(Image (1958 Atlantic Picture Pageant Card) : Don Furness, 136 games with Fitzroy from 1949, previously with Preston Swimmers and just one of over 100 VFL players who started their footy careers in the PDJFA) Prior to the Second World War, there were a few “junior” football clubs (in terms of class, but not age-wise) […]
Category: Darebin
Shadows On The Screen
—Bullant 17:59, 22 September 2011 (EST) The author did not identify himself by name but is easily identifiable as William McIntosh, the son of Andrew McIntosh, a long serving councillor and prominent baker in High Street. As the article reveals, William and his great friend James Morris were stalwarts of the cricket club and although […]
World War 1 Casualty : William George Vincent Williams (Australia’s First Fatality)
Few will be aware that the first Australian casualty of the Great War on 1914 was William George Vincent Williams from 36 Beavers Road, Northcote. Williams had spent five years in the Naval Reserve and had just a week left to serve out his time when war was declared and he was commanded into full […]
World War 1 Casualty : William Wailes (Preston and Epping)
William Wailes served as 3952, Private, 23rd Infantry and was 23 years of age when killed in action at Lagnicourt, France on 20 March, 1917. His military career was unexceptional – perhaps one or two more run-ins with officialdom than the norm – but he was unusual in that he was one of five brothers […]
WW1 Casualty : Maurice Vincent Barry (Northcote)
Strangely by today’s standards, not a lot of the deaths of servicemen were reported in the Family Notices section of either the Melbourne dailies or the Preston Leader. One notable exception was Maurice “Mickey” Barry, whose sorrowful mother was still placing In Memoriam notices in The Leader some ten or twelve years after her son’s […]
Darebin Community and Kite Festival
The Darebin Community and Kite Festival is an annual event held at Edwardes Lake and All Nations Park on a rotating basis. The first Darebin Festival was held in 1994 to celebrate the creation of the City of Darebin after the amalgamation of the former cities of Northcote and Preston. The following year the Annual […]
St Mary’s Church, Preston
Reported in The Argus, 06 June 1865 The Argus noted the “the laying of the foundation stone, or more strictly speaking (the building being already partly erected), the laying of the corner stone on an acre of land near the seven mile post on the Upper Plenty Road”. The land was donated to the Church […]
Chinese market gardens
The first Chinese market gardens appeared in Northcote in 1887. The Chinese had arrived in Victoria in large numbers during the 1850s gold rushes and many stayed after the rushes ended. German settlers had been operating market gardens in Northcote since at least the early 1860s but in 1887 they sold their holdings to the […]