DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF VICTORIA   

Atlas Page 42
By James Smith

MELBOURNE - THE CITY 4....

On an adjoining block of land, having the same dimensions as that upon which the last-named institution stands, was erected in the year 1846 the small structure out of which has grown by gradual accretion the Melbourne Hospital, containing now upwards of twenty wards and three hundred beds. About four thousand patients are treated as inmates every year, and from four to five times that number of out-patients are annually furnished with medicine and advice, at a total cost of twenty-five thousand pounds sterling per annum. From an architectural point of view, the building is plain to ugliness. It consists of a main body, two detached pavilions and some extensive out-offices in the rear. The entrance is from Lonsdale Street, and an area of something like an acre, skirting that thoroughfare, is laid out in lawns and walks and planted with trees, under which, during the summer months, such of the patients as are approaching convalescence enjoy the warmth and freshness of the air. But the place is so hemmed in by houses, workshops and factories, that the removal of the institution to some elevated position a few miles from the city is beginning to be recognised as a matter of necessity, and the enormous value of its present site will facilitate the accomplishment of this step, by removing all financial obstacles.

A few hundred yards to the eastward of the hospital in Lonsdale Street, the cathedral-like aspect of the Wesley Church arrests the eye of the stranger. At is built in the Early English style, of blue stone, with freestone ornaments, and consists of a nave and two side aisles, the former surmounted by a parapet with trefoil piercings and a high pitched roof; while the lines of the side aisles are picturesquely broken up by three gables with pinnacles between them. An octangular turret and spire with small gables on each face have been effectively introduced at the south-west angle; beneath the large window in the south wall of the nave, a cloister connects a handsome porch with the lofty tower erected at the south-east corner of the building, and serves also as one of its principal entrances. The tower is pierced in its upper storey by eight ogival windows, and is strengthened and enriched with buttresses ornamented by canopied niches. From its summit springs an octagonal and crocketed spire, constructed of freestone, and reaching an altitude of one hundred and eighty feet.

Higher up on the opposite side of the street stood the earliest circus erected in Melbourne, the proprietor of which amassed a large fortune in the first two or three years succeeding the discovery of gold, and died in impoverished circumstances not many years afterwards. Upon the same site Mr. Coppin subsequently erected the Olympic Theatre, associated in the minds of old playgoers with a series of performances which were remarkable for their high character. This theatre, after having been partially burnt down, was converted into a bedding and furniture factory.

Still pursuing an eastward course, passing through Albert Street, and leaving upon the left the Model Schools, which are anything but models of good architecture, the visitor reaches a part of the city in which in the early days of the colony large reserves were set apart for religious and educational purposes. A Baptist Church, a Jewish Synagogue and the Episcopal Church of St. Peter are in friendly propinquity to each other; and not far off is the place of worship in which the Swedenborgians hold their services; here also are the Unitarian and German Lutheran Churches, the oldest of the Presbyterian Churches in this part of Melbourne and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Patrick, with the archbishop’s palace and St. Patrick’s College in its rear; while on the opposite side of Grey Street, in which the latter institution is situated, are the grounds connected with the extensive pile of buildings constituting the Scotch College and the master’s residence.

The cathedral occupies an exceedingly noble site on the crown of a hill, facing a broad thoroughfare leading out of Collins Street and dominating the whole neighbourhood. Its triple towers will be the first objects to attract the attention of strangers arriving in Melbourne by sea, and are therefore calculated to impress them with the conviction that the form of religion of which they are the visible symbol must be the predominant faith of the country.

