Melbourne 1838-2021
Time travel with Hidden Melbourne all the way from earliest settlement up to the present day.
1904-2016 Eastern Hill Fire Tower
Panoramas from Eastern Hill Fire Tower 1904-2016.
1856-1870 Parliament
Melbourne from Parliament 1856 to 1870
1856 Walter Woodbury from the roof of parliament. Source V&A Museum London
1858 De Gruchy & Leigh Lithograph – source State Library of Victoria (SLV)
1865 Charles Nettleton – source SLV
1870 Charles Nettleton – SLV
1856 Woodbury from Parliament
Going back in time with a master of photography – Walter Woodbury's 1856(?) Panorama from Parliament
Walter Woodbury came to Melbourne as a young boy, hoping to strike it rich on the gold fields. Unfortunately, he soon discovered that some people were getting very rich and most were not. Fortunately for us, he decided to take on work at the public works department and documented much of Melbourne using the new collodion coated glass plate technique which had been invented by Fredrick Scott Archer, the English inventor of the first practical photographic process by which more than one copy of a picture could be made. Wood bury's first panorama of Melbourne is though to be captured from the tower of the gasworks chimney in 1855. This was a tremendously difficult task and he had one opportunity to get to the top of the tower as an observation room had been erected to house a celebratory party for the opening. A steam engine hoisted dignitaries to the top in a cradle and Woodbury availed himself of this to haul up all his gear. He required not only his camera and a tripod, but also glass plates which had been coated with a collodion solution then dried. Photographers had to carry a tent to develop their plates in after exposure to “fix” the images using a number of chemicals. The plates were first sensitised by dipping in silver nitrate solution, then exposed in the camera while wet, and fixed immediately afterwards.http://latrobejournal.slv.vic.gov.au/latrobejournal/issue/latrobe-65/latrobe-65-028.html
This panorama of Melbourne from the roof of parliament is thought to have been captured in 1856. The corner of Bourke and Spring st where the Imperial Hotel now stands, shows a vacant lot at that time. Nobel's Circus stood there in1 852, then Salle de Vallentino unitl 1856, then retail stores until 1858 and Imperial Hotel from 1862. The site shows evidence of a circular area where the Salle stood (Image H4976 State Library of Victoria, shortly before demolition in 1856)
As Woodbury left for Java in 1857, this indicates that the panorama from Parlament was captured in 1856 or early 1857.
https://www.hiddenmelbourne.com.au/time-travel/1856-woodbury-from-parliament/
Travel back in time to the early 1900’s
Visit the Clocktower at University of Melbourne and see the visible remaining buildings from the last century and earlier.
https://www.hiddenmelbourne.com.au/VTNode/UnimelbOldArtsTower
The Old Arts building at the University of Melbourne was built between 1919 and 1924 at a cost of seventy-one
thousand pounds. Designed by Chief Architect of the Public Works Department, S C Brittingham, it was the last
stone building to be constructed on the campus. It is located adjacent to the Old Quadrangle, and forms part of
the central core of the University campus. The two storeyed complex is in a Tudor-Gothic style. The brick
construction has bluestone footings, and the exterior, including buttresses, is clad in Kyneton freestone. A fivelevel
castellated and turreted clock tower, containing the foundation stone laid in October 1921, rises above the
Old Arts building and adjacent Old Quadrangle, to visually dominate the site. Its bell was cast by Gillett and
Johnston of Croydon, England and was installed in 1925.
The Old Arts building, with its tower, forms an important landmark defining the oldest precinct on the university
campus. The inclusion of a tower reflected the original intention to include a tower in the unbuilt south wing of the
Old Quadrangle. Architecturally, the Old Arts building draws its inspiration from the original university buildings,
forming a coherent visual unit with them. It was the last stone building to be constructed on the campus and
symbolises the historical association between the arts faculty, the earliest and largest school of university, with
the Law Building and Quadrangle, the oldest building on the campus and where arts subjects were first taught.
Whilst you linger there, please look up at the magnificent drive mechanism for the clockfaces.
