Son of Joseph Gabriel, a chemist, and Elizabeth Baker, daughter of well-known Anglican layman Charles Baker, Charles Gabriel followed his father’s footsteps in the pharmacy profession as well as his interest in natural history.

Joseph Gabriel was a Victoria Street chemist who devoted his spare time to the study of natural history, becoming a noted amateur naturalist. He was an early member and office-bearer of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria and an honorary collector for the National Museum of Victoria; his reports on marine expeditions to the Bass Strait islands were a major part of the twenty-one papers he published in the Victorian Naturalist. He was a committee member of the Microscopical Society of Victoria.

Born on the isle of Jersey of Scottish parents, Gilfillan led a varied and eventful life, before spending his last decade in a cottage in Collingwood, continuing to paint and exhibit while working for the Customs Department.

Richard Goldsbrough was a bluff and hearty Yorkshireman who became a leading woolbroker in Melbourne. He played an important role in the development of Australian wool-broking practices  and his name lived on in the name of the well-known company Goldsbrough Mort and Co (later Elders Ltd) and their distinctive wool stores. His residential property TheRest bordered  the Yarra at Abbotsford.

James Graham was among the first European people to live in Collingwood. He lived in a hut on land owned by JDL Campbell near Dight’s Falls on the banks of the Yarra, and supervised the building of his house Campbellfield. His copious letters and the records of his business dealings provide details about personal and commercial life in Melbourne from 1839.

Greathead arrived in Melbourne on the Diana in 1853, accompanied by his wife and four of his children. As a trained chemist, he acted as the ship’s surgeon on the voyage. In the mid 1850s Greathead worked for the Melbourne City Mission as a missionary in Collingwood.  The Mission was established in 1854 by Mrs Hester Hornbrook and Dr John Singleton as an interdenominational mission to the poor. Greathead’s Journal of the Collingwood Flat District for the City of Melbourne Missionary Society, 2 Oct 1854-29 June 1856 gives a detailed account of his work and includes statistical reports to the committee. The journal revealed among other information how few children were attending either day school or Sunday school, which inspired Mrs Hornbrook to establish Ragged Schools for children who due to poverty were unable to attend ordinary schools. It also revealed Greathead as vehemently anti-Irish and anti-Catholic.