Activities Around the Turn of the 20th Century – Part 2

These images are the second group of photos that I found on the State Library of Victoria’s website. I have downloaded them, edited and colourised them as illustrations of life around the turn of the 20th Century. You can find Part One of these images here: https://www.wilsons.id.au/activities-around-the-turn-of-the-20th-century-part-one/

Boating on the Yarra River at Fairfield was extremely popular in the early 1900s, centering around the Fairfield Park Boathouse (then known as “Willow Dell”) and the nearby Rudder Grange Boathouse on the Yarra River. These boathouses served as major recreational hubs, offering boat hire, tearooms, and social events. They still exist.

I have walked around the site of the old timber town at Cambarville several timeas and always wondered what it might have looked like. It is located on the road from Marysville to Warburton and famous for its tall Mountain Ash trees, some of which grow to around 100 metres tall.

Cambarville was established as a timber mill town in the 1940’s to salvage timber from trees destroyed in the 1939 bushfires. It had a one-teacher primary school, which opened on 2 February 1943 and closed in 1945 due to lack of pupils. It re-opened again in 1946, and shut down for the last time in 1968. The main classroom was used as a community hub for various social activities, like plays, concerts, and dances. Life in Cambarville was said to be particularly difficult, with no access to luxuries like refrigeration and other electrical appliances. Single men were housed in huts provided by the logging company, and were provided with meals from a boarding house on Main Street (sometimes there were more itinerants and single men living in Cambarville than families with children). Main Street was never sealed during its heyday. The main sawmill was destroyed twice by fire, the last time in 1971.

Central Park, East Malvern, was near my family home as a kid. It was at the No 5 Tram Terminus in Wattletree Road. In 1920, around the time of this photo, Central Park was a rapidly developing ornamental public garden, having been initiated by the Malvern Council in 1906–1907 on former golf course land. By the 1920s, the park was central to the development of the surrounding suburban area. A kiosk was constructed in 1911. A supper room was added in the 1920s hosting dances, meetings, and receptions.

Soldier settlement land clearing was an arduous, effort by returned servicemen after World War I (and later WWII) to clear native bushland, scrub, and forests to create farms, a process that involved significant manual labour. Grants were provided by government loans and land grants. It had profound social and ecological impacts, leading to both hardship and the establishment of new agricultural communities. These schemes aimed to settle returned soldiers on the land, but many lacked farming experience, facing tough conditions, crop failures, and economic struggles, with land clearing being a primary challenge.

In 1898, the Collingwood Fire Brigade was part of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) system in Victoria, Australia, utilising horse-drawn equipment. The station was a prominent suburban site on Hoddle Street, which had been established in the 1890s following the consolidation of fire services under the Fire Brigades Act.

Point Leo in 1910 was a sparsely developed coastal area on the Mornington Peninsula. It was known for its natural beauty but lacked any significant development. Early leisure records and images suggest people visited the beach for recreation, with crowds gathering at low tide to enjoy the surf and sand. 

Reminiscent of ‘Mulga Bill’, a camera toting cycle tourist, Mark James Daniel, photographed his family and friends in daily life.  His photographs are now archived at the State Library of Victoria. Daniel created a set of cycling photographs shot between 1898 and 1907 with his images providing an intimate view of one man’s journey on two wheels, during the first Australian cycling boom.

Dairy farming in Gippsland around 1900 involved arduous hand-milking, small herds, and reliance on women for processing, with milk transported by horse-drawn carts to local butter/cheese factories or railheads amidst significant land clearing.

This is the hangar area of Melbourne/Essendon Aerodrome in the early 1930s. The takeoff and landing area itself was a grass field. Something interesting appears to be happening around the Australian National Airways Avro X VH-UMI Southern Moon!

The Tait Class trains were  wooden bodied electric trains that operated on the suburban railway network of Melbourne. They were introduced in 1910 by the Victorian Railways when steam locomotive hauled carriages, and converted to electric traction from 1919 when the Melbourne electrification project was underway.

A Chemist and dentist’s shop in Alexanda, country Victoria in 1913.

Based on historical records, Mrs. F. Edwards Ice Company was an ice delivery service operating in Middle Brighton around 1908. They used horse-drawn delivery carts. This photo shows  some of the ice carts belonging to the company.

