PARKVILLE; SHELTER AND GRACE SITE HISTORY John J Matthews
Postera crescam laude – ‘I shall grow in the esteem of future generations’
Historical and cultural notes on the University of Melbourne’s southern boundary trees.
John J Matthews
Prior to the laying of its foundation stone in 1854, the 100 acre, site of the university and its northern colleges was ‘ rough and swampy land cut by a gully running north and south’.1 By the 1840s it had become an unofficial dumping ground and following the discovery of gold ‘a camping ground for bullock teams returning from the goldfields’.2 Artist and landscape designer Edward La Trobe Bateman,3 became the first contractor on the site and was assigned prison labour to assist in the massive undertaking. He had the land drained, removed tons of soil and became the first to plant European trees in a parklike manner, set with roads and walkways; all this for a venture that The Age newspaper decried as ‘...the very insanity of extravagance’ and where the attributes of a formal education in this colony (of gold diggers, sheep farmers and bullock drivers) was ‘...worthless for those who possess it’ and ‘...a curse rather than a blessing’.4
The Early Years The first years of the University’s formation were clearly difficult and this can perhaps be evidenced in the high turn-over of formerly appointed gardeners, beginning first in May 1856 with William Hyndman and then essentially one per year until the arrival of Alexander Elliot in December of 1861.5 Elliot was responsible for the continued development and maintenance of the renowned System or Botanic Garden ,6 in the campus’ northwest corner and oversaw the creation of the ornamental lake and the development of the Main Drive and Wilson Hall plantings. He was arguably the most significant gardener at the Carlton campus, becoming a familiar name to Melbournians through his appearances at gardening shows and considered advice, routinely featured in gardening articles of the day; he died in office in 1901.
The System Garden in the 1860s - Melbourne University Archives (MUA)
The System Garden photographed in 1875 showing the conservatory Tower. (MUA)
W. H. Newnham, Melbourne the Biography of a City, Melbourne 1956, p177. Geoffrey Blainey, A Centenary History of The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, p 7. 3 Bateman’s work is best covered by Anne Neale, see ‘The Garden Designs of Edward La Trobe Bateman (1816-97)’, Garden History, 33 (2) (Autumn, 2005), pp 225-255. 4 Age, 16 April 1855, p 5. 5 Juliet Flesch, Minding the Shop: People and Events that shaped The Department of Property & Buildings 1853-2003 at The University of Melbourne, Melbourne 2004, p 233. 6 Conceived by the Professor of Natural Science, Frederick McCoy, with the design assistance and guidance of Bateman, the System Garden was a complex, lengthy and frought undertaking that eventually isolated McCoy from both administrators and gardeners.
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The Main Drive of the University photographed in October 1918 prior to the planting of the Palms. (MUA)
Whilst these early tree plantings at the university have their basis in the English picturesque tradition there was clearly a greater emphasis on the science and biology of the various species chosen, with often (from what can be deduced), direct input or recommendations from staff members or professors of the day. A popular example is the Cussonia Spicata (cabbage tree) planted by the University’s first Botany professor, Sir Frederick McCoy in 1908.7
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The original tree died following storm damage in 1988 but its offshoot survived and was moved to the present Cussonia Court in 1989.
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Moving of the Cussonia Spicata in 1989, photograph by Norman Wodetzki. (UMA)
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The Master Plan By the late 1960s, the post-war demands and logical expectations for a contemporary university campus did not tally with the image presented by the Parkville site. ‘110 years of inadequate planning and controls’, was evident in its ‘builder’s yard appearance’8 and the early park like nature of its grounds had drastically altered to that of ‘dismal and depressing’ following a 1930s agreement to surrender maintenance to Melbourne City Council gardeners. In August 1968, a call for submissions for a University Master Plan brought an exhaustive two year process but eventually produced the much lauded strategies of architect Bryce Mortlock. The Principal of Sydney firm, Ancher Mortlock Murray and Wooley, Bryce Mortlock’s clear understanding of requirements, ‘...not a blueprint but a set of guiding principles’9, would bring about a thirty year relationship with the University and redeem the site for future generations. Following the Master Plan’s introduction in 1970-71, the University reclaimed responsibility for its grounds from the Melbourne City Council and employed skilled garden staff and a Grounds Curator ‘...to start on major repairs to and renewal of the landscape’.10 The urgent requirement of a car park was one of the first structural changes to the grounds, resulting in the removal of the Main Drive Palm trees and producing the now Heritage listed, South Lawn underground car park.
