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Bayside, located 16 kilometres south-east of Melbourne along the shores of Port Phillip Bay, with its picturesque land and sea, has long been an attraction for people. From its original inhabitants, the Bunurong people, whose cultural and historical connection to the area is still visible in important archaeological sites along the coastline, to the early market gardeners making Brighton the ‘vegetable garden of Melbourne’ and the land speculators who drove land values up by 680% in the 1880s, Bayside has a rich and fascinating history filled with stories of triumph and adversity. Past lives presents various objects from Bayside City Council’s Art and Heritage Collection, and that of the local historical societies, to highlight a handful of significant and lesser-known characters and stories that have shaped Bayside’s past. Nicole Salvo, Curator2 Shark’s teeth, Carcharodon hastalis Upper Miocene age, 6 million years BP Courtesy Sandringham Historical Society. Gift of Colin Macrae3 Prehistoric Bayside The most important urban fossil site in Australia is located at Bayside’s Beaumaris Bay. Among the cliffs and underlying gravel beds is a rich and diverse environment where evidence of local fauna including sharks, penguins, whales, dugongs and seals, as well as rare land-dwelling marsupials and flightless birds, dating between about 5 and 6 million years old, has been uncovered. Important finds have included remains of a 5-million-year-old beaked whale (the oldest on the continent), the Megalodon (the largest shark that ever lived) and winged pterosaurs (flying prehistoric reptiles with a wingspan of up to ten metres). These sharks’ teeth, which belonged to the Carcharodon hastalis species, are 6 million years old and were collected by local Beaumaris resident Mr Colin Macrae (1911–1994). Macrae was an assiduous collector who regularly found geological specimens on the sea floor and the shore adjacent to Keefer’s Boat Sheds in Beaumaris from the 1940s. In 1965 he made a significant discovery of fossil remains of an extinct penguin which led to the species Pseudaptenodytes macraei being named after him. 1 Traditional owners The coast of Port Phillip was an important site for the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation before their lives were irreparably affected by the colonisation of the area. The traditional owners and custodians of Bayside have had a distinctive relationship with local land and waters, and evidence of their links to the area are dotted throughout the municipality. 2 The Bunurong collected freshwater in the natural wells along the sandstone in Beaumaris and Black Rock. The ochre pit sites at Black Rock and Sandringham were used for dance and ceremonies and significant middens show us how they interacted with the local environment and how this changed over time. The shell middens, comprising of layers of periwinkle shells, mutton fish, cockle and mussel shells, ash, animal bones and stone implements are located in several places along the shore, with Brighton Beach being the most significant of these sites. 3 They provide an insight into the sequence of events at these locations and give clues to the foraging strategies of the First Peoples of the area. 1. Simpson, GG, ‘Miocene penguins from Victoria, Australia, and Chabut, Argentina’, Memoirs of Museum Victoria, Melbourne: Museum Victoria, 1971, Vol. 31, p. 20 2. Since 1 July 2021, the Registered Aboriginal Parties for Victoria has recognised the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of Bayside. Prior to this decision, Bayside City Council had acknowledged the Boonwurrung people as traditional owners and established a longstanding relationship with the Boonwurrung Land and Sea Foundation. 3. Presland, G, The land of the Kulin: discovering the lost landscape and the first people of Port Phillip, Fitzroy, Vic.: McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1985, pp. 90-914 HB Foot (Surveyor) Plan of the Brighton Estate containing 5120 acres, first special survey at Port Phillip c. 1842 lithograph 65 x 58 cm Bayside City Council Art and Heritage Collection5 BRIGHTON IS FOUNDED In 1840 Henry Dendy (1800–1881), a farmer from Sussex, risked his entire inheritance by investing in the ‘special survey’ system which enabled wealthy English capitalists to purchase a block of 5,120 acres in Australia before survey, for a mere £1 per acre. He should have made a fortune as land in Melbourne was selling at as much as £5 a foot in 1841, and shortly after he landed, he refused an offer of £15,000, before his selection had even been made, proclaiming it was worth £50,000. 