The International Club of Victoria
4 Aug 2026The relatively modest house at 68 Powlett St, East Melbourne once went by the rather grand name of the International Club of Victoria.
Read More
Latest articles by Sylvia Black
The Dewdrop Fountain, Fitzroy Gardens
2 Jun 2026On a piece of flattish ground near the Gipps St and Clarendon St corner of the Fitzroy Gardens and directly in line with Bishopscourt there once stood a rather impressive fountain.
Read More
The Servants Training Institute
1 Apr 2026On the western side of Berry St, East Melbourne, there once stood a large red brick building known as the Servants’ Training Institute.
Read More
The Fitzroy and East Melbourne Bowling Club
4 Feb 2026In Fitzroy in 1865 the idea of a local bowling club finally came to fruition. A committee was elected. The name was confirmed as the Fitzroy Bowling Club and rules were put in place.
Read More
The changing face of Darling Square
4 Nov 2025In the time before white settlement the area around what we know as Darling Square in East Melbourne was swampland and was a source of plentiful foodstuffs enjoyed by the local Wurundjeri people.
Read More
Policing East Melbourne
3 Sep 2025In 1883 the Police Department rented a house on a wide block of land in Darling St, East Melbourne. This house would become the residence of the sergeant-in-charge of the new police station.
Read More
James Sinclair and his cottage
2 Jul 2025In the centre of the Fitzroy Gardens is a cottage almost invisible behind its overgrown garden but it is an interesting little house and worth a more careful look.
Read More
More than a kindergarten
30 Apr 2025An interesting sidelight on the changing demographic of Melbourne in the years after the Second World War was the decision to relocate the existing City Free Kindergarten in Exhibition St (on the corner of Little Lonsdale St) to Powlett Reserve in East Melbourne.
Read More
Jolimont and repatriation
26 Feb 2025By 1917 it was apparent that repatriation services for returning service men and women were inadequate. Soldiers were arriving back in the country in large numbers, most of them damaged by illness or injury.
Read More
Melbourne’s original aquarium destroyed by fire
27 Nov 2024Melbourne’s original aquarium was located in the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton.
Read More
The curious Mr Stanford: from East Melbourne to California
30 Oct 2024Thomas Welton Stanford arrived in Melbourne in 1860 to make money. He achieved this by quickly securing the sole licence to import Singer sewing machines. But it is not for his business success that he is primarily known.
Read More
Pros and (mod) cons
28 Aug 2024So pronounced the Sun-News Pictorial of October 16, 1939 … “In aid of the Red Cross and War Comforts Funds Melbourne City Council has transformed the Treasury Gardens into a Garden City with an extensive lighting scheme.”
Read More