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Hotel:Willow Tree Hotel
79 Vere Street, southwest corner Cromwell Street
Collingwood 3066
Australia
Map It
Collingwood
Willow Tree Hotel (c.1856 - 1936)
Leeds Arms Hotel (1854 - c.1855)
79 Vere Street, southwest corner Cromwell Street
Collingwood 3066
Australia
Map It
1854
December 1936
Demolished between 1936 and 1989
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Kearney 1855: Y ; Hodgkinson 1858: Y ; MMBW: Detail Plan 1199 & 1200, 1899
This was a stone hotel with fifteen rooms (Rate Book 1864, 1870). A very distant view of the hotel can be seen in a photograph taken from the town hall around 1887 but you will need to look carefully to find the two-storey square building to the west of the large Vere Street State School.
Richard Norton bought the hotel in 1856 and retained ownership when his son-in-law Charles Swift took over as publican. In a typical Collingwood pattern, Swift forwarded his political ambitions through local networks. Election meetings were held at the hotel, and the fourth Oddfellow's Lodge to be established in Collingwood (in 1858) met at the Willow Tree. Swift was a lodge official, as was George David Langridge, and both men became councillors in 1865. At the other end of the spectrum, Collingwood Town Clerk J J Moody requested dairymen of East Collingwood to attend a public meeting at the Willow Tree in October 1860. Langridge went on to enter parliament in 1875. After Swift's death in 1870, his wife Anne ran the hotel until 1886.
It was closed by an April 1936 determination of the Licensing Court, along with the Council Club Hotel in Johnston Street. The Court stated that the district was one of the most densely populated industrial centres in the State and had a large daily influx of workers but the evidence showed that the hotel accommodation for the supply of meals and beds, as well as the number of licences, was in excess of present-day demands. The Court added that sittings to deal with claims for compensation would be held as promptly as possible and owners and licensees were asked to submit their claims early. (The Argus 21 April 1936, p. 11)
Willow Tree Hotel: Swift, Charles Robert 1863-1870; Swift, Anne E Mrs 1871-1886; O’Connor, John 1887; White, Bridget 1888-1889; Anker, Samuel 1890; McLachlan, E 1891; Cooney, Owen J 1893; Donovan, Mary Mrs 1894-1905; Kane, Thomas J 1907; Skews, Elizabeth Mrs 1909; O’Brien, 1913; Browne, Katherine 1913; Allen, Marjory A 1914; Penney, Alice 1915; Donovan, Daniel 1919; Gray, Percy 1921.