Born in Somerset in 1847, Edward Petherick was the eldest son of well-known Collingwood identity Peter Petherick who was a hotelkeeper, rate collector and councillor. Edward was to become a noted bibliographer and the foremost authority on Australiana; he eventually transferred his extensive personal book collection to the Federal government in return for an annuity and the position of archivist. He is also known as a founding member of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

Petherick was a son of well-known Collingwood identity Peter Petherick, who was variously hotelkeeper, councillor and rate collector. Harold was reputed to be a clever boy, matriculating at fourteen, and passing his law examinations with distinction.  In the 1880s he assisted his elder brother Edward, the noted authority on Australiana, with the compilation of a substantial bibliography of colonial works.

Pitt commenced practice as an architect in 1879 and quickly achieved success. His most prolific years coincided with the boom period in Melbourne and his designs remain a testament to the confident exuberance of the period. Much of the west end of Collins Street owes its distinction to his buildings such as the Rialto, the Olderfleet and Pitt’s Buildings. His re-design of the Princess Theatre was one of his great achievements.

David Provan was a carpenter and joiner, following in his father’s footsteps, and then went on to found two timber merchant businesses – Mulready, Provan & Clarke in 1903 and David Provan & Sons in 1923. An enterprising and resourceful man, his single-minded determination and sheer hard work assured success. He valued loyalty and pride in workmanship and this comes through in company advertisements of that time “Quotations with pleasure, large or small orders promptly executed, first class materials and workmanship”.

Samuel Ramsden had a straightforward, plain speaking manner and used his skills to take full advantage of all the opportunities that the new colony of Victoria had to offer to rise from a humble station in life to one of wealth and position.

Canadian-born U.S. citizen George Raymond set up in business as a bespoke boot and shoemaker in Smith Street. In the 1870s he advertised himself in the local paper as a ‘Fashionable Boot and Shoe Maker’:

Plain and fancy goods made to order on shortest notice. Fit guaranteed. Lasts
draughted with care and skill to meet the requirements of all feet. Repairs done.

Percy Rendle was the founder of Rendle and Sons, a furniture warehouse in Smith Street Collingwood which continued operating for about 70 years. It was advertised as ‘Complete House Furnishers’ and stocked ‘furniture, oilcloths, linoleums, carpets, crockery, ironmongery &c.’ In the late 19th and early 20th century Smith Street was an important shopping centre for drapers and furniture stores and Rendle rightly judged that the market was ready for another retail emporium, especially one that offered the popular option of time payment.

Collingwood born and bred Lou Richards was an Australian icon - often described as a multi-media megastar - loved and respected for his football prowess but even more widely for his football commentary and good-natured antics in print, radio and television. On his death in 2017 he was honoured with a State Funeral at a packed St Paul’s Cathedral to celebrate his life. In its tribute the Victorian Government stated ‘his reach transcended his time as a player … and he went on to represent the sport through his enduring and distinguished career within the media'.  

Ulysses Rizzi was an acclaimed flower painter and decorator whose work may still be seen at Villa Alba in Kew and the Lady Chapel at St Francis Catholic Church in Lonsdale Street Melbourne. A resident of Victoria Parade, he also taught drawing at the Collingwood School of Design and Fitzroy School of Art.

Tom Roberts came to live in Collingwood in 1869 as a boy aged 14 when his widowed mother emigrated to Australia with her three children. He first studied art and design in Collingwood, where he also developed an appreciation of the Australian landscape.  Over the years he became one on Australia’s best known painters.

George Roberts was a partner with John Ferguson in the firm of Roberts and Ferguson, coachbuilders, wheelwrights and blacksmiths. These were occupations which underpinned much of nineteenth century transport and trade; Roberts and Ferguson was one of Collingwood’s earliest manufacturers and may have existed as early as 1851, when industry was the exception in the otherwise semi-rural district. Roberts lived and died in Hoddle Street Collingwood, in a bluestone house neighbouring the company’s workplace near the corner of Victoria Parade and Hoddle Street.

Scottish-born Helen Bigg landed in Australia in December 1852 as an assisted immigrant with her parents and would live in Collingwood for over 80 years. At the age of 14 she began working as a seamstress and came to be regarded as a heroine of female trade unionism, honoured in the Trades Hall. She was a prominent member of the Tailoresses’ Association and a member of the foundation committee of the Female Operatives’ Hall constructed at the Trades Hall. From 1894 she became a long-standing member of the Eight Hours’ Committee, and following the formation of the Federated Clothing Trades Union in 1907 she was a member of the Victorian branch executive.

