- -Different racial and ethnic groups encompassing enormous variation in attitudes and expectations have been part of Errol Street almost since its inception.
- -North Melbourne was known as the district of “Hotham” in 1852.
- -One of the first families to settle in North Melbourne were the Mattingley family.
- -The areas topography originally was “undulating land richly carpeted with grass and studded with noble red gum trees which gave it a park-like appearance”. It was abundant with bird life, “ Hundreds of parrots and parrakeets of beautiful plumage, the scarlet lorry being quite common among them, the white sulphur-crested cockatoo with its harsh screaming note, and occasionally the black cockatoo with its weird cry, the kookaburras with their joyous laugh, magpies with their flute-like notes, mudlarks, ground-larks, honey-eaters… scarlet breasted robins, and many other native birds made melody in the trees.”
- -During early settlements there were Aborigines camping in the area.
- -By 1854, “the grassy glades of North Melbourne are now a hard and dusty surface, cut up everywhere and disturbed with the incessant noise of traffic to the Interior.”
- -The first school of Hotham was founded in 1853, St. Mary’s
- -In 1872 a new Act was passed through amending the Law of Education. Children between the age of 6 and 15 years became the responsibility of the Education Department. Education was to be secular and instruction in the basic subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic was declared free in view of the compulsory clause. In 1873 there was an invitation to architects to come up with competitive designs for new state schools, as there was not enough room in the existing schools to accommodate all the students within the area. The general standards set for the architects were that the walls were to be brick and roofs to be slate.
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