Hotel:Prince of Wales Hotel

Suburb:

Collingwood

Hotel Address:

[22] Otter Street, opposite Napoleon Street
Collingwood 3066
Australia
Map It

Hotel ID No

60

Most Recent Name:

Prince of Wales Hotel (1853 - 1908)

Previous Name(s):

N/A

When Built/Licenced:

1853

When Delicensed:

1908

Status of Building:

Demolished

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: Y ; Hodgkinson 1858: Y ; MMBW: Detail Plan 1196, 1900

Comments:

A brick hotel (Rate Book 1864), closed by the Licenses Reduction Board in 1908, its site is now part of the NMIT campus.

The image of the jolly publican was not always accurate as the following article shows; it is also a reminder that one of the sadder functions of hotels was as the venue for inquests:

Last Saturday morning a most determined suicide occurred in the Yarra near Johnston Street Bridge... With the assistance of a boat hook the body was brought on to the bank and then conveyed to the Early Bird hotel where it was identified as that of Stephen Hannaway, licensee of the Prince of Wales... [At the inquest] it was stated that the deceased had of late shown symptoms of unsoundness of mind and the verdict was that the deceased committed suicide whilst labouring under temporary insanity.

Mercury and Weekly Courier, 31 Aug 1878, p. 2

A later publican, Charles Pugh, who presided in the 1880s, was more successful, being complimented by the magistrate on the way he conducted his house, dealing with larrikins demanding free drinks, and hosting supper meetings for the Fitzroy Lodge of Instruction, a Masonic group of which he was a member.