City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

DAREBIN HERITAGE STUDY STAGE 2for residential use after the great Depression of the 1930s. MacPherson Robertson theconfectioner, built Carmalea in Station Street, Fairfield, moving there from Fitzroy where hehad commenced his MacRobertson’s Confectionary Company (Butler, 1992). Sales of sweetsdid not decline as much as the sales of bricks during the depression, and MacRobertson’sbecame a highly successful firm, with its founder recognised as a great Melbourne benefactor,particularly during the depression of the 1930s.To the east, Fairfield also experienced development. Barnet Glass, who established a largerubber manufacturing business in Melbourne, built his mansion Hills View, at 849 HeidelbergRoad in 1890. Charles Henry James’ Fulham Grange and Fairfield Park estates straddledHeidelberg Road, stretching down to the Yarra River. The one acre lots with river frontageswere sold for ‘gentlemen’s residences’ or ‘family mansions’. They are now outside Darebin’sboundaries. The smaller lots in the northern parts of the estates were promoted to ‘theWorking Man’. James’s ‘working men’s’ subdivisions were characterised by long narrow streets,such as Rathmines, Gillies, Mansfield, Rossmoyne and Gooch, with no reserves for recreation.Lemon points out that Northcote escaped the very cramped urban settlement of theneighbouring inner suburbs, because its 1880s subdivisions featured blocks that were relativelygenerous but not large enough for further subdivision (Lemon, 1983:141-2).At Preston some boom time speculators built houses on their estates to encouragedevelopment. Two such houses were built in May Street in 1890, and one was occupied by oneof the developers, but no further development occurred until the 1920s.By the turn of the twentieth century wealthier middle class people, and people on the road tosuccess, were taking up residence in Northcote, as highlighted by the larger Federation andQueen Anne villas such as Lugano and Mandalay in Clarke Street. Nyora in Normanby Streetwas built in 1905 by Oliver Gilpin, who had just commenced his soft-goods and draperybusiness that eventually expanded to a chain of stores throughout Victoria and neighbouringstates (Butler, 1992). As he prospered Gilpin moved to a large house in Malvern, and laterbuilt a mansion in Balwyn.Figure 41‘Lugano’, 215 ClarkeStreet, 1984Photographer:John T. Collins[State Library of Victoria,A N: H98.250/1284, IN:jc012976]Working class housingSpeculators in the nineteenth century built many rows of workers houses, and although theywere mostly of better standard than those in the cramped inner industrial suburbs such asCollingwood, there were still some local concerns about their quality, especially the fire-pronetimber terraces. With no building regulations before 1887, developers crammed as manyhouses as possible into their estates. By this time over 1500 new houses had been built inNorthcote and Fairfield, and many more were to follow over the next few years.70