Ballyshanassy, Sandridge, Irishtown: the Melbourne suburb names that were scrapped
Ballyshanassy, Sandridge and Irishtown. These are just some of the names of our best-known Melbourne suburbs in the 1800s, and it's no wonder why some didn't hold up over time.
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Melbourne has been through a lot of change since it was first settled in 1835 — transforming from bushland to a bustling metropolitan centre in the space of 100 years.
The city developed at a rapid rate, but many of the suburb names coined by the city’s first settlers have been lost in the process.
If you live in Preston, Port Melbourne or Burwood, you could have been living in Irishtown, Sandridge or Ballyshanassy.
Here’s a look at some of the Melbourne suburbs that changed their names.
BALLYSHANASSY (BURWOOD)
No this isn’t a town in Ireland, it’s actually the former name of Burwood in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.
Named in 1858, the village of Ballyshanassy was named after John O’Shanassy, an Irishman who decided to move to Sydney on the recommendation of a relative.
He arrived in Melbourne in 1839 and was persuaded by Melbourne’s first Catholic priest, Patrick Geoghan, to settle in Melbourne instead of making the journey up to New South Wales.
O’Shanassy was an influential and wealthy man in Victoria, and became active in politics — campaigning for the state’s separation from New South Wales.
In 1857, he became Victoria’s second premier, although his first government lasted only 50 days, but he later became Premier again in 1858-59 and again in 1861.
O’Shanassy was knighted, both by the British Crown as well as by the Pope, but the suburb named after him wasn’t to last.
“In 1879, Ballyshanassy became Burwood after a brief spell as Norwood … why the name was changed is hard to explain except that an Irish name was not good enough for those Anglo-Saxon pioneers,” Niall Brennan says in his book A History of Nunawading.
EMERALD HILL (SOUTH MELBOURNE)
This area was once used as a corroboree ground by the Boonerwrung people. After European settlement the area was named Emerald Hill because it stood out as a green hill among the surrounding swamps.
Journalist Edmund Finn, described the area in the Port Phillip Herald in 1845 as: “Green as the freshest shamrock, encircled by shining lagoons and the shining sea”.
The suburb of Emerald Hill was one of Melbourne’s first, and it soon became a sought after location to live, booming in the 1870s.
In 1883 the council decided to change the name to South Melbourne.
HOTHAM (NORTH MELBOURNE)
North Melbourne was originally named after Victoria’s first governor, Charles Hotham, in 1854.
Born in Suffolk in 1806, Charles Hotham joined the navy at 12 and had became a decorated career as a seaman, rising through the ranks and commanding a number of ships.
He relocated to Melbourne in 1853 and was appointed as governor of Victoria.
During this period North Melbourne was a separate municipality, having separated from the City of Melbourne in 1859.
But by 1877, the name was changed to North Melbourne — and in 1905, it was taken back into the City of Melbourne as the Hopetoun ward.
IRISHTOWN (PRESTON)
Although not a formal name for Preston, it was originally dubbed Irishtown by Samuel Jeffrey who purchased a large pocket of land there in 1850.
But other English settlers in the area weren’t too pleased with the name Irishtown, and the Wood family who established a general store and post office in the 1850s started calling it Preston after a village in the English countryside.
The name Preston was formally adopted in 1856, but Samual Jeffrey listed his address as Irishtown until his death in 1891.
SANDRIDGE (PORT MELBOURNE)
William Wedge Darke was an English born surveyor who worked with Robert Hoddle in early Melbourne.
Hoddle sent Darke to survey the Port Melbourne area in 1838 and he worked from his caravan that he parked near the beach.
A track was put through the tea tree scrub and a sign for the settlement was erected on a sandy ridge, and the name Sandridge was adopted.
The name was changed to Port Melbourne in 1884 by the local council, whose members felt it better described the area and its use.
Rosstown (Carnegie)
William Murray Ross was an English born entrepreneur, who made a fortune in manufacturing in the early days of Melbourne.
He is best remembered for his 1875 idea for Rosstown, a new sugar mill and town that included a railway line to deliver the sugar to Port Melbourne.
His grand idea began to be built but were never completed — and with creditors chasing him — he had to abandon the mill and railway and sell the land.
The suburb kept the name Rosstown until 1909, until it was changed to Carnegie by the local council, who hoped to secure a loan from American Andrew Carnegie to build a library.
The council never got any funding from Carnegie but the name for the suburb was never changed.
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