T.C. Chambers, 3. Master Planning for Landscape Elements- The Melbourne University Campus, Landscape Australia, (3) (August 1980), p 187. Juliet Flesch, Minding the Shop, p 199. 10 T.C. Chambers, The Melbourne University Campus, Landscape Australia, (3) (August 1980), p189. 8
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University of Melbourne, Main Drive, 25 January 1952- the morning following the Wilson Hall fire. (UMA)
Palm trees flanking one side of the Main University Drive just prior to their removal in 1970. Photograph By Maurice Pawsey (UMA).
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One of the removed Palms, making room for the new South Lawn Car Park 1970. photograph by Maurice Pawsey (UMA).
Leaving for its new home, another of the many Palms removed from the original University Main Drive. Photographed by Maurice Pawsey (UMA).
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Planting Policy post 1970 The renewed interest in Australian native plants at this time caused considerable debate as to a clear planting policy. The University had essentially ‘...inherited a landscape dominated by Northern hemisphere deciduous trees’ but ‘...having its cultural roots firmly in both hemisphere’s’ felt that both could be used to advantage. It was agreed that our planting on the site boundaries should wherever possible link with the street planting so that there was a degree of consistency if not uniformity of species softening the transition from Street to site-so that now Elms, Planes, and Ashes ‘flow’ into the site from the surrounding roads. 11
Trees on the Grattan Street boundary: Tree 149 (English Elm), Tree 151(Golden Scotch Elm), Tree 152 (English Elm), Tree 153 (English Elm), Tree 163 (London Plane). This group of five trees can be found west of the 1888 building and immediately east of the entrance Gate Lodge (building 187) where they front Engineering Block C (building 174) and Block B (building 175). All of these trees are assessed to be in the 25-50 year age range, which is consistent with Block C’s last construction date of 1973-74,12 when expanded with the additional wings of Blocks B and D. Simply put, any existing trees (prior 1973) would have been removed during the last construction phase and this accounts for the relative youth of the areas plantings.
Tree 288 (London Plane), Tree 290 (English Elm), Tree 292 (Italian Cyprus), Tree 293 (Canary Island Pine), Tree 301 (Canary Island Pine), Tree 303 (Canary Island Pine), Tree 305 (Californian Redwood), Tree 307 (Californian Redwood)Tree 308 (Californian Redwood), Tree 311 (Southern Mahogany), Tree 312 (Southern Mahogany), Tree 313 (Bhutan Cyprus) and Tree 314 (Cork Oak). Eleven of these thirteen trees can be found in a dense cluster, immediately to the west side of the Gate Lodge and between the eastern extremity of the Medical Building (building 180). With their varied age ranges i.e. less than 5 years, less than 25, less than 50 and greater than 50 years, the plantings are consistent with the buildings’ post construction dates and additional plantings following Master Plan principles; the Medical Building 1965-69 and Gate Lodge western extension 1962. The present Gate Lodge (building 187) dates from 1860 and has a varied and interesting history, thoroughly investigated by George Tibbits in 1995.13 Historically, the immediate garden spaces surrounding the Lodge have suffered little structural interference over the years and it is here that one would expect to find surviving trees of significant or grand age; this is not the case. Comparing the few existing photographs both pre and post 1950 of the site, one is left in doubt as to whether Tree 288 (London Plane) 50 plus years and Tree 290 (English Elm) 50 plus years, were in place prior to 1960.
