
Also known as | Sharrow’s row house. | Source: Hatcher Index |
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Previous Address | 39 Hawke Street (before 1889) | Source: Hatcher Index |
Constructed | 17/4/1878 | |
Style | Victorian : 1840-1890 | |
Architect | ||
Builder | Mr T. F. Murphy |
Timelapse Building Images

Showing 37 (LHS) to 55 Hawke Street (RHS)
Photographer: Stephen Hatcher

“Cisco Kid” on horseback
55 Hawke Street over left shoulder.
photographer: Viva Gibb

Showing 13 (LHS) to 55 Hawke Street (RHS)
Photographer Graeme Butler
Land Details
Part of allotment 16 within Section 55
The land where 53 Hawke Street is located on allotments 16 of Section 55 of the 1853 Crown land sale as seen on the map below.
Crown (VIC) Land Sale May 1853 Age Wed 4th May 1853
First Land Purchaser Allison and Knight Age Wed 4th May 1854
Building Details
1878 Melbourne City Council building application registration no 7588.
source: http://maps.melbourne.vic.gov.au/
Subsequent Building Alterations
The terrace home remains mostly unrenovated inside. It’s fence was replaced in the 1960’s and it’s corrugated iron roof was replaced with terracotta tiles some time in the past.
Architectural Features
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Building Ornamentation
ConcretePhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Building Ornamentation
ConcretePhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Doors
Cast IronPhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Doors
Cast IronPhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Lacework
Cast IronPhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Doors
TimberPhotographer Stephen Hatcher
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Doors
TimberPhotographer Stephen Hatcher
Heritage Significance and Listings
Heritage Listings and Explanatory Notes |
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A single story brick cement rendered and painted 1878 Victorian style terrace home built in the “Filigree” style, a style distinguished through use of cast iron ornament, with a level paved area in front on with a deep back yard ideal for a garden. |
Owners
From | To | Owner | More Info | Data Source |
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1974 | to date | Private | Hatcher Index | |
1950 | 1974 | Nicola & Angela Guida | Hatcher Index | |
1942 | 1949 | Ellen McGann | Hatcher Index | |
1935 | 1941 | John Morton Wallace | Hatcher Index | |
1927 | 1934 | Mary Robinson Smith | Hatcher Index | |
1921 | 1926 | Marshall Theophilus Smith | Hatcher Index | |
1898 | 1920 | Mary Sharrow | Hatcher Index | |
1879 | 1896 | James Sharrow | Hatcher Index | |
1853 | 1878 | John Allison and A. H. Knight purchased land | Hatcher Index | |
abt 40 thousand years earlier | 1837 | 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 |
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1974 | to date | Private | Hatcher Index | |
1949 | 1974 | Nicola & Angela Guida | Hatcher Index | |
1942 | 1950 | Henry John Sampson | Hatcher Index | |
1934 | 1941 | Herbert Adolphus Haines & Dorothy May Haines (nee Wade) | http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243342313 | Hatcher Index |
1932 | 1933 | Gwen Phillips | Hatcher Index | |
1930 | 1931 | Mrs Hanna Bird | Hatcher Index | |
1922 | 1928 | Mrs. Mary Robinson Smith, nee Wallace | http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article3940800 | Hatcher Index |
1921 | 1921 | Cath Rennie | http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article206934941 | Hatcher Index |
1919 | 1920 | Elizabeth Parkinson | Hatcher Index | |
1917 | 1918 | Henry E Ferns | Hatcher Index | |
1916 | 1916 | John Baird | Hatcher Index | |
1915 | 1915 | Charles Ness | Hatcher Index | |
1895 | 1914 | James Horatio O’Connell & Bridgt Ellen O’Connell nee Doherty | https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au | Hatcher Index |
1894 | 1894 | Henry Warden | Hatcher Index | |
1889 | 1892 | Henry Rowley | Hatcher Index | |
1884 | 1885 | James McKellop | Hatcher Index | |
1883 | 1883 | William Comly | Hatcher Index | |
1880 | 1882 | Mrs Betsy Edwards | Hatcher Index |
Social History
1939. Dorothy May Haines and Robert Stewart engagement.
The Age

1928. Mrs W. W. Smith.
Union Memorial branch of the P.W.M.U.
The Argus

Context and Streetscape
Precinct |
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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
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Zoning |
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The controls listed below affect this property: This information must be verified with the relevant planning or heritage authority.
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Streetscape |
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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. |