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Aboriginal Heritage
Way before
Mathew Flinders spied the safety of Port Phillip Bay in 1802 the
local Aboriginal tribes had been living in the vicinity of
St.Kilda for thousands of years. They lived anomadic existence hunting and
gathering along the bay. Their middens or campsites can still be found
today along the sandy cliffs of Bayside Melbourne.
Link
to more aboriginal pictures & history
Luna
Park history & link
Old
Victory Theatre
St.Kilda
Cemetary
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St.Kilda City owes it's name in the
first instance to the circumstance of the schooner yacht, "Lady of
St.Kilda,"
being present, in Hobson,s Bay,
at the time the proposed government village allotments, at this-then
-seaside location, were given an associative name. The schooner, in it's
turn, was named after the"Lady of St.Kilda." The Lady is
supposed to have been Lady Grange, who was imprisoned on the island
of St.Kilda in the Hebrides, Scotland, by her husband in 1734-42.
For
more info on Stkilda Island in Scotland
St
Kilda, Scottish Hebrides
The islands at the edge of the world
The start of
our present day community in St.Kilda may well be linked to the forming of
our first community group The St.Kilda Rifle Corps in 1858. They were
formed at a meeting of 500 settlers in the then Town Hall in Grey Street
St.Kilda in order to protect the Crowns newest colony from the threat of
Russian invasion due to the Crimean War-Hence all the streets named after
Crimean Battles and Cities-Crimea Street, Alma Road, Redan Street &
Raglan Street after Lord Raglan, to name a few.
Other war
group names are Wellington Street, Waterloo Street, Nelson and Nightingale
Streets.
Hey
kids get out a street directory and see how many streets are named after
this war.
During the
first year of activities the St.Kilda Council had the municipality
surveyed and then decided upon the streets to be formed throughout the
area.
Street names
in St.Kilda fall into five main groups and they, in some instances
indicate the approximate date of birth of the community. In the first
group the sources of names are derived from early Australian Govenors such
as Fitzroy, Robe, Grey and Barkly.
Next we find the war group as mentioned above, then the poetical group,
the marine group and the personal group.
In the
personal group we have Octavia Street, associated with Octavius Browne, a
purchaser at Crown Land sales which were quite prolific. He owned a block
of land that bordered Alma Road to Wellington Street, from Chapel Street
to High Street. He built, in 1853, a large house that was an early
St.Kilda landmark and still is. The dwelling? Charnwood House after
Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire England. Other streets with personal
names include Gurner Street after Henry Field Gurner and Dalgety Street
after F G Dalgety, another purchaser of Crown Land & Acland
Street.
The poetical streets are
quite obvious to us and are mainly located in the suburb of Elwood.
Tennyson Street is probably one of the better known Streets.
Common marine named
streets include Neptune Street, Foam, Spray & Wave Streets and usually
indicate their proximity to the sea. |
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