The style of architecture adopted is that variety of English Gothic known as the Geometrical Decorated, the general design embracing a nave with aisles, north and south transepts having aisles to each, an a choir or chancel, surrounded by an ambulatorium out of which seven chapels open, five of them octagons and two parallelograms, the central one forming the Ladye Chapel. At the west end of the church are two towers, which are intended to carry spires rising to a height of two hundred and twenty feet; while the central tower, at the intersection of the nave and transepts, will attain an altitude of three hundred and thirty feet. Inside the walls, the length of the building is three hundred and forty-five feet, while that of the transepts is one hundred and sixty feet, and the height of the ridges of the main roof is ninety-two feet. Three spacious sacristies for the archbishop, the clergy and the acolytes, form part of the general plan. The church is built of the basalt or blue stone which forms the bed rock of the neighbourhood, the white freestone from Sydney and Hobart being employed for the doors, windows, inner arches and decorative work externally and internally, as well as for the groining of the aisles; but the main roofs are of timber. A liberal use of flying buttresses, pinnacles and turrets contributes materially to the architectural richness of the edifice; and the three large windows with their foliated tracery, in the north and south transepts and the west front, are also conducive to a like result; the last-named window being filled in with stained glass of remarkable beauty. The central tower will strike the critical observer as deficient in altitude, but it seems that to remedy this defect would have left the architect but two alternatives —either to forego the erection of a spire, as in York Minster, or to impose a crushing weight upon the supporting piers, as was done in the case of Salisbury Cathedral, with the result of a deflection from the perpendicular internally, the prevailing characteristic of St. Patrick’s Cathedral is a massive simplicity, produced by the height and dimensions of the clustered columns sustaining the arches of the nave.

Most of the Government offices are grouped in this neighbourhood, and proceeding along Gisborne Street the visitor reaches the Treasury, the facade of which faces the eastern extremity of Collins Street. Its depth is so shallow in proportion to the frontage, that, viewed in perspective, the building bears too close a resemblance to an architectural screen. The principal front is divided into three members by a recessed basement, over which is an arcade of five coffered arches, resting on coupled columns and rising to the cornice. On each side of this central portion of the facade is a projecting doorway carrying a handsomely treated window above it, flanked by Doric columns and terminating in a pediment. The building, which is three storeys high, has been erected in the Italian style; the two wings harmonise with, the general design, and the approaches to the main entrances are by a lofty flight of steps, which can be brilliantly illuminated by half a dozen, clusters of powerful lamps.

Turning into the Treasury Gardens, which extend from Spring Street to Lansdowne Street, and have for their southern boundary the road leading out to Richmond, the visitor immediately comes in sight of the Public Offices, standing on the same level as the Treasury, and rising from a raised terrace extending to the latter building. These offices cover a block of land three hundred and seventy-five feet long and one hundred and fifty feet deep, and rise to a height of eighty feet in the centre. The principal facade has a southerly aspect, and consists of three divisions; the main body of the structure containing four storeys and the wings three. The style of architecture adopted is a modification of the Italian; columns of the Doric order being employed for constructive and decorative purposes in the basement storey, Doric in the next and Corinthian above. From the upper windows a very fine view is obtained over the billowy summits of the trees in the gardens beneath, and across the valley of the Yarra to Government House Domain, the Botanical Gardens and the south-eastern suburbs. Most of the departments of the public service have their head-quarters in this roomy edifice, and as these were formerly scattered over the whole of the city, and some of them were great distances apart, an important saving of time has resulted from their concentration in one building.

Returning to Spring Street, and retracing his steps in a northerly direction —after passing the lofty facade of the Grand Hotel, recently converted into a coffee palace —the stranger will find himself in a few minutes standing before the incomplete portico of the Parliament Houses, occupying an elevated and conspicuous position and facing one of the most important thoroughfares of the city, namely, Bourke Street.

