English-born Charles Cherbury was a Baptist minister, who became the first incumbent of the Sackville Street Baptist Tabernacle, a position he held from 1874 until 1893. With a small number of Baptist adherents he established worship in a small hall in Gold Street, Collingwood, in January 1874. The congregation speedily grew, and within a few years construction of the church began in nearby Sackville Street.

How could a man who spent most of his life in England, Adelaide, and Sydney, and only a few years in Collingwood, become a notable? Because, as a builder, he constructed so many houses in the area in such a short time, and several of his impressive buildings remain standing, or feature in contemporary photographs. But he was seemingly unaware of a cloud on the horizon ...

Emily Childers, the wife of noted educationist and politician Hugh Culling Eardley Childers, kept a journal during the 1850s, including the years when the Childers lived in Abbotsford. Her journal gives a fascinating depiction of household and social life for a young wife and mother, as well as an insight into political events and the complexities of her husband’s work in the fledgling colony.

After emigrating to farm in New South Wales, followed by a sojourn living in  imperial Russia, Emily Christopherson arrived in Melbourne in 1857 and commenced her long career in Collingwood schools.  Matriarch of a teaching family, her son John, and her daughters Harriet and Pauline were also Collingwood teachers while her husband Irving taught in East Melbourne.

Frederick Lord Claye arrived in Port Phillip in 1840 and was one of the first solicitors admitted to practice in Melbourne. From the 1850s he owned a house in Victoria Street Abbotsford, and the family attended St Philip’s Church in Abbotsford.

Collier was born in Collingwood and attended St Phillip’s Church in Hoddle Street, where he started singing in the choir at the age of ten. He attended Victoria Park state school and began his working life as a porter with the Victorian Railways at the age of 15.

The Corben family came from Worth Matravers, Dorset, U.K. where they were stonemasons, a trade that they continued with great success in Melbourne after their arrival in the 1850s. Hubert, born in 1857, established his own monumental mason business in Smith Street Clifton Hill in 1880. HB Corben & Sons became a respected and long-standing business that was an integral part of the Clifton Hill community and also became well-known for war memorials across Victoria.

One of the greatest goal kickers in League football, Gordon Coventry held the record of most career goals – an incredible 1,299 – for six decades. The Coventry brothers, Gordon and Syd, were ‘brothers-in-arms’ as they played major roles in Collingwood’s most successful era. Although the brothers were born outside the suburb they are seen as Collingwood Football Club icons. They came from Diamond Creek but through their football skills and leadership on and off the field they won the hearts of Collingwood people, not just football followers. To Collingwood locals they were always hailed as true sons of Collingwood.

Collingwood historian Michael Roberts speaks for most Collingwood football supporters and the local community when he describes Syd Coventry as truly one of the club’s most revered figures. As a footballer, captain, coach and Club president he was outstanding.

To Patrick Coyle we owe the lasting pleasure of the delightfully-decorated Albion Hotel on the corner of Smith and Perry streets, and the striking group of four two-storey shops which are its neighbours. Coyle was first heard of in Collingwood in 1869 as the resident publican of the Grace Darling Hotel in Smith Street, and later became the owner and publican of the Albion Hotel.

In 1840s Melbourne the stretch of the Yarra in what is now Abbotsford attracted people to build houses on large landholdings in an almost rural environment. A neighbour of John Orr at Abbotsford House, Edward Curr was another early settler on the section of the Yarra just south of Johnston Street. His property, purchased in 1842 from John Hodgson, was called St Helier’s. In comparison to other riverside locales of Abbotsford, the present land use pattern in this area largely perpetuates the expansive garden settings and peaceful qualities of the early nineteenth century. This is because both properties were later acquired by the Convent of the Good Shepherd rather than being extensively subdivided into small building blocks or factory sites.

Sister Mary of Mt Carmel Curtain arrived in Melbourne in July 1867 with three other nuns to join the community of the Convent of the Good Shepherd at Abbotsford which had been set up in 1863 under the leadership of Mother Mary of St Joseph Doyle.  Sister Mary of Mt Carmel became the third Prioress or Mother Superior in 1873 and was to remain in that position until her death in 1888.

Mrs Harriet Daniel was the proprietor, with her elder daughters Fredda and Gladys, of Airlie Ladies College in Clifton Hill. Left a widow with five children when her husband Edmund died in Geelong in1898, she eventually moved to Melbourne in 1908 in search of a way to support her family. Airlie was the last of Clifton Hill’s private schools to survive, closing at the end of 1919, and marked the end of an era for Collingwood private schools since Miss Berry’s school in Abbotsford, the only other remaining private school in the municipality, closed at the same time.

