Betty was a born athlete, could run like a hare, had fantastic hand eye co-ordination, was a trailblazer for Women’s Cricket, and achieved many firsts in her short career of just 11 Test matches. She was one of the finest women’s cricketers the world has seen play.

John Wood left his home in Yorkshire and arrived in Australia in 1848, aged twenty two. After a stint as a timber merchant in Fitzroy, he purchased a two acre site on the eastern side of Wellington Street in Collingwood, where he became in succession, the owner of the Yorkshire Hotel, and the founder of the Yorkshire Brewery Company. He also owned a wine and spirits store in Peel Street, on the Wellington Street corner. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace and occupied a seat in the Council of the Borough of East Collingwood.

James was the fourth son of John Wood who was the owner of the Yorkshire Hotel, and the founder and senior partner of the Yorkshire Brewery Company. Despite his relative youth, James was the architect of Collingwood’s crowning industrial glory, the Yorkshire Brewery with its magnificent Brew Tower, completed in 1878 and still standing.

John Woolcock started working life as a butcher on the Collingwood Flat and in the 1890s his business became an essential part of T K Bennet and Woolcock Ltd’s wholesale and retail meat and smallgoods network with branches in metropolitan Melbourne and throughout Victoria. He raised a large family in Collingwood where he acquired extensive property holdings.

Born of illiterate Irish immigrants (John Wren and his wife Margaret, formerly Nester) in Ballarat Street, Collingwood in 1871, John Wren like many Collingwood boys left school early and commenced his working life in the boot trade, working at Whybrow's boot factory. Some stories say that while there he added to his income by a small scale bookmaking operation. Others suggest that he worked for a bookie after his retrenchment from Whybrow's in the 1891/1892 economic slump. Another story is that it was a win on the Melbourne Cup that allowed him to set up his bookmaking business behind the facade of a shop (at various times described as selling tea or tobacco) in Johnston Street, Collingwood.

The Reverend Charles Yelland was minister at St Saviour’s Church in Oxford Street from its opening until his death in 1891; he was an untiring worker for the poor and noted as a persuasive speaker, although unostentatious in personality.

From the mid-1890s until the early twentieth century, Italian-born artist Sigismondo Zacutti and his musical wife Lilian lived in a wooden house in Victoria Street Abbotsford just near Walmer Street. The house had a long garden sloping down towards the Yarra River, with Studley Park on the opposite bank providing a picturesque backdrop for painting and sketching. The Zacutti house had a veranda facing the river and a summer house in the garden. Here Sigismondo worked in his studio, Lilian gave lessons in singing and piano, and their three youngest children were born.