Born in country Victoria to German parents, Otto Rohlk became a household name as a music teacher, performer, and conductor in the Clifton Hill district for over twenty years. At the Clifton Hill School of Music he taught piano, viola, violin, and violoncello and his students formed orchestras which performed regularly under his baton.

William Ruthven was a Collingwood boy who became known nationally when awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest honour for bravery during wartime, for his action in France in 1918 during World War I. In later years he spent time as a local leader as Mayor and Councillor of the City of Collingwood and then as a state Labor parliamentarian. A park, a secondary college and a railway station are named in his honour in the northern suburb of Reservoir.

For years whenever locals referred to the ‘King of Collingwood’ they meant only one person, Australian cricketer, Jack Ryder, the only Collingwood man to captain the Australian Test team. 

Prussian-born Theodore Sabelberg lived and worked in Clifton Hill from 1882 until 1910, and members of his family would continue their association with the district for several decades longer. He owned the United Kingdom Hotel (rebuilt in the 1930s and now housing Macdonald’s). His house at 10 North Terrace which he named Coblenz,after the town in Prussia, still stands, although much altered.

‘A notable worker in public causes’, ‘one of the most lovable and genial of women’, ‘a prominent figure in all philanthropic movements in Melbourne’ and ‘one of our best known and most popular women’ were among the phrases used to describe Margaret Saddler after her death. Born Margaret Martin, the daughter of James Martin, a contractor of Victoria Street, and Helen Sinclair, she married Joseph Saddler junior at St Philip’s Church in 1878. Saddler was a long-term resident of Marine Parade Abbotsford.  The Saddlers had arrived in Victoria in 1853 and lived at first in Stafford Street before buying land in Marine Parade after John Orr’s Abbotsford Estate was subdivided in 1856. Joseph Saddler junior and senior worked for H.M. Customs.

Malcolm (‘Doc’) Seddon – footballer, cricketer, soldier and Mayor (1941-42) – was one of the few people to be praised as a ‘great Collingwood man’. He was loved and respected not only for his sporting prowess and his bravery at the Front in the First World War, but for his advice and wisdom. ‘Ask Doc what he thinks’ was normal conversation in many Collingwood homes.

Mary Ann Shakespeare, born to an illiterate mother in London’s East End, operated a private school in her parents’ house in Collingwood in the 1870s and 1880s. While a school run by an unmarried daughter was fairly common at the time, the duration of Mary Ann’s school in comparison to most in Collingwood was unusual. Her family also serves to demonstrate the localised and close-knit nature of life in nineteenth century Collingwood, as well as the expanded opportunities available to British immigrants in the more egalitarian colony.

One of Collingwood’s longest-lasting photography studios was established in the mid 1880s by Mark Joseph Allan. It was then carried on by Ernest Sharp at 318 Smith Street Collingwood, still under the name of the Allan Studio or Allan’s Studio, until the 1940s.

Shaw was the manager of the Denton Mills Hat Factory in Nicholson Street Abbotsford and lived close by, firstly next door and later at 104 Nicholson Street where he showed how attached he was to his job by naming his residence Denton House. Shaw was brought out from England to take over as manager sometime around 1882, to replace Thomas Shelmerdine who left Denton’s to set up his own hat factory in Trenerry Crescent.

Thomas Shelmerdine came from a hatmaking family in Stockport, Cheshire, which, with nearby Denton, was a leading hat manufacturing centre in the nineteenth century England. By the age of sixteen he was working in the business with three of his five brothers. His father Samuel, along with James Kirk and Cephas Froggatt, patented ‘improvements in machinery or apparatus for felting or “planking” the bodies of hats … improvements also applicable to other felting purposes’. With this pedigree, Thomas would also prove to be an innovative manufacturer in Melbourne and was widely regarded as a pioneer.

Samuel followed the family tradition into hat manufacturing. He was born and raised in Yarra House in Trenerry Crescent, Abbotsford where the Shelmerdine family lived next door to the Yarra Hat Mill, his father’s hat factory.

Margaretta Lockwood married Thomas Shelmerdine, a hat manufacturer from Cheshire who became a noted and innovative hat maker in Abbotsford. Prior to her marriage she lived with her parents in Williamstown. She was to become the matriarch of a large and successful hat making family, and a well-known figure in Abbotsford through her philanthropic activities connected to St Philip’s Anglican Church.

In football circles, Sherrin is a name to conjure with. Even non-football fans would probably recognise the distinctive name seen on so many footballs, but might not realise that the Sherrin name belonged to a family who lived and worked in Collingwood, and was deeply involved with the Collingwood Football Club. Thomas Sherrin was the founder of a business empire which not only manufactured a wide variety of sporting equipment, but also developed the distinctively-shaped ball which became the standard for Australian Football.