SNAP SHOT OF LIFE IN ROSANNA 1920s Yvonne Banfield There were only about 20 houses spread around in acres and acres of open paddocks. The roads were unnamed and unmade, some were just dirt tracks. The main roads were just formed and covered with blue metal broken up with a big sledge-hammer by a little […]
Category: Banyule
Joan’s West Heidelberg childhood
Joan Caroline Hope (nee Lemin) b.1923 lived in West Heidelberg from 1929 to 1952. My childhood in West Heidelberg was a carefree one. There were many paddocks around us and plenty of space to play. The gum paddocks were our favourite places; we often took our lunch there and spent hours making huts. In spring […]
J. Gordon
J. Gordon, Greensborough, was born in Scotland in 1819, and came out to Australia in 1847, landing at Port Adelaide, S.A. from which he came over to Melbourne and was for seven years in the employment of E. Johnston and Co., grocers and spirit merchant, by whom he was presented on leaving with a substantial […]
Arriving at Heidelberg
About 1913 Bonnie (Yvonne) Davies moved from St Kilda to Rosanna where her father (W. C. Davies) had a house built on 13 acres on the ‘corner of Rosanna and Plenty Roads, Heidelberg’. She remembers: Rosanna in those days was considered to be out in the never-never. No motor cars, only horse drawn cabs, jinkers, […]
Thomas Embling
Dr Thomas Embling was associated with the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg. Embling, Kew, was born in 1814, in Oxford, England, and left London for Australia in October 1850. He spent Black Thursday in Adelaide, S.A., reached Melbourne towards the end of the month, February 1851, and going at once up into the bush, remained there until driven downwards […]
How Libraries change lives
In the 1950s when I was growing up in the Housing Commission area of West Ivanhoe we received most of our services in place. There was the horse drawn bread cart which daily promised fresh warm crusts for the sibling who could get to the driver first. Vegetables came each Thursday on Joe’s canvas enclosed […]
William Duncan
Duncan, William J.P. Greensborough, was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, whence he emigrated to Queensland with his wife and three children in 1866. He remained in Queensland for four and a-half years, and then came to Melbourne, and removed to Greensborough, where he first rented and then purchased land and carried on farming, and there, he […]
Sylvester John Brown
Captain Sylvester Brown was one of Heidelberg’s first settlers. He began to purchase land in what is now Eaglemont from 1838 onwards and soon owned 313 acres. He also purchased land in Toorak, and a large holding in Northcote in addition to various blocks of land in what is now the City of Melbourne. By […]
Margaret’s Life in Guiding
In 1932 Margaret Williams became a Brownie at 1st Elsternwick Brownies Pack, on the Hotham Street corner, meeting on Saturday afternoons. With three younger brothers, her mother had enrolled her in this all-girls’ activity. Margaret progressed into Girl Guides and joined the 1st Elsternwick Guides Company in 1935 until her family moved to 63 Altona […]
Busy Bee Quilt
In 2019, early 2020, Heidelberg Historical Society held their very successful exhibition on Heidelberg’s Busy Bee Signature Quilt. Constructed in 1895-6 by members of Heidelberg’s Scots Church as a fundraising project, contributors came from far and wide to participate in the project. 213 hand-embroidered squares record almost 140 legible signatures as well as dozens of […]