Protected: Victoria through the ages: the boom years
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Articles by: Sarah Matthews
Canvas Town: ‘a floating city, devoured by the sun’
Ask a librarian, Our stories, Victorian history:
It was November, 1852, when almost overnight, a strange sight sprang up, near Princes Bridge, in Melbourne. Canvas Town, as it came to be known, was a large tent city, set up to accommodate people on their way to the goldfields…
Melbourne’s first newspaper
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Victorian history:
On New Year’s Day, 1838, pioneer John Pascoe Fawkner published Melbourne’s first newspaper. Printing presses were scarce in the colony, so Fawkner handwrote the newspaper himself…
Ania Walwicz: rebel with a cause
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories:
The Victorian literary community has lost one of its own, with the death of much-loved poet, performance artist and creative writing teacher, Ania Walwicz
The Show must go on!
Social life & customs, Such was life:
The Royal Melbourne Show has been cancelled this year so let’s look at how it came to be- and the fun times we can look forward to next year.
The riotous Williams
Ask a librarian, Victorian history:
Melbourne’s Elizabeth Street was once a waterway known as Williams Creek. Today, the creek runs underground, but every now and then, it returns with a vengeance…
Fireworks in Little Bourke street
Ask a librarian, Collection spotlights, Our stories, Victorian history:
There’s an air of intrigue around these deserted Chinese shopfronts, captured by artist Eric Thake in Melbourne during World War II
Time travelling with Sands & McDougall
Buildings & streets, People & professions, Such was life:
Bell hangers and nightmen, leech merchants and lightermen; these are just some of the nineteenth century characters you may find lurking within the pages of a Sands & McDougall directory.
On the ‘shick’ in Little Lon
Buildings & streets, Social life & customs, Such was life:
Of all the slums in inner Melbourne, ‘Little Lon’, was the most notorious. But there was more to the precinct than met the eye…
The Spare Corner Club
People & professions, Social life & customs, Such was life:
It was a cool summer’s day in 1940 when around fifty members of the Spare Corner Club met in the Fitzroy Gardens for lunch…
