1830-1840 European squatters moved out from Melbourne and built rough dwellings on land to the east (including Whitehorse) where, as pastoralists, they raised cattle and sheep on natural grasslands. They did not own the land; they occupied it under licence from the Crown.
1841 Melbourne’s population was 4,500 and land on the rural fringes was fetching between £5 and £40 per acre.
1848 onwards Pastoralists were able to buy the land they occupied e.g. the Bennett family bought over 100 acres near Gardiners Creek in the area now known as Bennettswood.
Most of Whitehorse was still native forest that attracted woodcutters who cut, carted and sold the wood in Melbourne for building houses, fences and for firewood.
A thriving charcoal industry also existed in the area.
1851 The discovery of gold in Victoria attracted many people to Melbourne resulting in the establishment of more farms to grow produce to feed the population. The Parish of Nunawading (the Whitehorse of today) was surveyed and small farming allotments of 20-40 acres were offered for sale in the 1850s. Nunawading is a Koorie word that is translated variously as ‘meeting place’, ‘battlefield’ and ‘ceremonial ground’. In 1854 the Fulton family (including ten children) settled on a 19-acre property in the southwest corner of the parish. The Fultons established family connections down the generations and were an historic and important family in Blackburn South (hence Fulton Road in modern times).
In the 1840s and 1860s farmers planted fruit trees, tended vegetable gardens, raised cereal crops, cut hay, kept poultry and pigs and milked a few dairy cows with surplus produce taken to markets in Kew or the city by horse and cart.
1853 The Whitehorse Inn was built on Whitehorse Road Box Hill.
Burwood and Canterbury Roads were originally stock routes. Canterbury Road was originally called Delaney’s Road and subsequently became a toll road. Middleborough Road was originally drawn as a surveyor’s subdivision boundary line.
1854 The population of the Parish of Nunawading was 273 (and increased to 1,000 in 1861).
1857 The Nunawading District Road Board was established.
The 1850s in relation to Blackburn South
- The Bennett family bought 66 acres on Gardiners Creek on land that later became known as Bennettswood
- Jonah Britnell purchased 200 acres of land on the southeast corner of Britnell (later Middleborough) and Delaney’s (later Canterbury) Roads in Blackburn South. He paid £400 for the land and built a wattle and daub house on the land near the road-junction. Britnell leased some of the land to David Boyle and later sold sections to his sons-in-law, Samuel and James Collier.
- David Boyle was an interesting character – he was a nurseryman who had studied botany in Scotland. He was particularly interested in Australian native flora and collected fern specimens from the Dandenong Ranges for the then Government Botanist, Baron Ferdinand von Mueller. Boyle was censured by the District Surveyor, Clement Hodgkinson, the protector of native forests, for illegally collecting ferns for private sale.
Early 1860s A group of dwellings, shops, a pub and other businesses became collectively known as Box Hill, one of the earliest towns in the parish. A mail service was established in the area and the first post office was built at Box Hill in 1861.
1862 The introduction of telegraphic communications opened Box Hill and district up with the rest of the world!
1865 A new Land Act was passed to allow people (known as tenant farmers) to obtain annual licences to farm small 20-acre blocks. In 1869 these farmers were allowed to purchase the land they farmed if certain improvements had been made. These farmers were called selectors.
1866 Whitehorse Road was declared as a main road to connect with Lilydale to the east.
1870s onwards Fruit orchards started to proliferate in the Shire of Nunawading (including Blackburn South), reaching a peak in the 1920s. Apples, pears, plums, cherries, apricots, lemons, peaches and quinces were grown and harvested, mostly as fresh fruit to feed the population of Melbourne. Later on several cool-stores were built to allow the storage of fruit for export e.g. the Blackburn Cool Stores opened in 1917. The Fankhauser family were pioneer orchardists in the East Burwood/Forest Hill area in the 1880s. The fruit was loaded onto horse-drawn drays and transported daily to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne where it was sold by the orchardists themselves. Richard Fankhauser opened a cool-store in East Burwood in 1912.
1872 Nunawading was proclaimed a shire in April. The population numbered around 1,600 people (including two Chinese nationals but no Koories according to a census carried out the year before).
1874 A post office opens at Forest Hill.
1882 The railway line is extended from Camberwell to Lilydale and the new Box Hill and Blackburn railway stations are opened. In 1888 the railway line to Box Hill was duplicated and by 1891 the track duplication extended to Ringwood.