As early, as the year 1853, Mr. Childers, now a distinguished member of the House of Commons, and then Commissioner of Customs in Victoria, moved a resolution in the Legislative Council affirming the desirability of erecting Houses of Parliament on the present site. This was carried, and plans were prepared by Colonel Pasley, R.E., at an estimated cost of a quarter of a million sterling. But it was not until the year 1856 that the necessary funds were provided, and by this time it was apparent that the buildings must be erected on a much larger scale than had been contemplated. Competitive designs were therefore invited, and the first portions of the buildings constructed were the two legislative chambers, designed to form the kernel of the general edifice. These were completed in November, 1856, and on the 25th of that month the first session of the first Parliament of Victoria, organised in conformity with the Imperial Act conferring a constitution on the colony, was opened by Major-General Macarthur, the Acting-Governor. Two years later the library and refreshment rooms were built of Bacchus Marsh freestone, which proved to be wholly unfit for the purpose, and Tasmanian freestone had to be substituted for it wherever the former had been most exposed to the action of the weather. It was the wish of the architects that the whole of the external masonry should be executed in Carrara marble, at a cost very little exceeding that of Stawell freestone and little more than half that of Victorian granite, and, if this had been carried out, the material would have greatly enhanced the beauty and nobleness of the structure; but an outcry was raised against it, in the interests of Victorian quarrymen and others, and so the proposition was negatived. In the year 1872 it was resolved by a joint committee of both Houses that the front of the building should be completed, at an estimated cost of eighty, thousand pounds sterling, but financial considerations prevented effect being, given to this resolution until 1877, when a Royal Commission was appointed, and instructions were given to prepare fresh designs for the principal facade facing the west, for an entrance hall between the two chambers, and for the foundations of the vestibule under the dome. The hall and vestibule were immediately proceeded with, and were thrown open on the occasion of the assembling of the Parliament in 1879. In March, 1881, a contract was entered into for the erection of the west facade and dome; but, difficulties arising in connection with the stone to be employed, the contract was abrogated, and a fresh one ratified with another builder. The execution of this is being proceeded with at the present time, the material employed being Stawell freestone; and on the 1st of October, 1886, thirty years after the commencement of the edifice, Sir Henry Brougham Loch laid a memorial stone forming the die of the right-hand central column of the portico. The whole will, when completed, be one of the most magnificent buildings to be found in Australasia, and an enduring monument of the ability of its architect.

The area covered by the Parliament Houses is three hundred and twenty feet by three hundred and twelve feet, forming part of a spacious reserve bounded by four streets, and planted with trees and shrubs. A flight of one hundred and forty steps gives access to a decastyle portico, one hundred and forty feet long, consisting of nine bays. At each end of this, doorways lead to the offices, committee- rooms, etc., and from the centre admission is obtained by three portals to the entrance vestibule, forty-four feet square, above which will rise a double stone dome forty-six feet in diameter, to be surmounted by a stone lantern, the summit of which will be two hundred and eighteen feet above the ground. Immediately behind the vestibule is the Victoria Hall, eighty-five feet long, forty-five wide, and fifty-four high, so that it approaches a double cube in its dimensions. In the centre stands a full-length marble statue of the Queen in her robes of state, sculptured by the late Marshall Wood. This hall separates the two Chambers, and the east end communicates with the library. Above the entrance to the latter is a small gallery, supported by an elegant loggia, forming part of the line of communication between the two Chambers, the gallery itself serving as a nexus between the reporters’ gallery in both Houses. The Legislative Council chamber is on the south side of the Victoria Hall, and has an extreme length of seventy-seven feet by forty feet wide, and a height of thirty feet. Its form and proportions are extremely agreeable to the eye. The style of architecture followed throughout is the Corinthian, the alcove, containing the President’s chair, being correspondingly constructed and decorated. The ceiling over the centre portion is vaulted and coffered, and that over the end portions is vaulted and domed. Ceiling lights cover the side galleries and illuminate the main body of the Chamber. On the north side of the Victoria Hall is the Legislative Assembly chamber, which does not differ materially in its dimensions from those of the Upper House. Its internal architecture is executed in the Ionic order, and is covered with a coffered, coved and enriched ceiling. The internal architecture of the Victoria Hall displays two orders, the Ionic having been employed in the lower and the Composite in the upper portion; the ceiling is deeply coved, and pierced so as to form, the clerestory which lights the building, while the central panels are elaborately coffered, highly enriched and profusely ornamented. From the east end of the hall, access is gained through a small lobby to the central library, which opens into the two side libraries, the whole occupying the entire length of the east front of the pile as far as it has been completed; but the plan includes two additional libraries of large dimensions. The central compartment is forty-one feet square, and is carried upon columns to a. height of forty-six feet, terminating in an ornamental coffered dome, pierced with openings to light the space below. The Doric order has been employed for the lower and the Ionic for the upper portion of the interior, and a broad gallery with a handsome balustrade runs round the centre library. This, with its annexes, contains about forty thousand volumes in all departments of literature, ancient and modern, British and foreign, irrespective of a mass of Parliamentary documents, newspapers and periodical publications, stored in rooms below.