T.C. Chambers, Landscape Australia, (3) (August 1980), p 191. All building descriptions and dates are taken from Goad & Tibbits, Architecture on Campus: A guide to the University of Melbourne and its Colleges, Melbourne 2003. 13 George Tibbits, The Lodge and the Main Entrance Gates, University of Melbourne: History and Conservation Guidelines, Melbourne University Press, 1995. 11
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Grattan Street opposite the University Of Melbourne’s main gates, 1901 (UMA).
The Gate Lodge, University of Melbourne c. 1967. (UMA)
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The south-west corner of the university contains the remaining 15 trees, eleven of which can be found facing the Medical Building and between the pedestrian walkway on Grattan Street. The oldest of these fifteen trees, Tree 321 (Californain Redwood), Tree 323 (Blue Atlas Cedar), Tree 324 (Californian Redwood), Tree 325 (Californian Redwood) and Tree 326 (Californian Redwood) are all dated in the 50 plus year range and would have been planted immediately following erection of the Medical Building (construction from 1965) or been in their infancy during construction. If we compare site photographs of the newly completed Medical Building (Mockridge, Stahl & Mitchell, Architects) we can readily discern the site’s initial plantings, including young Californian Redwoods and also make out a rather young Canary Island Pine (not amongst the 33 in question). Adding to this group are five English Elms, Trees 337, 338, 339, 340 and 341, four dated at less than 50 years and one less than 25 years of age. It is clear and logical that these plantings were after the final construction dates of this building and their planting, once again, would have been in keeping with the Master Plan policy of using ‘Elms, Planes and Ashes, to flow into the site from surrounding roads’.
The Medical Building photographed by Wolfgang Sievers 1970. Image from State Library of Victoria (SLV)
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The Medical Building, looking west. Photograph by Wolfgang Sievers 1970 (SLV)
Front of Medical Building looking east along Grattan Street, photograph by the author February 2017.
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On the western face of the Grattan Street/Royal Parade corner we find the Howard Florey Institute (Building 183), just to the rear of the Medical Building’s western arm (Building 180). On this point we find the last of the 33 considered for removal, Tree 342 (Golden Poplar), Tree 344 (Lombardy Poplar) Tree 345 (Queensland Box) and Tree 347 (Eucalypt). These four trees are all dated at less than 50 years with the Golden Poplar less than 10 years. Once again, the relative youth of the trees can be attributed to a regeneration of the area post the last construction phase. The Medical Building, although completed c. 1969, received two additional floors (Castles Stephenson Turner, Architects) in 1997-98. Additionally, the Howard Florey Institute for Experimental Physiology had three construction phases, the first two, 1961-62 and 1975 by Yuncken Freeman, Architects and the last (west additions) from 1993-96 by Bates Smart and McCutcheon.
Howard Florey and Medical Building corner, showing the Eucalypt 347 and Poplars 342 and 344 – photographed from Royal Parade by author February 2017.
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The Hockey Fields and the Shoppers Prior to any building work on the Grattan Street/ Royal Parade corner (pre 1965) the area had first served as open grounds planted in a park like manner with pathways leading up along the western boundary of the University and culminating at the System or Botanic garden. 14
Map of the University c. 1919 prior to the arrival of the women’s hockey field. Note the continued use of the (old) Sydney Road name (UMA).
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Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW) maps from 1896 and 1899
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In the early 1920s15 a dedicated Hockey field was set up on the south west corner of the University grounds in the area now occupied by the medical precinct, (the Medical Building, Howard Florey, etc) and served exclusively as the University’s Women’s Hockey Club practise fields. Melbourne University Women’s Hockey Club was founded in 1907 and still operates today. The Melbourne University Hockey Club (MUHC) is the only remaining foundation member of the Victorian Women’s Hockey Club (foundered 1910).
Aerial photograph of the University c. 1930s showing the women’s hockey field on the site of today’s Medical building.
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Information from Melbourne University Hockey Club (MUHC)- History (web Page - 24 February 2017).
Aerial view of the University from Royal Parade c. 1949 showing the hockey field or pitch used by the women’s team.
