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Carlton Community History Group
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23.01.2022 Here is a photo of the Lux ad, taken some years ago, before it had faded and been graffitied.
22.01.2022 Correction to the previous post. It seems that only the area of Royal Park south of Elliot Avenue was Camp Pell. A smaller area north of Elliot Avenue and west of the Zoo was an Australian army camp. It is in the top left-hand corner of the aerial photo. Here are some Australian troops (17th Brigade, 6th Division) marching from their camp to the Royal Park train station. On the left is the tram line that runs through Royal Park.
19.01.2022 The closest Melbourne ever came attack during World War Two was on 26 February 1942 when a reconnaissance plane from a giant Japanese submarine in Bass Strait flew over the city and suburbs. The photo shows the type of plane. Interviewed after the war, the pilot said he flew north along the west coast of Port Phillip Bay, over the RAAF base at Laverton and the anti-aircraft guns at Williamstown. At both of these places he was spotted, but then they lost him. He flew over the city and the docks on the Yarra, and then south over St Kilda, Brighton, Frankston, Dromana and back to the sub in Bass Strait. What struck him, he said, were the red, green and yellow roof tiles on the houses, and the beautiful countryside with large flocks of sheep
16.01.2022 Here is a modern aerial photograph of Royal Park with an old 1945 aerial view (black and white) superimposed on it. This once again shows how extensive the US Army and Australian Army camps were in Royal Park during the war. 'Murder scene' refers to the spot where a woman's body was found in May 1942, the third of the victims of the so-called 'brown-out' murders. The murderer turned out to be a US serviceman from Camp Pell.
14.01.2022 This year is the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, and yesterday was Armistice Day marking the end of the First World War. Many Carlton men died in those two wars, including a number who played for the Carlton Football Club in what was the VFL. A book called "Fallen - The Ultimate Heroes" details the lives and military careers of footballers who fought and died in the World Wars. Their stories highlight the brutality of war in a personal way, the courage and bravado of those involved, the randomness of outcomes and the importance of chance. Of the 115 men listed in the book, eight had played for Carlton - Wilf Atkinson, David Gillespie, Tom McCluskey, Fenley McDonald, Mathew Stanley McKenzie, James Pender, Alfred Williamson, and James Park. May they rest in peace.
12.01.2022 Here are some other old advertising signs in North Carlton, this time on the side of a house in Park Street on the corner of Canning St. The top ad is for Velvet Soap and the lower one for Bushells Tea.
10.01.2022 There is no public memorial in Carlton to those who died in the Second World War. This monument in Royal Parade, Parkville, erected in 1925 is to those men of the district who died in the First World War. The figure of an Australian soldier carved in marble stands on a granite pedestal, on which there are plaques with the names of the dead. Amongst those names is that of Corporal John Jageurs, who was killed in 1916 at Pozieres on the western front in France. He was the son of the man commissioned to erect the monument, Morgan Jageurs, of Jageurs and Sons Ltd, monumental masons of Parkville.
09.01.2022 During the Second World War, Royal Park became a huge military camp housing some 250,000 American troops. It was named Camp Pell after Major Floyd Pell, the first American airman killed on active service in Australia - in Darwin during the Japanese bombing of that city. A major road in the camp was named MacArthur Road after the American commander General Douglas MacArthur. This photo show the extent of Camp Pell and the rows of army huts that covered most of Royal Park. In the foreground is the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and on the right, Royal Parade and The Avenue, Parkville.
08.01.2022 Sometimes old advertising signs that have been hidden for decades are revealed when a building is pulled down. They often still have their original bright vibrant colors because they have been protected from the sunlight by the close-up adjacent building. Here is a classic example. This sign was revealed when a building in Nicholson Street (on the Fitzroy side) was knocked down in 2001. It has since been covered up again by a new apartment building. Dr. Morse's Indian Root Pills were very popular in Australia during the 1919 influenza pandemic, but went out of favour in the 1940s.
07.01.2022 This year is the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two. It was in September 1945 that the Japanese finally surrendered, bringing to an end six long years of difficulty for the people of Carlton, and Australia in general. Among the difficulties was shortages of food, clothing, petrol and other goods. Every household was issued with ration books such as those shown in the photo. In order to buy a pair of trousers for example, or foodstuffs such as butter, sugar or milk, you had to present a coupon from the ration book to the shopkeeper. Once you had used all your sugar coupons, for example, you could not buy any more sugar until the next set of ration books was issued. These shortages and the use of ration books continued long after the war ended, into the late 1940s.
06.01.2022 Here is another old advertising sign revealed when a building was demolished - this time in East Brunswick.
04.01.2022 Here is another photo of an ad on the same house. This time it is for Robur Tea. These houses on Park Street used to face a railway line when the Inner Circle Line was running as a passenger service pre 1948. So the side of houses like this were desirable places for ads as they would be seen by passengers on the trains.
02.01.2022 Here is an old sign that tells us who the occupier of the building was, way back. The building is in Rathdowne Street on the corner of Richardson Street, North Carlton. The sign says (at the top) that it was the premises of Mr Ray Chandler, chemist. Chandler ran a chemist business here for 20 years from the late 1920s until the late 1940s. Below his name can just be read that of C. Phillips who operated the chemist shop before Chandler, in the 1920s. Below that, the sign is basically an ad for De Witt's OTIS Tonic Tablets.