Dartnell was one of three Collingwood boys who were awarded the Victoria Cross, but unlike William Ruthven, Dartnell spent only his early years in Collingwood, as his parents later moved to Fitzroy.  Also unlike Ruthven, he did not survive his act of bravery. 

In 1849 shiploads of immigrants from the Prussian area of Germany set sail for Melbourne, and a number of districts remain known for their early German settlers, such as Westgarthtown (now Thomastown), Northcote and Doncaster. Less well-known as a German enclave is the area of Abbotsford towards the eastern end of Victoria Street. Of the Prussian Germans who settled there in the 1850s, brickmaker and publican Robert Dehnert is arguably the longest-resident, spending around 71 years in Abbotsford until his death in 1920 at the age of 87. He is believed to have arrived in Australia in 1850 on the ill-fated Pribislaw and was naturalised in 1851. Two of his sons would remain in the family home until their own deaths in the 1950s and 1960s. He was probably also the longest-enduring brickmaker in the area. Dehnert became a well-known figure in Collingwood, involved in many aspects of local life, including a stint as a councillor. 

Mildred Snowden was the daughter of solicitor Arthur Snowden (later Sir Arthur) and was born at the family home in St Helier’s Street Abbotsford. In later life she wrote reminiscences of her childhood and youth, giving us a rare insight into domestic and social life of the times.

Harriet Elphinstone Dick (Rowell) was a champion swimmer, a gymnast and gymnasium proprietor who made quite a splash after her arrival in Melbourne. In a period when corsets and other restrictive clothing were de rigueur for middle class women, and physical activity was often deemed unladylike or even unhealthy, Harriet’s swimming exploits, her establishment of the Ladies Gymnasium in 1879, and her advocacy of sensible dress, made her an object of considerable attention. At the peak of her career Table Talk waxed lyrical:

Her pupils can be recognised anywhere by their splendid figures, fine carriage, and graceful movements … strength is nothing without grace, and grace is a poor thing without strength.

Dight has bequeathed his name to Dight’s Falls where he harnessed the flow of the Yarra to operate the first water-driven flour mill in Melbourne.  In 1840s Melbourne the stretch of the Yarra in what is now Abbotsford attracted people to build houses on large landholdings in an almost rural environment, but Dight was the first to combine home and industry.

At his death, The Age wrote that Don ‘had opened for his whole class the portals of the senate’.  He was a pioneer labour parliamentarian as member for Collingwood in the Legislative Assembly of Victoria. Don claimed to be the first working tradesman to sit in a parliament of the British Empire.

Bridget Doyle, born in Roscrea (County Tipperary) Ireland in 1835, grew up in Rahan (County Cork) during the Famine Years 1847-50. In the late 1850s she entered the Order of the Good Shepherd in Angers, France. She led a party of four nuns to Melbourne in June 1863 at the invitation of Bishop James Goold, who believed that ‘A penitentiary for Females and a juvenile reformatory for girls are much needed.' The little band of sisters immediately set about looking for a suitable house in which to establish their Convent of the Good Shepherd.

Mrs Anne Drake was a well-known teacher and resident of Abbotsford. She spent twenty years as the head mistress of Abbotsford School, established in 1855 under the Denominational system, followed by twelve years at Cambridge Street State School.

Lucy Drake grew up in Abbotsford, the third daughter of head teachers, Anne and John Drake. At the age of 14 she joined the Education Department and rose through the ranks, finally being appointed chief instructress of cookery at Swinburne Technical College. During her tenure she published many popular cookery books which were re-published in new editions for years after her untimely death.reported

John Dyason was a manufacturer who became well-known in the Collingwood district for his firm’s cordials, preserves, sauces and jams. He has left a delightful architectural legacy in the remaining Dyason and Son’s factory, at 44 Oxford Street, Collingwood. John was the tenth child of Joshua Dyason, the founder of the firm. His middle name, Prescott, was supposedly bestowed on the boy to reflect his father’s pride in securing the sole colonial agency for Prescott’s Parramatta Lime Juice. This famous West Indian lime juice was not only a refreshing beverage but was also supposed to prevent scurvy.

Joshua Dyason established a cordial business which became very well-known in Collingwood and throughout Melbourne. The business, eventually known as Dyason and Son, and later Dyason, Son and Co., was started by Joshua Dyason in a small way in 1869, possibly in Carlton, although in the 1870s he had a business address in Eastern Arcade in the city. 

Eade was prominent in various aspects of Collingwood life but is now probably best remembered for his involvement with the Collingwood School of Design. Pupils included the inventor Louis Brennan, who showed some of his work at the first exhibition, and the artist, Tom Roberts, who recalled the encouragement of 'higher aspirations in lads who might otherwise have dragged on as common plodders’.