Hotel:Railway Hotel

Suburb:

Collingwood

Hotel Address:

Hoddle Street, southwest corner Easey Street
Collingwood 3066
Australia
Map It

Hotel ID No

62

Most Recent Name:

Railway Hotel (1886 - 1971)

Previous Name(s):

Butchers Arms Hotel (1871 - 1885)

When Built/Licenced:

1871

When Delicensed:

1971

Status of Building:

Demolished c.1971 for the widening of Hoddle Street

Rebuilt/Altered:

N/A

Heritage Victoria Register:

N/A

National Trust Register:

N/A

Collingwood Conservation Study 1989 & 1995:

N/A

City of Yarra Heritage Review 1998:

N/A

City of Yarra Review of Heritage Overlay Areas, 2007 & Heritage Database:

N/A

Maps:

Kearney 1855: N/A ; Hodgkinson 1858: N/A ; MMBW: Detail Plan 1236, 1901

Comments:

The Butchers Arms was first licensed in 1871 to John Counter whose wife Sarah conducted the business because he was 'blind, deaf and dumb, and had been bedridden for eight years'. Counter had previously been at the nearby Highbury Barn. He survived his infirmities until 1878, when Sarah became the official licensee, transferring the licence to W. Clark in 1882.

A ghastly accident took place in 1933. Samuel Nelson, the barman, was killed by electricity in the cellar. He went to the cellar to connect a barrel of beer with the lead pipe leading from the cellar to the bar. When he did not re-appear, the licensee Mr O'Connor went to the cellar and found Nelson sitting on the floor, dead, his hands still grasping the pipe line. An electrician investigated and found that the pipe was crossed by a house wire carrying a current of 230 volts. ( The Argus, 18 September 1933, p. 4)