1880s
- The ‘Blackburn Model Town’ was laid out to the east of the Blackburn railway station. Streets and footpaths were laid out, drainage installed, gas-powered street lighting, ovals, tennis courts and a cricket pitch. A Mechanics institute and library were established. Even a man-made lake, now known as Blackburn Lake, was created by damming the local creek. The land around the lake was part-cleared of bush with clumps of trees left to create a ‘park-like’ effect.
- However East Burwood remained largely forested and ‘undeveloped until the late 1880s.
1889
- The first electric tram service in the southern hemisphere was opened along Station Street/Tram Road between Box Hill and Doncaster.
- The first primary school was established in Blackburn.
1892 The population of Blackburn was 50.
1894-96 Box Hill gains its water supply.
1885-1890 The ‘Heidelberg School’ of painters set up the Box Hill artists’ camp on David Houston’s farm in Box Hill South. The camp, on the banks of Gardiners Creek (now Box Hill Golf Club), was regularly visited by famous artists including Tom Roberts, Fred McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Jane Sutherland, Louis Abrahams, Chas Condor and Walter Withers. The bush environment of Box Hill was easily reached by train and allowed the artists to paint the Australian landscape in the outdoors as it was in reality rather than in a studio in the city.
Tom Robert’s The Artists’ Camp, McCubbin’s Lost and Down on His Luck and Streeton’s Settlers’ Camp were all painted at the Box Hill artists’ camp. The camp was within 500 metres of present-day Wurundjeri Walk and the local remnant bush of today is strikingly similar to the bush painted by these artists in the 1880s.
1899 Walter (‘Wal’) and Constance Wicking purchased 11 acres in Blackburn and built a cottage (‘The Hollies’) on the corner of Canterbury and Holland Roads. The Wickings were actively involved in the Blackburn South community for many years through fund-raising and providing the hard work necessary in setting up community services in the suburb including the establishment of the local Anglican church in Edinburgh Road. Local streets (Constance Street and Wicking Court) were named after family members.
Early 1900’s onwards Along with the many local orchards there were a number of flower farms including:
- A daffodil farm on the land that now boasts the Safeway/Woolworths supermarket in Canterbury Road Blackburn South
- The Chandler family grew Boronia on their property in Blackburn South
- Daffodils and Jonquils still grow wild in sections of Wurundjeri Walk, particularly between Wurundjeri Creek and Fulton Road.
1914 Electricity was first supplied to Surrey Hills and Box Hill by the Melbourne Electricity Supply Company. Blackburn, Vermont and other local suburbs soon followed.
By 1919 there were 1,424 electricity consumers in the Shire.
1916 – The new tramway extended along Toorak Road to Warrigal Road (the border of Nunawading at that time).
1917 The tramway along Riversdale Road was opened to the new Wattle Park at Warrigal Road (and then on to Elgar Road by 1928).
1918 The Blackburn Coolstore commences operations.
1920 The Blackburn South School opens for primary-level pupils.
1921 Box Hill Boys’ High School opened near the corner of Middleborough and Whitehorse Roads.
1922 The orchard industry peaked in the Shire of Nunawading then declined with residential development and the extension (and electrification) of the railway line further east. However, away from the railway line including around Blackburn South, the orchards continued to thrive for a few more decades.
1924 The Box Hill Girls’ Technical school opens.
1930’s
- The Blue Moon Fruit Co-operative Limited is established in Blackburn to store, pack and distribute fruit for the burgeoning export market
- Nunawading’s first high school established
- The flower industry thrived following the Depression of the early 1930s because people could again afford to buy them. Ernest Albers grew daffodils and other bulbs on his 10-acre farm on Burwood Highway from 1934.
- Poultry farmers, the Pettigrove family in Fulton Road Blackburn South and the Gedyes in Blackburn specialized in breeding and hatcheries.
1945 The Shire of Mitcham and Blackburn becomes the City of Nunawading. Whilst Box Hill was a fully functioning suburb of Melbourne, the City of Nunawading, to the east, still consisted of separate townships or districts, without a central hub.
1946 A change in the method of land valuation prompted large landholders to subdivide their land and sell for residential development. This lead to a massive residential expansion in Box Hill after the Second World War. In Nunawading however the suburban development was patchy with new residential estates sharing the landscape with rural landholdings until the 1970s.
1950s
- Dairy and poultry farms, market and flower gardens flourished on the flatter land along Gardiners Creek and in Blackburn South.
- Both Blackburn South and Burwood High Schools were started in railway huts in Ashburton.
