St Kilda, Victoria - History

History

Kulin people lived in Euroe Yroke (the area now known as St Kilda) for up to 30,000 years. Evidence has been found of shellfish middens and huts along Albert Park and Lake and axes which were most likely sharpened on the sandstone cliffs behind the main beach. Corroborees where held at the historic tree which still stands at St Kilda Junction, at the corner of Fitzroy Street and Queens Road. Much of the area north of present-day Fitzroy Street was swampland, part of the Yarra River Delta which comprised vast areas of wetlands and sparse vegetation.

The first European settler in St Kilda was Ben Baxter in around 1839. He was a settler from Melbourne on a grazing lease. In 1840, St Kilda was the home to Melbourne's first quarantine station for Scottish immigrants.

The area was officially named St Kilda in 1841. The first sale of Crown lands in St. Kilda took place on 7 December 1842. The first block was bought by James Ross Lawrence, who had been master of the Lady of St Kilda until 1842. Lawrence had now settled in Melbourne. His block was bounded by three unmade roads. One of these roads he named Acland Street after Thomas Acland, who had been his employer until 1840 but who had never been to Port Phillip District. The remaining two became Fitzroy Street and The Esplanade. (A plaque at the junction of Acland and Fitzroy Streets marks the site of the block.) By 1845, Lawrence had subdivided and sold the land on which he had built a cottage. The land on the sea-side of The Esplanade has continued to be Crown land.

Within a few years, St Kilda became a fashionable area for wealthy settlers and the indigenous peoples were driven out to surrounding areas. The high ground above the beach offered a cool fresh breeze during Melbourne's hot summer months.

St Kilda became a separate municipality on 24 April 1857, and in the same year, the railway line and railway station connected St Kilda to Melbourne city and a loop line to Windsor. These railway lines brought many visitors to St Kilda and increased patronage to the privately run sea baths, the jetty promenade and the St. Kilda Cup, cricket and bowling clubs were formed in 1855 and 1865. By the mid 1860s St. Kilda had about fifteen hotels including the George, formerly the Seaview (1857).