Over the side libraries are the refreshment and billiard rooms, each of them forty-nine feet long by twenty-three feet and twenty-four feet high. At present temporary accommodation is provided in wooden buildings for committees and for some of the officials; but ample provision will be made for these hereafter in the north and south frontages of the completed edifice, which will cost little less than a million sterling before it finally leaves the hands of the builders and decorators. Whenever this takes place, the people of Victoria will have the satisfaction of knowing that the money has been expended on, an architectural monument planned in accordance with the teachings of the great masters of the Italian school. Its simple proportions are not marred by that "freedom of treatment" which is so often synonymous with eccentricity; decoration is subordinated to construction, and there is no necessity to make incongruous ornament serve as a mask for poverty of design. The external architecture consists throughout of a single Roman-Doric order, standing on a blue stone rusticated basement, and is surmounted by a well-proportioned attic, suitably relieved by carvings. This order embraces both the floors, principal and first, of which the building consists. Each intercolumniation includes a doorway, or window, opening on each floor, those on the principal floor having semi-circular arched heads, from the keystones of which spring elegant balconettes to the windows above. The five doorways opening on to the portico are embellished with polished gray granite columns from the Harcourt quarries, while the windows of the first floor are finished ‘with entablatures, supported on trusses resting on panelled pilasters.

Of the sixty-four members who composed the Legislative Council of 1855, only sixteen survive, and five of these are no longer resident in the colony, while two only occupy seats in the present Legislature. There have been thirteen parliaments and twenty-three ministries since the institution of responsible government, giving an average duration of eight hundred and thirty-four days for each of the former, and of five hundred and two day for each of the latter the Legislative Council consists of forty-two members, elected by the great bulk of the ratepayers of the colony, only those being excluded from the franchise who are rated at less than ten pounds sterling per annum. One-third of the members retire every other year, so that each holds his seat for six years. Candidates are required to possess a property qualification of the value of one thousand pounds, and the members of this branch of the Legislature are unpaid, while those of the Legislative Assembly each receive three hundred pounds per annum. This Chamber contains eighty-six embers, elected by manhood suffrage under protection of the ballot, and they hold their seats for three years. Both Houses generally meet in June, and continue their sittings until the approach of the Christmas holidays. The total cost of the parliament to the country is upwards of fifty thousand pounds sterling per annum.

Quitting the Parliament Houses and proceeding along Gipps Street in an easterly direction, the visitor passes the Government Printing House, which has been partially destroyed by fire; on the right are the old Scotch Church and manse, and on the left the substantial and roomy buildings which constitute the Scotch College, one of the most important and popular of the higher educational institutions of the colony. Then, crossing Lansdowne Street, the Fitzroy Gardens are reached; these comprise an area of sixty-four acres. Five-and-twenty years ago the place was an unenclosed and dreary waste, destitute of herbage, and sparsely sprinkled with aged gum trees. A deep gully, dangerous to cross after dusk, ran down the centre of this desolate looking reserve, which between sunset and sunrise was usually shunned by wayfarers whom business or pleasure might lead in that direction. Since then, it has been completely transformed, mainly owing to the efforts of Mr. Clement Hodgkinson, a gentleman who at that time occupied a responsible position in the Public Lands Office, and who had paid great attention to landscape gardening. The natural sterility of the soil was overcome by, artificial means; and with an ample supply of water, what would have been the work of a century in countries possessing a less genial climate was accomplished in one-fourth of the time, so that a stranger from Europe finds considerable difficulty in believing that the lofty and umbrageous trees of exotic origin which now adorn the gardens are little more than twenty years old.