Wheat harvesting demonstration in 1910.

High Street, Glen Iris, in 1920. Just over thirty years after this photo was taken, my mother used to put me on a bus to go to kindergarten in a church hall further up the hill towards Ashburton. The driver would take me across the road to be met by the kinder teacher. The teacher would put me on the bus to return after kinder hours had finished and if my mum was late to pick me up, I would wait in the newsagent’s shop ( a little down the street and on the right from this photographer’s position) until she came to take me home.

In the 1930s, life-saving displays and carnivals were a significant part of the beach culture at Brighton, particularly at Middle Brighton Beach. These events often involved competitive drills, rescue demonstrations, and fundraising efforts during the Great Depression. A major “royal” life-saving carnival was held at Middle Brighton Beach in December 1934 as part of the Brighton Centenary celebrations. These events showcased skills to the public. While often male-dominated initially, women played a crucial role in life-saving, particularly during the late 1930s and into the war years. In 1936, it was reported that the first qualified women’s lifesaving team was formed at Brighton.

Men in 1930s tailoring shops experienced a mix of glamour and Depression-era practicality. Garments featured broad, padded shoulders and nipped waists in fashionable suits, alongside affordable, classic styles with bold plaids and stripes.

The staff of a rural grocery store around 1900.

This photo shows the crowd attending the dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance on Armistice Day in 1934 by the Duke of Gloucester to honor World War I veterans. It drew 300,000 people – around 1/3 of Melbourne’s total population at the time. Later, Queen Elizabeth II dedicated the new World War II Forecourt and Eternal Flame on February 28, 1954, expanding the memorial for later conflicts like the Korean War, Vietnam War, and more, making it a lasting tribute to all Victorians who served.

The Templestowe Hotel, established around 1868 by the Sparkes family, began as “Sheahan’s Pub” and became the second hotel in Templestowe. In the 1800’s, Templestowe was the go-to stop for a pint and reasonably priced bed en route to the goldfields. Joseph Deacon took over the licence of the Hotel in June 1938 and held it until September 1941 when this photo was taken. The hotel had major renovations in 1964 with modern updates in 2020.

In 1900 Melbourne, suburban steam trains, like the new AA class 4-4-0s and older 0-6-0T tank engines (such as the Z class), hauled popular “Swing Door” carriages, connected growing outer suburbs with the city.  

1880 – Carlton and St Kilda were key suburbs connected by Melbourne’s extensive 19th-century cable tram system. They featured green trams with white roofs running from St Kilda Beach and North Carlton through the city center to other suburbs, utilising an underground moving cable for power – a system that operated from 1885 until its conversion to electric trams in the 1940s. My colourising software has obviously confused the colours in this old photo.

It seems as though Walhalla has changed little since this 1885 photo.The town is located in the Great Dividing Range, in the steep Stringers Creek valley, approximately four kilometres upstream of the creek’s junction with the Thomson River. After its 52 year mining period ended in December 1914, Walhalla’s population declined rapidly and the town and surrounding area lost its status as the Shire of Walhalla in 1918. For the latter part of the 20th century, fewer than 20 people lived in the town as permanent residents.

This photo of 1920 shows the intersection of Wattletree and Burke Roads in East Malvern. It shows the terminus of the No 5 tram to the City and Melbourne University. It was on this corner that I sold newspapers in the afternoons after school, earning about 3 pence per dozen sold.

Boy cooks in the kitchen of the Try Boys Home at Wedderburn in 1920. The Clifden Farm and Try Boys Home was a farm training home for boys run by the Try Society. It had previously been the privately run Clifden Children’s Home which was administered by a government department known as the . ‘Department for Neglected Children and Reformatory Schools’. The home had capacity for approximately 25 boys. 

Shearing in 1900. Around 1900, Australian sheep shearing was transitioning, with machine shearing becoming the norm in large sheds.  Hand shearing with blades remained common in smaller operations. Shearing was a tough, iconic, physically demanding job central to Australia’s wool industry. The era saw major sheds “cutting out” huge numbers of sheep, with stories of fast shearers (ringers) and the introduction of new shearing technologies alongside old traditional practices.