MUHC is affectionately known as “The Shop” and its members “Shoppers”. Once a common term for The University of Melbourne (as compared with “The Tech” for RMIT and “The Farm” for Monash), it is typically now only heard on the sporting fields. The term had entered student slang at Melbourne by the 1870’s, imported from Britain where it was used to refer to Oxford and Cambridge.16
The Melbourne University Women’s Hockey Club c.1909. (UMA).
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MUHC- History (web page)
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Addendum The University as a water source: Townend Creek The history of the indigenous Wurundjerie people17 tells us that the source of the fabled Elizabeth Street, creek or river was in the vicinity of today’s cemetery. Seasonal rains collected in the natural gully that divided the university site (just below), then meandered across and down the natural slope of today’s Bouverie Street along Elizabeth Street and southward into to the Yarra (Birrarung) The area was understandably used by the Wurundjerie as a source of food, including eels which migrated upstream to fresh water areas following their formative salt water years. It should be noted that the Wurundjerie viewed the country as providing six seasons rather than the European four.
Melbourne in 1838 from the Yarra Yarra, by Clarence Woodhouse. Collection (SLV). Painted in 1888 and accompanied by a three dimensional model, the works were exhibited at the century exhibition of 1888, to illustrate Melbourne’s development over fifty years.
Flooding along Elizabeth Street was such a routine occurrence in Melbourne’s early years that the thoroughfare was derided with numerous titles. It has been referred to as both ‘The Williams’ and ‘The Townend’, with the latter more accurate. The ‘Townend’ title is not a geographical indicator but a reference to the grocer Townend who occupied a wooden store on the south-west corner of Collins and Elizabeth Street. The colloquial jibe of Cashmore Lake was similarly used to describe the flooded entrance to draper Michael Cashmore’s corner store (today’s Block) and The Enscoe, after John Enscoe, partner in a firm of Queen Street merchants, who “...having nearly met a watery grave from a precipitate immersion therein’18 was mirthfully immortilised. Referring to the flooding menance in early Melbourne, William Westgarth explains...
Gary Preesland, The Natural History of Melbourne: a reconstruction. Melbourne University Press (MUP) 2005 and Gary Preesland, First people: the eastern Kulin of Melbourne, Port Phillip and Central Victoria, (Museum Victoria) Melbourne 2010. 18 Port Philip Patriot, August 1840, cited in Robyn Annear, Bearbrass- Imagining Early Melbourne, Collingwood (Victoria) 2005 [1995], p 43. 17
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Elizabeth street, where a little “Casual” called “The Williams”, of a mile’s length, from the hardly perceptible hollows of the present Royal Park, played sad havoc at times with the unmade street. It had scooped out a course throughout, almost warranting the title of a gully, and at Townend’s corner we needed a plank by way of a bridge. 19 In his Chronicles of Early Melbourne, the author Garyowen relates similar tales... there were then two fissures running toward and discharging into the Yarra, which for some years were known as the rivers Townend and Enscoe. The former starting from near the junction of Collins and Elizabeth Streets, some thirty-six feet above sea level, took its name from a fat, comfortable-looking grocer who long did business in a little shop at the south-west corner; whilst the other propelled its waters along near the north-west corner of William and Flinders Streets. 20 The Enscoe region of the early Melbourne flooding apparently describes a stream from the west of Collins Street, which runs down into Williams Street and continues towards the Yarra. The river burst from its embankments on Tuesday night and passing the corner of the wharf flooded the space in front of the Custom House, filling the river Enscoe, and converting the celebrated stream into a lake. 21 When comparing the above authors it’s possible that Westgarth’s reference to The Williams actually indicates the Williams Street tributary (The Enscoe?) rather than the main Elizabeth Street waters. Confusion is understandable as The Williams or River Enscoe, may have simply been fed by the Elizabeth Street waters (Townend Creek) at higher ground and then perhaps only during times of severe flooding. Westgarth’s reference to its, mile length and coming from Royal Park, is none the less curious. In 2009, the interest in the early flooding of Elizabeth Street and its water source spawned a Master’s of Architecture Design Thesis by Cliff Chang (University of Melbourne). Titled Uncovering Williams Creek, the project aimed to partially create an urban wetland along aspects of Elizabeth Street. Chang’s constant reference to the Elizabeth Street river as The Williams (and not The Townend) can only have come from Westgarth’s recollections (1888) as I can presently find no other original source for the name. This small mistake by Westgarth (which I believe it was), has been compounded by Chang’s reference and even more so since his project’s coverage through the media after 2010 and subsequent repetition via the internet. It is my belief that a common and more accurate description of the flooded Elizabeth Street, was and should be The River Townend or Townend’s Creek.