The unsightly gully, down which are poured the storm waters and surface drainage of a portion of the neighbouring city of Fitzroy, has been completely masked by trees and shrubs. Its course, in fact, lies through a thicket, in places almost a jungle, where groves of willows, intermingled with poplars, pines, and bunya-bunyas, overshadow a rich undergrowth of tree-ferns, palm-lilies, grass-trees, creepers and tangled underwood; and this lofty covert is the haunt and nesting place of birds innumerable, including, of course, the aggressive, indomitable, and irresistible sparrow. From a central bridge crossing this gully, radiate, like the spokes of a wheel from its nave, a number of avenues to nearly all the points of the compass. Some of these are bordered by elms, others by sycamores, Norfolk Island pines, Moreton Bay fig trees, Himalaya cedars and pines. Here and there a venerable member of the eucalyptus family remains to attest that the gardens once formed part of the primitive bush. The lawny interspaces are inlaid with beds of flowers that are one mass of brilliant colour during nine months of the year; and in the autumn and early summer some of the deciduous trees that have been introduced from North America put on a gorgeous apparel of orange, crimson and old gold, which is rendered all the more striking by contrast with the deeper tints and darker tones of the foliage of the evergreen trees. Numerous casts from the masterpieces of Greek and Roman sculpture are scattered about the gardens; while fountains and miniature cascades flowing over rockwork are utilised for the purposes of irrigation. Near the north-east angle of the grounds, a Doric temple —circular in form and of harmonious proportions, with a domed roof resting on ten columns —rises out of a triangular enclosure full of bloom and fragrance. At no great distance is a music pavilion in the midst of a similar environment.

The streets surrounding the gardens on the north, south, and east sides are naturally held in high esteem as places of residence, and some handsome mansions have been erected in Clarendon Street and Jolimont more particularly. The palace of the Episcopal bishop occupies a fine position in the former. It stands in the midst of some spacious grounds, and when it was first erected it was essentially a country house, but is now in the heart of a populous neighbourhood. At the corner of the Wellington Parade —that is to say, at the southern extremity of Clarendon Street, which forms the eastern boundary of the Fitzroy Gardens —the largest private residence in Victoria has just been erected for Sir W. J. Clarke, Bart.; and in Albert Street, on the north side of the gardens, is the Presbyterian Ladies’ College, the architecture of which recalls something that is common alike to some of the old Scottish manor houses and to many of the chateaux in the valley of the Garonne, in the south-west of France.

The suburb of Jolimont, separated from the Fitzroy Gardens by the Wellington Parade, is built upon the grounds attached to the modest wooden cottage which served as the abode of Governor Latrobe. Subsequently the cottage became the residence of Dr. Perry, the first Episcopal bishop of Victoria. Jolimont was originally excised from an extensive reserve which had received the name of the Richmond Paddock, but is now known as Yarra Park. It constitutes one of the principal playgrounds of the city and its eastern suburbs, for in and near it are the ample spaces reserved for the exclusive use of the clubs, schools, or societies connected with the Melbourne, the East Melbourne, the Richmond, and the Scotch College Cricket Grounds, the Friendly Societies Gardens and the Richmond Bowling Green. These are vested in trustees representing the different bodies more immediately concerned; and that portion of the park which still remains unappropriated in this way has been largely entrenched upon by the six lines of railway which cross it from west to east, as also by the extension through it of Swan Street, Richmond.

On Saturday afternoons during the greater part of the year, Yarra Park presents a scene of great animation. Cricket matches, football contests, and bicycle and tricycle races often attract from twenty to thirty thousand spectators in the circular enclosure of the Melbourne Cricket Club. A large and commodious grand-stand affords accommodation for some thousands of the general public, and a substantial members’ pavilion is set apart for the use of subscribers. The ground is encircled by a zone of exotic trees which in a few years will constitute a shady cloister whence in coolness and shadow the great bulk of the visitors may view the sports.

