Sydney, 1976)
Commonwealth Electoral Rolls (SLV)
Crown Lands and Survey Department, Central Plans Office(CPO)
Essendon and Flemington Chronicle (c1882-1894).
Essendon City Council Collection (ECC),
registers, minute books.
ratebooks, subdivision plans, permit
Essendon Historical Society, Annals of Essendon to 1924
Essendon Historical Society Collection (EHS)
Flemington High School historical collection
C. Jones, Ferries
o~
the Yarra, (Melbourne, 1981)
M. Kiddle, Men of Yesterday (MUP, 1980)
Kensington- Flemington Historical Society background notes held by F1emingtonKensington Municipal Library
J McJunkin(Ed),The Coming of the Trams, (Melb., 1906)
J McJunkin, 'History of Essendon 1948',(typescript,ECC)
Melbourn e University Architecture School Architectural Index
National Trust of Australia (Vi c. ) Building Files
F. Noble and R. Morgan, Speed The Plough, A Hi story of t he Royal Agricultural
Society of Vi ctoria, Melbourne 1906)
Page 27
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FLEMI~GTON A~D
KENSINGTON CONSERVATION STUDY - PHYSICAL HISTORY
H. Peck , Memoirs of a Stockman. (Melbourne . 1972)
Sands and McDougall, Melbou rne Directory
Smith , Cyclopedia of Vi ctoria (Melb . 190S)
State Library of Vi ctor ia , Latrobe Picture Collection Biographical Index.
Sutherland, Victoria and Its Metropolis (Melb . )
West Bourke Times (SLV)
ACKNOWL EDG EMENTS
Melbourne City Council Town Planning and Central Records Dpeartment off icers .
National Trust of Australia (Vic . ) Buildings section , notably Shirley Hawker,
Shirley Bell and Carol Thompson
Melbourne
Sawyer.
University Architectural
Index
Shane Cchill, Flemington High School
Page 28
Research
Staff,
notably Terry