8 Hawke Street

8 Hawke Street
West Melbourne VIC 3003
source: Stephen Hatcher, 2019

Also known as Claremont Terrace 1868-1890, then known as Mary Terrace from 1895 onwards. Source: Hatcher Index
Previous Address 3 Hawke Street (before 1889) Source: Hatcher Index
Constructed 1/4/1869
Style Victorian, Mid: 1860-1875
Architect
Builder Alexander McIntosh of 186 King Street

Timelapse Building Images

2009

http://maps.melbourne.vic.gov.au/

1983

photographer: Graeme Butler


Land Details

Building Details

Melbourne council building application number 3126.

This terrace home along with the other 4 in the row were built and owned by Mr Alexander McIntosh. Houses 4 and 6 were built in the first stage in 1868, then houses 8 and 10 were built in 1869 and finally house 12 was built in 1870.

As if building wasn’t enough, McIntosh also owned and run a very successful wholesale & retail grocery, wine and spirit store at 186 King Street West Melbourne with his wife in the 1880’s.

Street addresses were changed in 1889 and that address on King street east side, somewhere between Little Bourke and Lonsdale Streets in Melbourne.

1 – 8
Architects Building Type
71992 McIntosh, Alexander Melbourne VIC Warehouses McIntosh, Alexander 1854 09 12 1627
77283 McIntosh, A West Melbourne VIC Houses McIntosh, A – 186 King St 1868 08 21 2772
77285 McIntosh, A – West Melbourne VIC Houses McIntosh, A – Melbourne 1869 04 1 3126
77292 McIntosh, A West Melbourne VIC Houses McIntosh, A – Melbourne 1870 01 14 3664
72730 McIntosh, A Melbourne VIC Houses McIntosh, A – Melboourne 1871 08 16 4516
82788 McIntosh, Alexander Parkville VIC Houses McIntosh, Alexander 1872 09 20 5018
72785 McIntosh, Alex West Melbourne VIC Houses McIntosh, Alex 1876 02 14 6649
78748 McIntosh, Alex Carlton VIC Houses Rankine, William – Station St 1883 10 8 523

https://www.mileslewis.net/australian-architectural/


Subsequent Building Alterations

No Entries Found

Architectural Features




  • Building Ornamentation
    Concrete

    photographer: Stephen Hatcher, 2019


  • Building Ornamentation
    Cast Iron

    photographer: Stephen Hatcher, 2019



Heritage Significance and Listings

Heritage Listings and Explanatory Notes

Intact detailed wrought iron lace work, veranda and original window.

Ornate and intact masonry detail on the parapet front.

North and West Melbourne Conservation Study – Graeme Butler

6 Hawke Street is a one-story brick and bluestone building containing building fabric from the 1876 period of construction. The fence has been modified but its Victorian facade elements remain mostly intact. Original 4 panel solid wood front door with overlight intact. Original chimneys are intact and operational.

4, 6, 8, 10 & 12 Hawke Street were built in stages by Alexander McIntosh of 186 King Street who also built a number of other significant houses and buildings in and around Melbourne.

What is significant?

The Crown Grantee for this land and a King Street grocer, Alexander McIntosh, applied to build this row of five five-room brick houses over three stages extending from 1868 to 1870.

The row took the name Claremont Terrace, later Mary Terrace. Alexander died wealthy in 1884.

William McCarthy was a later owner of the row and lived with wife Margaret in number 4 until his death in 1901.

A `Gentleman’ at his death, his last will was signed with his mark, an `X’, indicative of the self-made entrepreneurs in the Melbourne early area.

Typically the other houses were leased out.

Contributory elements include:

• one storey parapeted stuccoed cottage row of five, distinguished by the sweep in the parapet line with change of level;

• simple cemented cornice moulds, brackets;

• face brick side and rear walls, gabled dividing walls expressed above the roof;

• pitched roof behind the parapet clad with corrugated iron, with cemented and corniced chimneys also early white terra-cotta pots;

• concave roof front verandah with panelled cast-iron serpentine frieze and brackets;

• double-hung sash windows;

• four-panel entry door and toplight; and

• contribution to valuable Victorian-era streetscape.

Publicly visible side wall rendered.

source: West Melbourne Heritage Review 2016.

Owners

From To Owner More Info Data Source
1975 to date Private Hatcher Index
1972 1974 Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works Hatcher Index
1963 1970 Simone & Lucia Tate Hatcher Index
1955 1962 Sebastiano Amenta Hatcher Index
1939 1954 Percy Russell Wright Hatcher Index
1923 1937 Charles & Mary Wright Hatcher Index
1914 1922 McCarthy’s Estate Hatcher Index
1908 1913 Mrs Margaret McCarthy Hatcher Index
1902 1907 McCarthyTrustees Hatcher Index
1885 1901 William & Margaret McCarthy Hatcher Index
1869 1884 Alexander McIntosh Hatcher Index
1868 Alexander McIntosh (vacant land) Hatcher Index
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
1972 1974 Grace Elliott Hatcher Index
1963 1970 Simone & Lucia Tate Hatcher Index
1956 1962 Sebastiano Amenta Hatcher Index
1939 1954 Percy Russell Wright Hatcher Index
1923 1937 Charles & Mary Wright Hatcher Index
1917 1922 Mrs Rosanna Kelly Hatcher Index
1912 1916 Joseph Dowling Hatcher Index
1911 1911 Thomas Pratt Hatcher Index
1910 1910 William Peirce Hatcher Index
1906 1909 Alice Conboy Hatcher Index
1905 1905 Jesse F Albon Hatcher Index
1896 1904 John Higgins Hatcher Index
1894 1895 Thomas Wood Hatcher Index
1893 1893 Charles Taylor Hatcher Index
1892 1892 James O’Connell Hatcher Index
1890 1890 Mrs Stevens Hatcher Index
1886 1889 Patrick D’Arcy Hatcher Index
1881 1885 William or Miles McInnes Hatcher Index
1880 1880 Robert Hood Hatcher Index
1874 1876 Isaac Davis Hatcher Index
1870 1872 James Brown Hatcher Index

Social History



Context and Streetscape

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

Zoning
This information must be verified with the relevant planning or heritage authority.

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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