4 To preserve the sale of valuable land, the Governor and Superintendent had decreed land could not be acquired within a 5-mile radius of townships. With the help of JB Were as his merchant, Dendy eventually secured the acreage that was to become Brighton. The Brighton Estate, as recorded in the first special survey conducted around 1842, was bounded by North Road, South Road, Port Phillip Bay to the West and East Boundary Road. The design of the crescents of the town reserve is still a distinguishable feature of Brighton today. Dendy built a stately home called ‘Brighton Park’ which became known as the Manor House and had planned on running the private township as a squire, staffed by 139 workers whose passage from England had been paid by the Crown as part of the special survey agreement. Dendy's ambitious plan never eventuated. When depression hit the colony in 1843, bad debts accumulated, and land sales came to a halt. By 1845, Dendy was declared insolvent and he left Brighton to become a brewer in Geelong, followed by a farming enterprise in Gippsland. 4. Bate, W, A history of Brighton (2nd ed.), Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1983, p. 20 Detail of the Plan of the Brighton Estate showing the houses of its early residents, from left to right: H Dendy; HB Foot; J Hawdon; JB Were6 Black Rock House Black Rock House was built in 1856 as a holiday abode for Charles Hotson Ebden (1811–1867), a pastoralist, entrepreneur, and Victoria’s first Auditor- General. It was a unique property which sat on 112 acres along the shore of Port Phillip Bay and consisted of a brick and timber T-shaped house with a cellar, joined by a covered walkway to a castellated stone courtyard and stables. The house remained in the Ebden family until 1911 and has since been used as a guest house, a private house and was, for a decade, converted into four flats. The land was gradually sold off and consequently, the house lost its beach frontage. In 1974 Sandringham City Council purchased Black Rock House, saving it from demolition. During restoration this very rare wallpaper sample was discovered in one of the bedrooms. It is one of only two known surviving samples of the wallpaper in the world. The wallpaper illustrates scenes from the plot of the famous anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by American writer and abolitionist, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and tells the stories of two slaves, Eliza and Tom. It is unknown why this particular wallpaper was chosen for Black Rock House; it was in great contrast to the more decorative styles that were uncovered in other parts of the house. Given that Ebden’s neighbours at the time were a few market gardeners and some Bunurong locals, this highly provocative wallpaper was placed in a remarkable setting. Heywood, Higginbottom, Smith and Company Black Rock House wallpaper sample illustrating 'Scenes from Uncle Tom's Cabin' c. 1853 ink on paper 70 x 72.5 cm Bayside City Council Art and Heritage Collection7 St Ninian’s and George Ward Cole George Ward Cole (1793–1879) was a prosperous ship owner and merchant who arrived in Melbourne in 1840. He purchased land along the Yarra River and set up Cole’s Wharf in Flinders Street West. In addition to his shipping interests, Cole bought up land throughout Victoria including in Williamstown, Footscray, Frankston, St Leonards and Gippsland. In 1853, his interest turned to politics, and he was elected to the Legislative Council as the member for Gippsland, resigning in 1855 to travel to England. Upon returning to Melbourne in 1857, he was elected to represent the Central Province in the Upper House and retained this seat until his death. In 1841, Cole purchased twenty-five acres in Brighton from Henry Dendy and built ‘St Nininan’s’ for him and his new wife. Located to the right of Bay Street, the property extended from the Brighton foreshore northwards up to St Kilda Street and consisted of the main house, servants’ quarters, a coach house and a croquet lawn, as well as eight acres of fruit trees and vegetable plots. The Ward Coles had considerable standing within Melbourne society and during the 1860s, St Ninian’s was a hub of social activity for many identities who shaped Melbourne’s history. Victoria’s first royal visitor, Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was a guest here in 1867. In the 1890s, The Australasian reported about a Garden Party of 400 visitors at the property where musicians played on the lawn and a nearby marquee was laden with tables of cooling drinks, strawberries, cream and ice. Visitors were free to explore the grounds laid out with endless nooks, ferneries and rockeries, and ti-tree avenues leading to panoramic views of the bay with Mount Macedon in the distance. 5 Photographer unknown Garden party at St Ninian’s, Brighton (detail) sepia photograph 21.5 x 29 cm Courtesy Brighton Historical Society 5. ‘Garden party’, The Australasian, Melbourne, 22 November 1890, p. 38Next >