4 Wood Street

Patrick McKiniry  purchased the block that became No 4 Wood Street on 20 May 1867. Patrick,  his wife Mary (nee Mullins) and their daughter Catherine, born 1864, were  the third or fourth family to live in the street.They built a small two or three room wooden double-fronted Victorian terrace. It had a veranda and a front garden with a depth of fifteen feet and a path up the centre from the front gate. It was the only house in the Wood Street set back a significant distance from the street.

Partick and Mary had married in 1860. In 1869 their second  child was born but he died aged 10 months. Two more daughters were born in 1874 and 1876. In 1877 McKiniry sold No 4 to Mark Marks, but stayed as a tenant. In 1880 Marks sold to Bernard Murphy who immediately on sold it, together with No 2,  to a building investment society. The McKinirys left No 4 and do not feature further  in historical records except for Patrick being in Hotham in 1894 when he died.

John Murray, a labourer became a tenant from around 1882 to early 1890s. There are too many John Murrays in the historical records to discover his story.The house was vacant in 1895.

In 1889 Sim and Elizabeth(nee Mudge)  Cheatle became tenants – they had just married. Sim, a bricklayer, was born in Durham, England and migrated to Melbourne in the 1880s.  Elizabeth grew up in Castlemaine. They had a daughter Alice, both born 1889, and a son Simeon, born 1890.

A study of 1890 and 1897 MMBW maps indicates that the house was enlarged to four rooms between these dates. In 1909, after living at No 4 for twenty years, Sim Cheatle bought the property from the investment society.

The Cheatles were regularly being mentioned in newspapers in the 1900s. Alice was getting local school awards and became an upholsteress.  Simeon, a blacksmith, was a champion road cyclist. And Elizabeth was breeding and showing both dogs and poultry.

Not long after buying No 4 the Cheatles moved to nearby 90 Molesworth Street. It was a very similar house, a little bigger, but with a much deeper backyard which would have allowed the dog and poultry breeding to expand. Sim Cheatle died in 1930 and left No 4 to Elizabeth. She then transferred it to Simeon who sold it in 1939. Simeon`s wife Jessie was still living at 90 Molesworth Street in 1954.

Patrick Wittenberg who had been renting No 2 in 1910 moved in  and was there in 1915. The tenants for the following 20 years were William and Catherine Jones .William was a lorry driver. The house must have fallen into disrepair and had become uninhabitable by the early 1940s. A 1951 aerial photo shows the house  having collapsed.   The property changed hands a few times in the 50s and 60s. In 1964 a caveat was put on the property, almost certainly by the Housing Commission who, amazingly, were thinking of demolishing all houses on the north side of Wood Street as part of their slum reclamation program. The caveat was withdrawn in 1967.

No 4 was bought by a property developer in 1977. They also bought No 6 and built the  two two-story brick townhouses that are there today. The first owner of the new No 4 townhouse was Daryl Schimmelbusch, a plumber and brother of the famous North Melbourne footballer. The current owner and resident bought in 1982.

MMBW Melbourne Map 1897

If you know more about any earlier families who had a direct connection to the earlier Victorian home on this site in the past, we encourage you to contact us and share their stories and old photos today.