The other cricket grounds are also numerously frequented during the season; and the Richmond Bowling Green —with its trim and well-kept lawns, that look like squares of velvet set in a dark frame formed by a girdle of pines —is at all times of the year a pleasant object to look at from the passing trains, and never more so than in the middle of summer, when its fresh verdure conveys a feeling of restfulness and refreshment to eyes pained and wearied by the universal glare.

South of Swan Street, a block of land, around which the Yarra draws a bow-like curve, is held in trust under a Government grant for the exclusive use of the various Friendly Societies in and around Melbourne. There are upwards of thirty of these, with a membership of between sixty and seventy thousand, and a total income of a quarter of a million sterling. Most of them hold a general holiday once in the course of the year, involving a procession, with bands of music, badges and banners, followed by an afternoon and evening of festivity in these gardens, where an encampment suddenly springs up, and

All the sloping pasture murmurs
Sown with happy faces and with holiday.

Oddfellows and Druids, Caledonian and Hibernian Associations hold their revels here, and the great mass of those who participate in them show by the sobriety of their demeanour and their self-respecting conduct that in all their merry-makings they know how to

Teach themselves that honourable step
Not to outsport discretion.

But the great festivity of the year is that which is celebrated in the month of April, when the whole of the united trades commemorate the anniversary of the establishment of the principle formulated in the words "Eight hours’ labour, eight hours’ recreation, eight hours’ rest." All labour is suspended ; factories and workshops are closed. The deserted scaffoldings are dressed with flags, and a hundred thousand people pour into the streets of Melbourne from far and near to witness the mile-long procession of the representatives of all the handicrafts pursued by the wage-earning classes of the capital. Each branch of industry is preceded by its symbolical banner, and its members are grouped under the direction of mounted marshals. In many cases there are cars containing workmen engaged in the fabrication of the articles by which they gain their daily bread; in others the occupation of the operatives is denoted by some gigantic specimen, or other typical example, of their handicraft, and in this respect the procession is becoming more picturesque and impressive year by year. Numerous bands of music form part of the imposing demonstration, and those who take part in it, after perambulating the leading thoroughfares of the city, proceed to the Friendly Societies’ Gardens, where the afternoon is spent in various forms of recreation; while in the evening there is usually a special performance at one of the theatres under the patronage of the associated trades, for the benefit of some charitable institution. In short, "Eight Hours Day" is the great holiday of the year for all who are enlisted in the numerous regiments that make up the grand army of labour in the metropolis of Victoria and its belt of populous suburbs.

Spring Street, which forms the eastern boundary of Melbourne proper, is built upon on one side only. The opposite side is flanked by public gardens and reserves, except where it is skirted by the facades of the Treasury and the Parliament Houses. Its southern extremity is graced by a row of mansions, while poor cottages and shabby little shops huddle together at the other. Some large hotels —one of which is the favourite resort of numerous members of the Legislature and of deputations from the country having business to transact with the public departments occupy an intermediate position, as does also the handsomest theatre in Melbourne, built upon the site of a once popular amphitheatre. Close by, at the north-east corner of Bourke Street, stood a by no means spacious marquee designated the Salle de Valentino. It flourished in 1851, and for a few years subsequently, when concerts and balls took place nightly underneath its canvas roof; it was thronged with diggers carrying a little fortune in their belts, and with female dancers sedulously intent upon securing some portion of that easily acquired wealth. To the apex of a triangular reserve, conspicuously situated in this street, has been transferred the bronze statue of Burke and Wills, which was originally placed at the intersection of Collins Street East and Russell Street. Another reserve is covered by a block of buildings to which a passing reference has already been made —the Model Schools. They were erected many years ago, when the educational requirements of the infant city were few and easily satisfied; they are now set apart for the training of teachers in connection with the system of public instruction by the State, instituted in 1872.

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