City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORYCommission did build a number of apartment blocks in other parts of Northcote, including a“slum reclamation” area between Walker Street, High Street and Merri Creek, and the FrankWilkes Court for elderly tenants beside Northcote Park (Lemon, 1983:257, 266).War Service HomesAfter the First World War, due to the shortage of housing, the Commonwealth Governmentstepped in to assist returned soldiers and their families to buy affordable houses, through theWar Service Homes Commission, established in 1919. War Service Homes were intended bythe Government as “the counterpoint to the land settlement portion of the repatriation policy”(‘WSH Jubilee’, p.1), a policy commonly known as soldier settlement. Most of the assistancefor War Service Homes was given through low interest rate loans, but the Commission alsobuilt houses (VYB 1973, p.360). Initially the Commission intended to buy large tracts of landand contract builders to erect the houses, however due to difficulty engaging contractors andfinding sufficient material cheaply, the Commission was the builder for its first two years ofoperations. (‘WSH Jubilee’, p.4-7).Australia’s first War Service Homes were completed in the Sydney suburb of Canterbury inSeptember 1919 and Victoria’s first War Service Homes were constructed soon after in Preston(‘WSH Jubilee’, p.5). According to a report in the Preston Leader (11 October 1919), thesewere 60 houses on the Clifton Estate, just south of Bell Station. This area included Gertrude,Esther and Adeline Streets. The bricks used were from the nearby Clifton Brickworks, and thestone for the foundations came from the municipal quarry. These houses were commencedlate in 1919 and were occupied in 1920 (Rate Books). Other War Service Homes wereconstructed in Arthur, Bruce and Herbert Streets, Preston in the early 1920s. Later estates wereat Dwyer Avenue, West Preston and Leamington Street, Reservoir (Jones, 1994:106).State Bank housesThe State Bank of Victoria was established by 1912 when the Savings Banks Act (No.2365)provided for all Banks then operating under the Savings Banks Acts to be collectively namedThe State Savings Bank of Victoria. Services offered by the Bank included savings bankfacilities, special loans to discharged soldiers (from 1917), building homes for people of smallmeans (from 1920s), including the Garden City estate at Fisherman’s Bend and credit foncierfacilities including mortgage loans and sale of debentures. The credit foncier scheme was one ofthe first of many introduced in Australia over the first decades of the twentieth century andbecame known colloquially as the ‘cheap money’ scheme. By the 1920s the success of the creditfoncier scheme led to the Bank adding other loans on special conditions for lower incomeworkers and returned servicemen (Murray & White, 1992:207-17).A history of the Bank notes that:“One of the results of the new thrust into housing was that, to get the best combination of lowprices and high standards, the Bank effectively became a builder in its own right, issuingstandard designs and selecting building contractors for many of the houses it financed. A ‘Bankhome’ became an affordable goal, a symbol of achievement and recognition that the house wassolidly built. Such was the enthusiasm of Victorian workers for Bank-financed and built homesthat by the mid-1920s the Bank was the largest home builder in Victoria.” (Murray & White,1992:207-17)Most State Bank homes were built in the metropolitan area, and few were built in groups. It isthought that up to 7,500 were built, principally between 1921-30, then less until 1939. Allexcept 300 were in Melbourne and these mostly in the ring of suburbs: Brunswick, Coburg,Preston, Hawthorn, Kew, Ivanhoe, Heidelberg, Box Hill, Camberwell, Malvern, Oakleigh andBrighton (Murray & White, 1992:207-17).Tannery worker Ralph Underhill, and his fiancee Ruby bought a block of land in Preston inthe 1930s:31