129 Hawke Street

129 Hawke Street
West Melbourne VIC 3003
photographer: Stephen Hatcher

Also known as
Previous Address
Constructed 5/08/1884
Style Victorian : 1840-1890
Architect
Builder Taylor, R – Spencer Street West Melbourne

Timelapse Building Images

No Entries Found

Land Details

  1. 1895 MMBW Map. source: http://maps.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
  2. 2. Compiled Crown Record Plan showing Mr. Barrett was the first crown land purchaser of lot 14, section 56.   source: http://maps.melbourne.vic.gov.au

Building Details

Notice of intent to build.

Street address: Hawke

Application number: 1009.

Application date 5/8/1884

Owner & Builder: R. Taylor, Spencer Street, West Melbourne. (Robert Taylor lived at number 1 Linton Terrace which was later renumbered 596 Spencer Street, after the 1885 Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directory, page 55)

Application Fee: 3.10.0

Type: two 8 room two story houses, with a private back yard garden. (127 & 129 Hawke Street)

Source; Burchett Index.

Other significant building works carried out by Mr. R. Taylor will be updated here soon.

(Mr. Robert Taylor was one of the 11 member committee for the creation of the North Melbourne Recreation Reserve in 1892 from a report in the North Melbourne Advertiser. Committee members from Hotham Council included the Mayor Cr. Costello, Councillors John Barwise, James Henry Gardiner and Thomas Fogerty)

Source: North Melbourne Advertiser, 14/10/1892, page 3.

The two houses at 127 and 129 Hawke Street were still under construction in 1885 when Council recorded rates.

Source; Melbourne Council Rate Book 1885, Public Records Office of Victoria.


Subsequent Building Alterations

No Entries Found

Architectural Features




  • Gate
    Cast Iron

    photographer Stephen Hatcher


  • Fence
    Brick

    photographer Stephen Hatcher


  • Fin Wall
    Brick

    photographer Stephen Hatcher


  • Building Ornamentation
    Concrete

    photographer Stephen Hatcher


  • Building Ornamentation
    Concrete

    photographer Stephen Hatcher



Heritage Significance and Listings

Heritage Listings and Explanatory Notes

Owners

From To Owner More Info Data Source
1975 to date Private Hatcher Index
1968 1974 Ostaldo & Ercole Cerrati Hatcher Index
1959 1966 Carlo Pallozzi & Giovanni Delgrosso Hatcher Index
1955 1958 Nicola & Michele Guida Hatcher Index
1954 1954 Helen Teller Hatcher Index
1912 1953 John Henry Dott Hatcher Index
1908 1911 Sarah Taylor Hatcher Index
1894 1907 Robert & Sarah Taylor Hatcher Index
Mr. Barrett Compiled Crown Record Plan
abt 40 thousand years earlier 1835 Boon Wurrung and Woiwurrung (Wurundjeri) peoples of the Kulin Nation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Victoria Hatcher Index

Residents

From To Resident More Info Data Source
1975 to date Private Hatcher Index
1968 1974 Ostaldo & Ercole Cerrati Hatcher Index
1960 1967 Giovanni Delgrosso & Carlo Pallozzi Hatcher Index
1955 1958 Nicola & Michele Guida Hatcher Index
1954 1954 Helen Teller Hatcher Index
1950 1953 Katherine Hawkins Hatcher Index
1947 1949 Henry George Hawking and Mrs.Katherine Jane Hawking http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article189486559 Hatcher Index
1943 1946 Eric George Perry Hatcher Index
1941 1942 Arthur Thomas Perry Hatcher Index
1939 1940 James Patrick Kelly Hatcher Index
1936 1937 Patrick Fowler Hatcher Index
1935 1935 William Timms Hatcher Index
1934 1934 Muriel Neylow Hatcher Index
1932 1932 Anna Rowlands Hatcher Index
1927 1931 Hannah Broadhead Hatcher Index
1924 1926 Ester Barton Hatcher Index
1921 1923 William Connlly [sic] Hatcher Index
1919 1920 Herbert Jackson Hatcher Index
1916 1918 Arthur Cunningham Hatcher Index
1915 1915 Harold Brown Hatcher Index
1914 1914 Michael Canny Hatcher Index
1911 1913 Michael J McGrath Hatcher Index
1909 1910 William Spencer Hatcher Index
1908 1908 Robert King http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article196092083 Hatcher Index
1907 1907 Andrew Brown Hatcher Index
1904 1906 William Spencer Hatcher Index
1900 1903 Archibald Walter Hatcher Index
1899 1899 Archibald Luff Hatcher Index
1894 1898 John & Mary Cody Hatcher Index
1890 1891 Mrs. Hughes Hatcher Index
1986 1889 Mrs. Elizabeth Matthews Hatcher Index

Social History

John Cody, (1841-1916) son of John and Anastasia Cody, (nee Walsh) of Mullinahone, Tipperary, Ireland and wife Mary (1858-1931), daughter of Andrew and Alice Lawrence, (nee Direen) lived at 129 Hawke Street, West Melbourne with their children, Anastasia, Alice, John, Honoria, Mary and Andrew Cody.

Source: Sands & McDougall Melbourne directory 1895, page 32. Additional information from the Cody family.


John and Mary Cody, (nee Lawrence).

John and Mary Cody” Stewart and Co., 286 Bourke Street c 1900.

Source: City of Melbourne Libraries, donor was Tom McCarthy.

https://librarysearch.melbourne.vic.gov.au/cgi-bin/spydus.exe/FULL/WPAC/ARCENQ/15010465/17802273,2


The children of John and Mary Cody, (nee Lawrence).

