Who Lived Around Here…

Michael Gorey, a resident of West Melbourne and member of the Hotham History Project, contacted us online in January 2025 and shared a discovery of an early portrait and a memoir written by Arthur Calwell, who once lived, worked and represented North and West Melbourne.

Margaret Ann Calwell gave birth to a son named Arthur Augustus at the family home, once located at 100 Stanley Street, West Melbourne in 1896. His father was Arthur Albert Calwell, a local police constable and later police superintendent. Arthur married Margaret Ann McLoughlin in November 1895 at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Soon after the first birth, a sister named Elizabeth Mary Calwell followed in 1899, then brother Horace in 1900, George in 1902, Margherita in 1905, Julia in 1907, and finally Mary in 1912 was the last child to be born at this home.

Stepping back in time before Calwell’s birth and the creation of the Calwell family home, was Evelyn Pitfield Shirley Sturt, who served as superintendent of Victoria Police from 1849 to 1878, and brother of the explorer Charles Sturt. He was the first Crown Land purchaser of allotment one of section 53 facing onto the area of Stanley Street, West Melbourne that would later become the Calwell family home.

In 1868, E. P. S. Sturt engaged architects Smith & Watts to design the set of homes and called on builders to tender and create the group of family homes.

Alfred L. Smith and Thomas Watts had only just formed the Smith & Watts architectural partnership in Melbourne in 1867 but would swiftly expand during the gold-boom times of Victoria. They were responsible for the design of many other notable buildings including some still in existence on Jolimont Terrace in East Melbourne, classified by National Trust.

Thomas Noble of Capel Street, West Melbourne was selected to build the family homes on Stanley Street. (1)

Anyone interested in seeing an example of Noble’s craftsmanship can do so at 62 Caple Street, West Melbourne. Noble was also responsible for Moore’s cottages in Chetwynd Street. Noble’s work at 62 Caple Street has since been classified by the National Trust & Heritage Victoria for its fine craftsmanship. (2)

Thirty years prior to Calwell’s birth, the homes around 100 Stanley Street hosted lots of decent working-class families. It continued to be a safe haven for other equally hard-working families in the twenty-five years after the Calwell family moved out to King Street, West Melbourne in 1913.

Did you know the inventor of Aeroplane Jelly once lived at 66 Stanley Street. Government lithographer John Noone and wife Julia once lived at 32 Stanley Street. In the 1930s Joseph & Daisy Meilak lived at 195 Stanley Street. Audio recordings of her recollections of life at Stanley Street can be heard online at the National Library of Australia. Also in 1930 William Hannan once lived at 217 Stanley Street, West Melbourne just to highlight some names discovered during the work carried out by our volunteers for melbournestreets.com.au on Sands & McDougall transcription currently underway.

Unfortunately, the group of sturdy late 1860s Victoria brick terrace homes, around where Arthur Calwell once lived, have all since been leveled. Replaced in the late 1930s by a large brick commercial building for Woolworths Ltd that, itself was also leveled only a few years ago. Today, locals might know the site where 100 Stanley Street home once was is now a modest concrete driveway that leads down to an Aldi underground customer car park on Stanley Street.

Covid19 had nothing on outbreaks of the past. Other outbreaks in Victoria around the decade of Arthur’s birth were not uncommon. In 1890, the morbidity rate in Victoria was 92 per 100,000, but thanks to authorities, it fell to 14.5 per 100,000 by 1900. However, early pandemics continued to be a significant scourge. In 1902, when Arthur was only six years old, he almost died of diphtheria. In 1912, 59 schools in Victoria were closed for between one week and one month because of further outbreaks of diphtheria.

Calwell recorded: ‘I grew up in [the] crowded inner [city] area, with its cottages built on fourteen-feet frontages and even less, and with evidence of human misery visible to all’.

Arthur’s working life started as a junior clerk in the Victorian public service, where he began in 1913, at the age of 16, in the Department of Agriculture, at that time was mainly concerned with the control of stock disease.

In adult life Arthur was elected President of the North Melbourne Football Club from 1928 to 1934 and later became Alderman then Melbourne City Councillor and finally went on to serve the people as leader of the Federal ALP from 1960 to 1967.

Arthur was survived by his wife Elizabeth and daughter Mary Elizabeth who sustained him with unflinching devotion to the end, Arthur died on 8 July 1973 at home in Melbourne.

Story researched and compiled by Stephen Hatcher in 2025.

Source:
(1)Miles Lewis, Australian Architectural Index, record #72250.
(2)Preserving Melbourne’s Colonial Past, Capel Street West Melbourne, Jean Ely 2019.