- Dutch and British migrants settled in Box Hill and Nunawading in large numbers post-World War 2 along with people of Hungarian, Italian and Greek origin. Many Greek Australians moved from inner suburbs to settle in East Burwood in the 1970s.
1954 Burwood Teachers’ College opened on the site of Alber’s flower farm in Burwood Road in October of that year.
1959 Many Blackburn residents became early conservationists in their opposition to the wanton destruction of the trees and bush elements they had come to appreciate in the area. This movement led to the establishment of the Blackburn Tree Preservation Society in 1959. Sixty years later the society remains a strong advocate for the preservation and enhancement of the natural landscape in Whitehorse.
1957 Blackburn South Post Office officially recognised.
1959 Blackburn South High School opens.
1962 St Luke the Evangelist Primary School opened with one class on the Orchard Grove site. In 2018 the school student population was 208.
1964 Forest Hill Shopping Centre opened in June. It was the district’s first ‘drive-in’ shopping centre and boasted forty more shops than Chadstone. Australia’s top TV personality Graham Kennedy was the main attraction at the official opening ceremony.
1969 The Melbourne Transportation Plan, instituted by Henry Bolte’s state government, was released. The plan recommended an extensive network of freeways for metropolitan Melbourne including the Healesville Freeway (‘F9 East’). The Healesville Freeway was never built and the Blackburn South section was deleted in 1983.
Wurundjeri Walk in Blackburn South was originally the Healesville Freeway Reservation, a 20-hectare open space that was used for horse agistment in the 1970s and ‘80s before becoming the beautiful park it is today.
In the original transport plan the freeway was to start at Glen Iris, joining with the existing Citylink Freeway, join Riversdale Road and course through Box Hill South, Blackburn South and Forest Hill before joining EastLink and terminating at Lilydale to link with the proposed Lilydale Bypass.
Thank goodness for Blackburn South residents as the freeway deletion meant that a large parcel of open space including remnant bushland became available for other uses. The Blackburn South community, and more specifically the Blackburn South Residents for Open Space (BSROS) lobbied long and hard to secure this land as parkland for the enjoyment of all residents of the City of Nunawading (now Whitehorse).
1974 Eley Park Guide Hall opens
1978
- The Wal Wicking Activity Centre opens (the building forms part of the present-day Orchard Grove Primary School)
- The tramway was extended along Burwood Road (now Burwood Highway) from the Warrigal Road terminus to Middleborough Road.
1988
- The Nunawading Indigenous Plant Project established a nursery in Jolimont Road Forest Hill. The objective was to propagate indigenous plants for planting in the city’s parks and open spaces. The nursery moved to new premises on Wurundjeri Walk, Blackburn South in the early 2000s.
- It was announced that four senior government schools were to be amalgamated – Blackburn South High, Nunawading High, Burwood Technical School and Burwood Heights High. This occurred in 1989 with campuses remaining open at each site however within a few years the campuses on three of the sites were closed and the whole school was consolidated on the Burwood Heights site in Mahoneys Road to become Forest Hill College. The Blackburn South community fought to retain the Blackburn South site for public use and were successful in that a school for vision- and hearing-impaired students and a kindergarten were established at the Holland Road site. The adjoining open space was kept as a soccer pitch.
- A council-sponsored Koorie ceremony unveiled a plaque to the First Nations of Australians in the Nunawading Civic Centre gardens.
1989 Margaret Edwards, one of the founding members of the Blackburn South Residents for Open Space (BSROS) was elected as a City of Nunawading Councillor. Cr. Edwards represented the South-West Ward of the city that included the parkland now known as Wurundjeri Walk. BSROS lobbied to secure this land as parkland and Margaret remained a councillor until 1992.
Early 1990s Four Blackburn South Primary Schools (Mirrabooka, Warrawong, Killoura and Blackburn South) were amalgamated to form Orchard Grove Primary School on the old Mirrabooka site between Orchard Grove and Holland Road. The schools were facing reduced student numbers following the post-war baby boom and the new Orchard Grove Primary School started with 420 pupils. However it has expanded to over 600 pupils in 2018 and will become much larger with the continuing influx of young families into the suburb, more medium-density housing and high density developments such as proposed for the old Burwood brickworks site on Middleborough Road.
2005 – The Aurora School for hearing- and vision-impaired children was opened on the old Blackburn South High School site in Holland Road. The school was the result of an amalgamation of the Morning ton Early Intervention Centre (Mitcham) and Carronbank School for Deaf-Blind Children (Glen Waverley).
History of Wurundjeri Walk 