Fencing of the University The university was first fenced with timber palings during 1854 and its Grattan Street entrance gates also made of timber. Between 1872- 1880 the original 1850s timber fence was gradually replaced with a galvanised iron version of palisade design. 23
William Westgarth, Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria, Melbourne 1888, p 29. ‘Garryowen’ [Edmund Finn], The Chronicles of Early Melbourne, 2 vols, Melbourne 1888, p 109. 21 Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser, 27 October 1842, p 2. 22 Refer to Janet McGraw & Cliff Chang ‘Melbourne’s Hidden Waterways- Revealing Williams Creek’, in Double Dialogues 13 (Summer 2010) University of Melbourne. 23 The late George Tibbits has covered this subject in greater detail in an article for the University’s Department of Property and Buildings, see Environs Autumn/Winter 1999:10-13.
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Royal Parade and its trees In November 1878 the portion of road between Grattan Street, Parkville and Park Street, Brunswick was formerly named Royal Parade. The name change and subsequent development of the area including the tramline, was enhanced with a programme of tree planting that commenced a few months earlier in August. ...Sydney Road from Grattan Street to the Brunswick boundary, four rows totalling 816 trees’ and ‘...when planted will be as fine an approach as any city in the world can boast. 24 Announcing the Royal Parade name change the Leader newspaper goes on to inform, When the four rows of pines and elms planted along the entire length of the Royal parade have grown, the main northern approach to the city will be quite equal to the St. Kildaroad on the south. 25 There is clearly confusion over the date of these trees and that may be due to a constant requirement to replant. An early Report by the National Trust (1980) states that, ‘The now mature elm plantation lining the carriageways of Royal Parade was originally planted just after the turn of the century by special tree planting and maintenance gangs’. The Report further states, ‘It is highly likely that many of elms were nurtured as young trees in the nearby Ievers (sic) Reserve Nursery, South Parkville’.26
Argus, 2 August 1878, p 6. Leader, 16 November 1878, p 13. 26 National Trust of Victoria, ‘Report on Royal Parade Boulevard Conservation Area’, Melbourne 1980, p 13. 24 25
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The Percy Grainger Museum on Royal Parade, C. 1930s (UMA).
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Origin of mature plantings surrounding the 1888 Building On the eastern end of the Grattan Street boundary sits the university’s familiarly known 1888 Building, the former Melbourne Teachers College and one time, privately operated, University High School (1893-1900). Construction of this building dates from 1888 and to a specific design for the Victorian Education Department on donated land. Whilst not part of the 33 trees under consideration, the established plantings on this site are worth noting as they are routinely credited to the designs of William Guillfoyle (Von Mueller’s successor at Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens) with supposed additional input from later teaching staff, i.e. professors. I’ve presently to find any documentation confirming Guillfoyle’s involvement with this corner of the university and the tale may simply prove apocryphal.
The Murray Black Collection, The Medical Building Comprised of some eight hundred aboriginal skeletal remains collected north of the Murray River during the 1940s and 1950s, the Murray Black Collection became the subject of lengthy legal action between the Aboriginal Community and the University of Melbourne during the 1980s. Collected on the grounds of medical research, the remains were housed in the University’s Medical Building for many years before being repatriated back to the Aboriginal community for reburial.27 The Medical Building corner of the University is subsequently one of mixed emotions for Australia’s Indigenous peoples and this aspect of its relatively recent history should certainly be considered and /or included in any utilisation of the site and its trees.
John J Matthews February 2017
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S. Faulkhead and J. Berg, Power and the Passion, Our Ancestors Return Home, Koorie Heritage Trust, Melbourne 2010.