Source: Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria.

https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/


1901. Mr. J Cody was a keen breeder of birds, having won a prize in cocks with a specimen of fair size, good plumage, and shown in good condition.

Source: Melbourne Weekly Times, 24/8/1901, page 43.



Context and Streetscape

Precinct

North and West Melbourne Heritage Precinct and the HO3 (North & West Melbourne Precinct)

This property resides within the municipality of the City of Melbourne.
We respectfully acknowledge it is on the traditional land of the Kulin Nation.
source: https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/SiteCollectionDocuments/history-city-of-melbourne.pdf
historical map source: https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-collections-format/maps/maps-melbourne-city-suburbs

Streetscape

Hawke Street and the surrounding streetscapes in part, were indirectly influenced by news about the discovery of Gold by Dunlop and Regan in Victoria at Poverty Point, Ballarat in 1851. News of that find led to a great influx of migrants arriving in old Melbourne, seeking fortune and a better life, but housing in old Melbourne was in short supply. The sheer volume of arrivals led to pressure on authorities to expand the size of the colonial settlement, described by Albert Mattingley in his recollections of The Early History of North Melbourne, in 1916.

In 1852, government surveyor Charles Laing’s ‘Plan of the City of Melbourne and its Extension Northwards’ helped alleviate dramatically the pressure for more housing.

Vacant building allotments were pegged, surveyed, and allocated for sale towards the north, on La-Trobe, Adderley, Jeffcott, Spencer, Batman, King, Dudley, Rosslyn, Stanley, Roden and Hawke Street. Blocks of land were auctioned, with Hawke Street land first offered for sale in May, 1853.

By October 1853, W.M. Tennent wrote in the Argus newspaper:

 “Hawke Street is most desirably situated, is in a most healthy and elevated position and commands extensive views of the shipping in the bay and of all surrounding districts”

The race to be the first to have an influence on Hawke streetscape was won in July 1853 by Scotsman, Colin Campbell, who created two stone and brick rendered dwellings and a timber workshop at 19, 21 and 23 Hawke. He was quickly followed a week later by Thomas Stevens who built four wooden cottages on the corner of Hawke and King Streets. Steven’s wooden dwellings were later replaced in 1920 by S. J. Marshall’s architect- designed pharmaceutical laboratory while Campbell’s buildings were demolished in 1972 when the three-storey red brick Miami hotel was created in their place.

In the 1890s, the Hawke residential streetscape began to slowly change with the introduction of industry. The largest of the early industrial buildings that had moved out of Melbourne’s CBD, made its new home on the corner of Hawke and Adderley Streets.  It was designed by architects Oakden, Addison & Kemp and built in 1889 by John Dunton for Brisco & Co. who were cast iron merchants of Elizabeth Street Melbourne.

At the most southern end, an 1868 resident and engineer, Gideon James, and his wife Catherine, once lived at 207 Hawke while Gideon operated the Avon Tool Works business located next door at 199 Hawke until 1909. Their double- fronted Victorian home and garden and nearby workshop both were demolished in the 1920s and replaced by a two-storey red brick industrial building that has since been converted into 12 townhouses.

The southern end of the Hawke streetscape in the late 1860s was also home to a handful of important greengrocer and butcher shops. Among their owners were names such as James Ibbetson, William Wood, and Mrs. Mary Ann Smith.

In 1881, the streetscape continued to change with the arrival of Miss. J. Hutchinson’s mantle & underclothing factory at 96 Hawke, and Francis Gillman, who lived and operated a boot factory at 62 Hawke. The streetscape continued evolving when both Victorian period homes and workshops were demolished and replaced Number 96 is now a park and number 62 is a modern red and cream brick construction built in the 1980s.

Following World War Two, the Hawke streetscape received a rush of extra industrial buildings, from the Spencer Street corner southwards. These factories made all manner of items from electric batteries to spark plugs and baby carriages, marketed nationwide.

In 1895, the street contained 89 Victorian era dwellings. Seven Federation dwellings followed soon after. As of 2022, Hawke Street has lost 43 heritage dwellings, removed from its streetscape forever.

Without stronger heritage protection laws, by the year 2150, the number of heritage dwellings in this streetscape potentially could face total obliteration.

The remaining historic dwellings on Hawke Street are important to the area because they are socially and historically significant buildings that retain private back yard gardens and they relate directly to the early development of West Melbourne.

The Hawke streetscape today contains a collection of outstanding Victorian and Federation dwellings, which are a particularly well-preserved group from important architectural periods in time. These dwellings are interspersed by some industrial buildings, with two early hotels predominantly on the southern side south of the Hawke and Spencer Street intersection.

The North and West Melbourne Precinct is of historical, social, and aesthetic/architectural significance to the local residents and to the City of Melbourne. It is of historical significance, as a predominantly Victorian-era precinct associated with the nineteenth century growth of Melbourne to its north and west.

The residents living in the heritage dwellings along the streetscape are impacted by a push to increase residential density through conversions of the two to three storey red brick industrial buildings into six to eight story blocks of flats, blocks that offer little or no onsite car parking or onsite garden space.

It is imperative existing heritage regulations within the wider built environment be strengthened and laws be strictly followed. All development that occurs in future on Hawke Street ought to be architecturally respectful of the existing style, low scale heights and the hand-crafted materials utilised in keeping with the historic style.

Some might say the residents of Hawke Street and the surrounding streets of greater Melbourne owe a debt of gratitude to the wise Victorian settlers who created the beautiful terrace homes found along these streetscapes of today.

Other Information

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