eHive Object Details

Name/TitleBourke Street (south side) from near Elizabeth Street, Melbourne

About this objectView looking east, from near Elizabeth Street, showing the businesses along the south side of Bourke Street.

On the left of the image is a slight view of the north side of the street showing a large canvas advertising a haberdashery clearance sale. Next to this sign is a tall pole topped with sign that in earlier photographs (c. 1865) clearly advertised the "Cobb & Co Coach Office", which was at #35 Bourke St. The sign looks like it has been blacked out even though a branch of the business was still there. In the 1875 Sands & McDougal Directory, another Cobb & Co Office was located at #52 Bourke St.

On the right-hand side of the image is a sign for Victoria Baths which was at #42 (c.1865-c.1875). Baths were built to stop people from bathing in the Yarra, which was getting very polluted and too dangerous to bathe in. To the left of this signage is what looks like the figure of an animal, which is advertising Wright's Bull & Mouth Hotel. These two businesses are seen more clearly in a drawing by Samuel Calvert, dated 1865, held in the La Trobe Collection.

Other business names are difficult to read, but the Sands & McDougall Directory of 1875 tells us that the 2-storey building, third from the right at #56, is the Colosseum Hotel and Music Hall, proprietor, C. Wright. On the corner with Swanston Street, the building with the triangular parapet, is the Leviathan Clothing and Boot Company at #64.

On the opposite corner of Swanston Street is the Royal Mail Hotel. Bourke Street continues up the hill to Parliament House at the top-left of the image. There are many horse-drawn vehicles in the street, including a row of four hansom cabs parked in the middle. Deep gutters run either side of the street with small metal or wooden bridges placed to facilitate accessibility for people and goods.

A lady in a typical Victorian, as in the Queen, wide-skirted dress and bonnet, walks along the pavement in the lower-left corner.

One of the many glass slides purchased from retailers or specifically made for illustrated lectures given by Isaac Selby between c. 1930 and c. 1955 to raise money for the Old Pioneers Memorial Fund.

Selby probably showed this slide during his many lectures on old or early Melbourne, given during the 1930s. "When Melbourne Takes Rank as a City", was given on 12th February, 1948, at the Assembly Hall, Collins Street.

For more information about this image contact Royal Historical Society of Victoria

Date Madec. 1875

Measurements8.2 x 8.2 cm

Period1870-1880

Object TypeGlass slide

Subject and Association KeywordsSelby, Isaac, 1859-1956

Subject and Association KeywordsBourke Street (Melbourne, Vic.)

Subject and Association KeywordsCobb & Co. (Firm)

Subject and Association KeywordsHorse-drawn vehicles

Subject and Association KeywordsClothing and dress

Subject and Association KeywordsBathing

Subject and Association KeywordsHoddle Grid

Named CollectionImages collection

Object numberGS-CS-04

Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved