A Jewish Walk through Marvellous Melbourne Preview

The Australian Jewish Historical Society acknowledges the Bunurong Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung peoples of the Eastern Kulin Nation as the Traditional Custodians of this place we now call Melbourne, and pay respects to their elders past, present and emerging.

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There are perhaps 120,000 Jews in present day Australia, of whom about 60,000 live in Victoria, the vast majority of those being residents of Melbourne, with most Jews nowadays living in the south-eastern suburbs of what has become a sprawling city, rather than in the locations featured in this App.

Jews have been in Australia from the very start of European settlement. On 26 January 1788 a British fleet of eleven ships anchored in Sydney Cove, under the command of Captain Arthur Phillip, Governor-designate of the proposed British penal colony of New South Wales. Among just over 750 convicts who disembarked were seven Jewish men and up to seven Jewish women (the Jewish identity of three of the seven women is not proven beyond doubt). Transportation of convicts to New South Wales ceased in 1840, although it was revived briefly eight years later.

Attempts to establish penal settlements in Port Phillip District, the part of New South Wales that in 1851 became the colony of Victoria were short-lived. By the time transportation of convicts from the British Isles to Australia ended altogether in 1868, about 160,000 convicts, about 2000 to Port Phillip. Most were male.

During the 1820s, free settler migration, overwhelmingly from the British Isles, began to accelerate, heralding the foundations of Jewish communal and congregational life in the Australian continent by a combination of free settlers and emancipated convicts. Two figures vie for the title of Melbourne's foremost founder: John Batman (1801-39) and John Pascoe Fawkner (1792-1869). In 1833 Batman, as agent for a group of speculators — Jews included — seeking grazing lands in Port Phillip, sailed from Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) to investigate, and made, he said, a treaty with elders of the local aboriginal Wurundjeri people, in which the lands he earmarked for the Association were formally ceded — perhaps a tendentious claim. In 1835 the highly enterprising Fawkner (1792-1869), in his schooner Enterprize (sic) arrived at Port Phillip from Van Diemen's Land to set up a trading post, and was destined to become one of Melbourne's most revered citizens.

In 1848, owing to the presence in the colony of impoverished Jews, the Jewish Philanthropic Society was established, and its necessity was proved anew during the ensuing decades. The total number of Jews in Australia in 1851 was 1,887 and had reached 5,486 in 1861. During that ten-year period Victoria's Jewish population rose from 364 to 2,903. Most of the newcomers came from Britain, but there were also Jews from German-speaking lands and from Eastern Europe. A small number of the nineteenth-century Jewish settlers, both convict and free, were Sephardim, often with links to the West Indies. A visitor noted in the 1850s that 'Melbourne is very full of Jews; on a Saturday some of the streets are half closed'.

Jews who came to the colony during the Gold Rush of the 1850s typically ended up as storekeepers and hotel keepers at the goldfields and at the country towns that resulted from them, or preferred to live in Melbourne, sensing its expanding commercial opportunities. Being close to Melbourne's central business district, East Melbourne, at first dubbed Eastern Hill, constituted prime land and developed into a desirable residential area, popular with affluent Jewish families after the land sales of mid-century.

In this App, via the buildings with which they were associated, we meet some of the founders of Jewish congregational life in Melbourne, some of the speculators whose names became synonymous with the prosperous 'Marvellous Melbourne' years of the 1880s and early 1890s, and some who played prominent parts in the public life of the colony.

Home of Sir Benjamin Benjamin

Directions: Start walking tour at 156 George Street, East Melbourne (NW corner of George and Powlett Streets)

The grand 12-room mansion Canally, now converted into apartments, was built during the mid-1860s. Originally named Koorine, it was designed by architect Joseph Reed, whose legacy includes the Melbourne Town Hall on Swanston Street and the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton Gardens. In 1870 Koorine was purchased by London-born Sir Benjamin Benjamin (1834-1905), who renamed it Canally after the New South Wales cattle station he co-owned with his sister Rebecca's husband Edward Cohen (1822-77), son of a London tailor who had been transported to Australia in 1833 for possessing a stolen bank note. Both families were of Sephardic origin.

Arriving in Melbourne as a boy, Benjamin developed his business skills in the company founded by his father Moses. From 1864 until Cohen's death, he and the latter were in partnership as tea merchants and general importers. Each was mayor of Melbourne (Cohen, 1862-63; Benjamin 1887-89) and each was elected to the Victorian Parliament (see 020). Benjamin's mayoral term encompassed Australia's centennial year 1888, which led to his knighthood, the first Melbourne mayor and the first Jew in Victoria so honoured. A generous benefactor of Jewish and general charities he served many times as president of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, which his father's brothers had been instrumental in founding (see 023). Keenly speculating in land and shares from the mid-1880s, having inherited an enormous sum of money, he became unwittingly responsible for the ruin of numerous investors owing to financial malfeasance not of his making. An antisemitic periodical, The Bulletin, playing on his portly build, depicted him as greedy and grasping. Soon recovering from his own bankruptcy, he managed to keep Canally, where he died.

Corner Lansdowne and Albert Streets, East Melbourne; 384-400 Albert Street inclusive and 15-27 Landsdowne Street inclusive

Directions: from 156 George St (Cannaly) walk west towards Trinity Place, cross over Clarendon Street and walk through the park to Lansdowne Street Turn right, walk up Lansdowne Street for 240m until you reach the corner of Lansdowne and Albert Streets. Burlington Terrace is at number 384-400 Lansdowne Street, a 13min walk.

Designed by architect Charles Webb, this 16-house row curving gently from one street into the other was built between 1866 and 1871 as a largely speculative undertaking by London-born Jewish businessman Henry Philip Harris (1831-92). He lived in part of the building that fronted Albert Street and rented out the remainder of the terrace. In 1879 he sold the luxury furniture business he owned on the corner of Swanston and Lonsdale Streets in the city, perhaps because he was living comfortably on his rental income.

In 1867, while the terrace was still being built, it was described as a row of 'brick houses' that each comprised 'eight rooms and a kitchen'. However, an official document dated 1912 indicates that in addition to a kitchen and a bathroom each, ten of the houses had eight rooms each, and six had seven. Over the years notable Jewish tenants of Harris's included the Rev A.F. Ornstien (this idiosyncratic spelling is correct in his case) and Rabbi Dr Joseph Abrahams (see 031) of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation; the prominent Melbourne jeweller Philip Blashki, who crafted the celebrated Sheffield Shield cricket trophy; Abraham Levy, a partner in the Clothing Store (see 027), which meticulously closed on Saturdays until after sundown; and journalist Maurice Brodzky (see 015).

Harris left £38,000, the equivalent of $AUS9million in today's money. In his will he stipulated that if any beneficiary — these comprised his widow Elizabeth (née Ackman) and their children — renounced Judaism or married someone not of the faith, they were to forfeit their inheritance. During the economic depression of the 1890s many of the tenanted houses fell empty, and Elizabeth consequently struggled to retain the property. In 1920, by then living elsewhere, she and her unmarried daughter and co-owner Ida sold it, thus ending its tangible links to their family.

39 Gisborne Street, East Melbourne (corner Gisborne Street & Victoria Parade, East Melbourne)

Directions: from 15-27 Landsdowne Street, East Melbourne (Burlington Terrace) walk north up Landsdowne Street for 130m, turn left into Victoria Parade – Eastern Hill Fire Brigade is 170m on the left

Renamed and revamped following state legislation of 2019 as Fire Rescue Victoria, the Melbourne Fire Brigade was established in 1891 by the Fire Brigades Act of 1890, which unified the various brigades then existing into a unitary body. Melbourne's earliest fire brigade seems to have been a volunteer society founded in 1845. Subsequently, many more volunteer brigades were formed, typically linked to insurance companies. By 1890 there were 56.

When a fire erupted and the alarm was sounded, these brigades rushed to the scene, but only the brigade of the insurance company with which the scene proved to be linked — indicated by a sign on the outside of the building — tackled the blaze. In January 1890, a large office building on Queen Street, originally the premises of tobacco manufacturers Jacobs, Hart and Co, was totally destroyed by fire. The following month, at the south-east corner of Swanston and Lonsdale Streets, a fierce blaze at Samuel Nathan and Co's newly opened upholstery and furniture warehouse was contained with difficulty by the relevant fire brigade; individuals ill-advisedly attempting salvage hurled items into the street regardless of fragility, and after dark portable items were stolen. These and comparable fires gave impetus to a unified fire-fighting body.

The 'Great Fire of Melbourne' in 1897 destroyed premises owned by Benjamin Josman Fink (see 041) that were among, if not the, tallest in the city (see 042).

Corner Albert and Gisborne Streets, East Melbourne

Directions: from 39 Gisborne Street (Eastern Hill Fire Station) walk south to Gisborne Street for 130m, turn right into Albert Street. The mosaic is 34m on the right.

Commissioned by the Melbourne Metropolitan Fire Brigade and constructed during 1980-82, the 'Legend of Fire' mural, based on Greek mythology, consists of 250,000 glass mosaic tiles. Its creator, Harold Emanuel Freedman (1915-99), was born in the Melbourne suburb of Caulfield, later to emerge as a heavily Jewish neighbourhood, one of the major centres of Australia's Jewish life. In 1936, following several years of study at the Melbourne Technical College, he became a freelance illustrator and cartoonist. With the outbreak of the Second World War he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) and became an official Australian war artist, attached to the RAAF Historical War Records Section. In 1968 he was commissioned to produce a large mural depicting the history of Australian military aviation, a major project that features every aircraft employed by the RAAF prior to the Vietnam War. From 1972 to 1983 he was the state of Victoria's official artist, and as such produced many large-scale murals, including one in the main hall of Melbourne's Spencer Street railway station on the theme of transport.

494 Albert Street, East Melbourne, East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, “Mikvah Yisrael”

Directions: from the corner of Albert Street at the ‘Fire Mosaic’, walk another 140m to 494 Albert Street

Born in Edinburgh, where his Polish-born father was rabbi, Rev Moses Rintel (1832-80) arrived in Sydney in 1844, becoming headmaster of the school attached to the Hebrew Congregation. In 1849 he was appointed to the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation's Bourke Street synagogue, where his duties comprised those of ba'al korai (reader at services), shochet (slaughterer of livestock in accordance with Jewish law), and mohel (circumciser of eight-day-old Jewish males).

Often at loggerheads with the congregation over the perennially thorny issues of mixed marriages — the relative shortage of Jewish women in the colony made these inevitable — and of conversions to Judaism, in 1857 he resigned, to become minister of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation Mikvah Yisrael ('Hope of Israel'). About 30 defectors loyal to him, along with about 40 other traditionally-minded observant Jews, many of them native Yiddish-speakers born outside the British Empire, joined him in this new venture. Their initial premises were in Spring Street (see 006) and then in Lonsdale Street (see 007), but 20 years later they moved into this fine synagogue, consecrated on 5 September 1877.

Featuring a classical facade and two eight-sided domes, it was designed by architects Crouch and Wilson. For 30 years the minister of the Albert Street synagogue was the charismatic, musically gifted Rev Jacob Lenzer (1858-1921), known for his impressive bass-baritone voice, his collar-length golden hair, and the big personality that matched his physique. He was part of a chain migration from Mogilev in Tsarist Russia that included Simcha Baevski (see 031), and a number of Jews destined for prominence in their new land.

First home of East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation

Directions: from 494 Albert Street, East Melbourne, (East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation) walk west on Albert Street towards Evelyn Place. Continue on to Lonsdale Street. Turn right into Spring Street and walk for 23 metres (opposite the College of Surgeons. There is a parkland now on the site).

From April to September 1857, following their breakaway from the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, Rev Moses Rintel (see 005) and his fledgling East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation rented 257 Spring Street, halfway between Lonsdale and Little Lonsdale Streets. Owned by the minister of the John Knox Free Church, it had previously been used by the boys only Melbourne Grammar School, one of the city's emerging denominational private secondary schools. Despite a costly outlay on fittings and furnishings, the Jewish congregation broke the rental agreement in October, having found preferable premises in Lonsdale Street (see 007).

The address is now 42-44 Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, north side between Spring and Exhibition Streets

Directions: from 257 Spring Street walk 23m south and turn right into Lonsdale Street.42-44 Lonsdale Street is 97m on the right.

Now retail premises, 42-44 Lonsdale Street consists of two bluestone and brick houses built in 1850. From 1853 (perhaps earlier) until 1908 it was a tavern, the Black Eagle Hotel. After that it was home to various businesses. The building stands in what grew into a congested densely populated area known as 'Little Lon', roughly bounded by Lonsdale, Spring, Exhibition (originally Stephen) and La Trobe Streets.

From October 1857 to December 1859 the upper floor of a long since demolished boot maker's shop a few doors west of the Black Eagle was leased by the Rev Moses Rintel's congregation as a makeshift place of worship. From the mid-nineteenth century the area teemed with small shops, with workshops and factories, timber and brick cottages, narrow laneways sometimes frequented by miscreants, and brothels of varying degrees of seediness and social status of clientele.

'Little Lon' had an artisanal and petty trader population that included Chinese, Syrians, Italians, and Jews from the Tsarist Empire, thus foreshadowing today's multicultural Melbourne. The area was largely subject to redevelopment in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s. Items recovered by archaeologists, including fine chinaware, suggest that blanket stereotypes of the area's nineteenth-century inhabitants as invariably down on their luck and lacking in taste are misplaced.

275-285 Exhibition Steet, Melbourne. SW corner Exhibition and Little Lonsdale Streets

Directions: from 42 Lonsdale Street walk west on Lonsdale Street for 150m towards Exhibition Street. Turn right at Exhibition Street and destination is 91m on the left.

This little building was designed by Knight and Kerr, the architectural firm that designed Parliament House, and built in 1859. It served the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation as a synagogue, consecrated as such on 28 December 1859. The nucleus of the congregation consisted of about 30 defectors from the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation loyal to Rev Moses Rintel, along with about 40 other traditionally-minded observant Jews, many of them native Yiddish-speakers born outside the British Empire. Many were artisans who lived in the inner city as well as in Carlton, Fitzroy and other locations close by. In 1877 the congregation moved into fine new purpose-built premises in Albert Street (see 005). Owing to the number of Jews from Eastern Europe among its members, it was dubbed 'the foreigners' shool'.

1-13 Drummond Street, corner Victoria Street

Directions: from 275 Exhibition Street (Mr. Rintel's Shool) walk north on Exhibition Street 16m towards Little Lonsdale Street, turn left at Victoria Street, walk 93m to Drummond Street and the first six houses from 1-13 Drummond Street are ‘Melbournia Terrace’.

Designed by architect Norman Hitchcock, who following the collapse of the 'Marvellous Melbourne' decade moved to Western Australia, this terrace of seven (odd-numbered) houses was built in 1876 for a prominent Jewish communal figure, Polish-born merchant Woolf Davis (1828-1902), who arrived in Melbourne from London in the 1850s. A religiously erudite observant Jew who belonged to the Rev Rintel's congregation and at one time served on the Victoria's Beth Din (religious court), he lived at the first house in the terrace with his wife Rachel Moses (1828-1891) and their large family, which included several daughters. The house accordingly contained a stone-lined private mikveh (ritual bath) in the basement of 1 Drummond Street and a sukkah (a temporary hut for the Jewish festival of Sukkot) was on the roof.

Known for his charitable nature, Davis collected funds for needy Jewish inhabitants of the Holy Land and in his wife's memory established two almshouses in Jerusalem. For Melbourne Jews unable to afford seat rents at the main synagogues, he founded a chevra (prayer society) that accordingly bore his name. Members donated what they could afford, those donations going to the Holy Land. The Woolf Davis Chevra continued after his death, and on 21 September 1919 its newly built shul in Pitt Street, Carlton, was consecrated. It became known as 'Stone's Shool/Shul', after British-born sponge and chamois leather wholesaler Joseph E. Stone (1858-1940), who had married Davis's daughter Jane, and who was cast very much in Davis's mould.

48 Drummond Street

Directions: from 1-13 Drummond Street (Melbournia Terrace) walk 130m to 46 and 48 Drummond Street comprising Medley Hall, on the right.

A student residence of the University of Melbourne, Medley Hall is named after vice-chancellor Sir John Medley (1891-1962). It consists of two ornate mansions commissioned by Jews during the 'Marvellous Melbourne' decade: Rosavilla at 46 Drummond Street and Benvenuta next door at 48. Designed by Jewish architect Nahum Barnet (see 016 and 024), Rosavilla (built 1882-83) was built for Elizabeth Street fancy goods emporium owner Abraham Harris (c1855-1922) and his wife Rose (Davis; 1857-94). Following his remarriage in 1900, Abraham, his two children with Rose, and his bride Miriam moved to East Melbourne. He leased Rosaville to tenants, who briefly included the major Australian artist Frederick McCubbin.

Completed in 1892,Rosaville's even more sumptuous neighbour Benvenuta ('Welcome') was designed by a non-Jewish architect in Italian Baroque style. It was the home of widow Leah Abrahams (née Solomon; c1832-1914), whose husband Henry (died 1886) had founded an Elizabeth Street sporting small arms company carried on by their four sons. In 1895 those sons were convicted of stamping cheaply produced guns with the trademarks of superior brands, and sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment with hard labour. A large crowd gathered at Benvenuta to watch the auction of Leah's magnificent custom-made furniture, compulsorily put up for sale in connection with the case. Subsequently Benvenuta functioned as an Italian entertainment venue and briefly as the Italian Consulate. Acquired by the Victorian state government in 1950 in response to a shortage of student accommodation at the University of Melbourne, Rosaville and Benvenuta, renovated and joined, became known as Medley Hall in 1955.

420 Swanston Street (corner Swanston and Franklin Streets)

Directions: from 48 Drummond Street (Medley Hall) walk south on Drummond Street towards Elm Tree Place. At Victoria Street turn right and walk 400m to Swanston Street. The Melbourne City Baths is on the corner of Victoria and Swanston Streets.

One of the most photographed symbols of the cityscape, Melbourne City Baths on the triangular corner of Swanston, Victoria and Franklin Streets was constructed during 1903. Thanks to the sterling efforts of a Jewish member of the City Council, Jacob Marks, councillors agreed to include on the premises a mikvah (ritual bath) for the convenience of Jewish women for the conversion of non-Jews to Judaism. It still exists.

Before the opening in 1860 of the original public baths, also on this site, the Yarra river was the main public bathing venue for city dwellers. By 1862 Henry Ludovic Meyl (died 1875), an enterprising non-Jewish German-born hairdresser, had installed baths for hire at his business premises, 36 Little Collins Street; the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation paid him for the use of one as a mikvah. From 1864 until 1891 there was a mikvah behind the Bourke Street shul that women from the East Melbourne congregation were permitted to use for a fee, but it fell into disrepair and closed in 1891. Accordingly, in 1893 the East Melbourne congregation successfully applied to the City Baths for permission to use three baths there for ritual bathing purposes.

328 Swanston Street, Melbourne (corner Swanston and Lonsdale Streets)

Directions: from 420 Swanston Street (Melbourne City Baths) walk south past Franklin Street for another 300m to 328 Swanston Street. The library is on the right.

The foundation stone of the Melbourne Public Library, now the State Library of Victoria (SLV), was laid in 1854, the same year as that of the University of Melbourne, in the presence of the library's principal founder, the eminent judge Sir Redmond Barry, whose statue is outside. Designed by Joseph Reed, the library opened in 1856. It features a portico with Ionic columns, a grand staircase leading to a gallery that served as Victoria's first art gallery (forerunner of the National Gallery of Victoria), and an impressive domed reading room, as well as many subsequent innovations, especially those made since the State Library took over the entire building in recent years following the departure of the Science Museum which long shared the building entered from the Russell Street side.

The dome was based upon plans drawn up by Melbourne-born Jewish civil engineer (Sir) John Monash (1865-1931) in 1907, destined for military fame as commander-in-chief of Australia's Imperial Force during the First World War. In 1864 the library acquired the fine collection of Hebraica that had belonged to the eccentric Polish-born 'physician' and cabbalist Dr David Hailperin, a fantasist and adventurer on the Victorian goldfields. In 1870 West Indian-born Sephardic merchant Eliezer Levi Montefiore (1820-94), who in 1853 had moved to Melbourne from Adelaide, helped to found the Victorian Academy of Art and was appointed a trustee of the Melbourne Public Library, Museums and National Gallery. In 1871 he moved to Sydney, where he continued his involvement in the art world.

275 Little Lonsdale Street, Melblourne

Directions: from 328 Swanston Street walk 51m south, turn right into Little Lonsdale Street and Drewery Lane will be 44m on the left.

The nineteenth-century Jewish partners Snider and Abrahams were cigar and cigarette manufacturers with substantial premises at 2-20 Drewery Place and at 5-7 Drewery Lane. The gifted artist Louis Abrahams (1852-1903), was a member of that family; he arrived with his parents from London in 1860. Trained at the Artisans' School of Design in Carlton and the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, he became associated with the famous 'Heidelberg school' of Australian painters, especially Frederick McCubbin, and with his brother Lawrence Abrahams was an important patron of art. He suicided during a fit of depression. The British architect and art patron Sir Denys Lasdun was his grandson.

'Messrs. Sniders and Abrahams set out to prove that the old lie of nothing good to smoke being manufactured in Australia was just a lie. How well they succeeded some tens of thousands of their customers will testify, as also that splendid new factory, warehouse and office building, which is one of the most notable of recent additions to our city architecture', reported Melbourne Punch (22 February 1906).The firm's warehouse in Drewery Lane, an art nouveau masterpiece, was built during 1908-10. Designed by civil engineer H.R. Crawford, it was one of the earliest buildings to feature the American 'Turner mushroom system' of reinforced concrete construction, to which Crawford held the Australian rights. Later renamed the Dover Building, it is now a block of apartments, a storey or two higher than the original structure and officially protected by state heritage legislation.

210 Lonsdale Street (Queen Victoria Women’s Centre)

Directions: at the end of Drewery Lane turn left into Lonsdale Street and walk 160m to 210 Lonsdale Street (Queen Victoria Hospital/Queen Victoria Women’s Hospital).

On 5 March 1841, what the next day's Port Phillip Gazette termed a 'respectably though not numerously attended' meeting of citizens resolved to establish a public hospital with the aid of public subscriptions. This resulted in the foundation of the Melbourne Hospital on temporary premises. On 20 March 1846 its foundation stone at this, its permanent site, was laid, and, elsewhere in the city, was that of the first stone bridge across the Yarra. Freemasons were among the civic groups officially invited to march in the processions connected with both events.

More pertinently, one of Melbourne's most prominent Jews, Asher Hymen (sic) Hart, officially participated in both ceremonies in his capacity as a leading Freemason. First, at the south end of Swanston Street he handed the silver trowel to Charles La Trobe, superintendent of the Port Phillip District, who laid the bridge's foundation stone. Then, at this site in Lonsdale Street, Hart poured corn, wine, and oil, traditional symbols in Freemasonry and portents of wellbeing, over the hospital's foundation stone that had been laid by the Mayor. Like Michael Cashmore and a number of other Jewish citizens over the years, Hart was a generous subscriber to the hospital, which opened in 1848, and served for periods on its board of management. Edward Cohen (see 001) was for many year's the hospital's honorary treasurer. Queen Victoria Hospital for Women (established in 1896 in William Street, and renamed the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital in 1901) moved to this site in 1946. Decades later it became part of the Monash Medical Centre in the suburb of Clayton.

112-114 Little Bourke Street

Directions: from 210 Lonsdale Street keep walking east towards Constance Stone Lane until you get to Russell Street. Turn right into Russell Street, walk 14m and the destination is on the left.

Built 1887-88 as a residence and warehouse for prosperous merchant Lowe Kong Meng, a leader of Melbourne's Chinese community, the Sum Kum Lee building, with its three storeys and basement, has had a varied commercial history. From 1889 to 1903 it was the headquarters of the journal Table Talk, edited by colourful Prussian-born Jewish journalist Maurice Brodzky (1847-1919). Arriving in Australia following service in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), he taught Hebrew, French and German, wrote two books on Australian Jewish themes, unsuccessfully sued the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation's Rev Elias Blaubaum for slander, and served on several newspapers before founding Table Talk in 1885. Its spotlight on scandalous conduct and dubious business dealings during the land boom was the bane of many a public and commercial figure. Table Talk suffered financially following the economic depression that hit Victoria in 1893, and following a successful libel action against the publication in 1902 Brodzky lost control of it and migrated first to San Francisco and later to London, where he died. His sons Leon (better known as Spencer Brodney; 1883-1973) and Vivian (1892-1968) had international careers in journalism. Another son, Horace Brodzky (1885-1969) became a well-known artist and writer on art in America and Britain.

107-109 Little Bourke Street

Designed by prolific Jewish architect Nahum Barnet (1855-1931; see also 024), what became the Chinese National Club comprises two shops at street level. The one on the right-hand side as you face it has a facade that was redesigned by Walter Burley Griffin, the American designer of Australia's purpose built capital, Canberra. Barnet, the son of a pawnbroker/tobacconist from Poland, was said in 1925 to have designed a building in every street in central Melbourne. His architectural contributions, however, were not confined to that area. He enjoyed a long and successful career, designing buildings of various kinds, and had a large but not exclusively Jewish clientele.

108 Little Bourke Street

Directions: Opposite the Chinese National Club at 107 Little Bourke Street is 108 Little Bourke Street (Cohen Place)

Cohen Place takes its name from furniture and furnishings warehouseman Henry Cohen (1841-1918), whose premises were here, rebuilt at the end of the 'Marvellous Melbourne' decade and occupying the entire east side from Little Bourke Street to Lonsdale Street. 'The new furniture warehouses of Messrs. Cohen Brothers and Company in Lonsdale-street west do much to enhance the value and add to the good appearance of that particular quarter of the metropolis, where buildings of fine appearance are fast taking the place of the ramshackle structures with which this thoroughfare was formerly associated', reported Melbourne Punch (11 June 1891). 'The building, which is six storeys high, presents a front of dark brick, effectively relieved by ornate designs in red and white bricks. Each storey is marked by a moulded cement ledge, and the windows are so arranged as to adequately provide the best light, while their arrangement does much to increase the beauty of the frontage.' The voluminous stock consisted of various woods and textiles, was noted for 'excellent workmanship' and 'novel design', and catered for customers wealthy and otherwise. Cohen's wife Esther (1845-1918), was the daughter of Michael Cashmore; Henry died shortly after their Golden Wedding celebrations. The business was carried on by their sons Joseph and Michael, and the company traded until the 1960s. The Museum of Chinese Australian History (established 1985) occupies Cohen's former warehouse.

131 Exhibition Street, Melbourne

Directions: from 108 Little Bourke Street (Cohen Place) walk 70m towards Exhibition Street, turn right and stop 140m later at 131 Exhibition Street (former site of eastern Market and Southern Cross Hotel)

Here stood the lavishly stylish Southern Cross Hotel (opened 1962; closed 1995; demolished 2003), famous in its prime for its jet-setting celebrity guests and its ballroom hired for numerous important events, including conferences concerned with Jewish issues and Israel. The hotel occupied the site of what from the 1840s until 1960 had been the Eastern Market, which originated as a motley collection of dealers offering their various wares on wasteland peppered with the canvas dwellings of new immigrants. Conditions at the Eastern Market were considerably improved with the intervention of the civic authorities, and particularly after the construction during the 1870s of premises that provided coverage for the meat, dairy products, vegetables, fruit, wine and other commodities on sale. There were many Jewish traders there.

With the advent of motorised delivery vehicles, middle-class consumers tended to prefer staple foodstuffs to be delivered straight to their doors, and so stopped buying regularly at this market, which had also dwindled in popularity with the steady defection of fruit and vegetable stall holders to the Queen Victoria Market, at the city's north-west. The Eastern Market in its final decades featured some of the tawdrier elements of a fairground, but before this degeneration a number of Jewish children, including future acclaimed impressionist painter Emanuel Phillips Fox (1865-1915), had won certificates and prizes at competitions held there.

78 Bourke Street

Directions: from 131 Exhibition Street turn right into Bourke Street – 78 Bourke Street (Florentino) is 41m on the left.

Built in the early 1850s as residential accommodation, the building that is now the famous Florentino's Restaurant became a wine shop in 1900, and in 1918 was purchased by Samuel ('Sammy') Wynn (né Shlomo Weintraub; 1891-1982), who had arrived in Australia in 1913 from Poland, where his family was in the wine trade. In 1920 Wynn bought the popular Café Denat in Exhibition Street, relocating it to the floor above this Bourke Street Shop, but in 1928 relinquished control of it to an Italian-born restaurateur who renamed it Florentino.

Wynn, meanwhile, had established himself as a wholesaler of wine, sourced from South Australia, and with cellars in Little Bourke Street. In 1925 he introduced his own vermouth, in 1929 the first kosher wines produced in Australia, and in the 1930s founded the very successful Australian Wines Ltd. The business, which evolved into Wynn Estate Proprietory Ltd, carried on by Wynn's son, eventually became a public company. Samuel Wynn was an internationally known champion of the Zionist movement, as was the second of his three wives, Canadian-born widow Ida Bension (née Siegler; c1896-1948), a stalwart of the Women's International Zionist Organisation. Samuel served terms as president of the State Zionist Council of Victoria and of the Zionist Federation of Australia, and was also deeply involved in Yiddish cultural life and initiatives in Melbourne, serving for many years as president of the Kadimah (Jewish National Library). (Founded in 1911 at 59 Bourke Street—not far from Parliament House—by Yiddish-speakers from Eastern Europe, the Kadimah, its name signifying 'forward' or 'progress', moved in 1915 to 313 Drummond Street, Carlton, and in 1933 to 836 Lygon Street, Carlton. It remained at the latter iconic premises until, like most of Carlton's Jews, it too moved south of the river Yarra, establishing itself in Selwyn Street, Elsternwick.)

Top end of Spring Street, Melbourne (opposite the Windsor Hotel)

Directions: from 78 Burke Street (Florentino) walk east towards Crossley Street. Walk 210m to Spring Street and you arrive at Parliament House.

In 1850, with the official foreshadowing of Port Phillip District's separation from New South Wales in 1851 to become the self-governing colony of Victoria, Governor Charles La Trobe instructed Surveyor-General Robert Hoddle to select a site on which the new colony's Parliament building would stand. The eastern hill at the top of Bourke Street, with commanding views over the whole city, was chosen, and in the extraordinarily impressive Parliament House, designed by John Knight and Peter Kerr, resulted. It was constructed in stages between 1855 and 1891, but the two chambers, for the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly respectively, were completed during 1856. Until then, members met at St Patrick's Hall, next to the shul in Bourke Street. From Federation in 1901 until the opening of Parliament House in Canberra in 1927, Victoria's Parliament House served as the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia, and Victoria's legislators met in the Royal Exhibition Building in Carlton.

British-born merchant Nathaniel Levi (1830-1908), a proudly identifying Jew, was the first Jewish parliamentarian in Victoria, serving in the Legislative Assembly from 1860-65 as member for Maryborough and from 1866-68 for East Melbourne, as well as from 1892-1904 in the Legislative Council for North Yarra Province. Edward Cohen, an equally proud Jew, represented East Melbourne in the Legislative Assembly (1861-65; 1868-77), and his brother-in-law Sir Benjamin Benjamin sat from 1889-92 in the Legislative Council. Cohen's successor as East Melbourne's MLA (1877-99) was another stalwart champion of Jewish rights, businessman Ephraim Laman Zox (1837-99), son of a Prussian-born London-based capmaker. Lawyer and newspaper proprietor Theodore Fink (1855-1942), brother of Benjamin Josman Fink (see 041 and 042), was MLA for Jolimont and West Richmond (1894-1904). There were others.

111 Spring Street Melbourne

Directions: Facing Parliament House, turn right and walk 71m to Windsor Hotel

Designed by architect Charles Webb, and originally known as the Grand Hotel, this luxurious local landmark opened in 1884. Dubbed 'The Duchess of Spring Street', it was popular with the more affluent members of the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation as a place to hold wedding receptions with, if not killed or prepared under strictly kosher conditions, was at least Jewish-style food. Favoured by many visiting international celebrities in its interwar heyday, it was refurbished earlier this century.

Architect Webb was responsible for many Melbourne landmarks including the Royal Arcade off Bourke Street Mall and two denominational private schools leading out of Swanston Street to the south, namely Melbourne Grammar School (Anglican) and Wesley College (Methodist). These schools had a number of Jewish students, Wesley College (nowadays co-educational and run by the Uniting Church, an amalgam of Methodists and most Presbyterians that is widely viewed as overly critical of Israel) having proved especially popular owing to its proximity to the suburbs of St Kilda and Prahran, where a number of affluent and middle-class Jews settled in the mid-late nineteenth and beyond.

2 Collins Street, Melbourne; northern corner of Collins and Spring Streets

Directions: from 111 Spring Street (Windsor Hotel) walk 130m to 2 Collins Street, corner of Spring and Collin Streets.

No Jews bid at the first two sales in Sydney of Melbourne land, but at the third, in April 1839, Samuel Benjamin and his business partner and brother-in-law Elias Moses, merchants with interests in Sydney and Goulburn, purchased the allotment upon which this was subsequently built, as well as another at the corner of Flinders and Spring Streets. Neither partner settled in Melbourne, but Samuel's brothers Solomon, David and Moses did (see 035), Solomon fathering the first Jewish boy born in Melbourne, though not the first Jewish child born in Port Phillip District — that was future politician Jonas Felix Levien, born in March 1840 at Williamstown, the son of an emancipated convict. Meanwhile, Sydney Jew Joseph Barrow Montefiore, a cousin of the renowned Englishman Sir Moses Montefiore, bought neighbouring land to this plot of the Solomons, as well as another allotment in Lonsdale Street. So began Jewish commercial links with Melbourne, even if the pioneers of it did not invariably move or remain there.

Opposite ANZ Bank

Directions: from 2 Collins Street walk 270m west on Collins Street towards Exhibition Street . 75 Collins Street used to be on the corner of Collins and Exhibition Streets on the left, opposite the ANZ Bank.

By the mid-nineteenth century the top end of Collins Street, from Spring Street to Russell Street, had become a fashionable residential district, and this site was the venue of a nine-room mansion in which Moses Benjamin, father of Sir Benjamin Benjamin (see 001), the eldest brother of Solomon and David (two of the founders of Melbourne Hebrew Congregation) lived with his family. Four other properties owned by him stood nearby. In 1885 Moses, like Solomon in 1888, left one of the largest fortunes ever recorded in Victoria.

115 Collins Street

Directions: from 75 Collins Street walk 110m west down Collins Street towards George Parade. 115 Collins Street is on the left.

The Austral Building was designed in 1890 by Nahum Barnet for the owners of the satirical magazine Melbourne Punch, first published in 1856. Barnet was an observant Jew who held office in several communal organisations and wrote press articles on contemporary topics. A financial backer of the high quality Jewish Herald newspaper founded in 1879 under the editorship of the Rev Elias Blaubaum (1847-1904) of the St Kilda Hebrew Congregation, he eventually became its editor. Melbourne Punchoften featured stereotypical portrayals of Jews in the guise of moneylenders and bookmakers, a practice that continued even after Alex McKinley, one of the two brothers who had run Melbourne Punch since 1872, became printer of the newly launched Jewish Herald. This must have raised eyebrows, but as a satirical publication Punch ridiculed and stereotyped just about every group in Australia, from the Irish to, with particular malevolence, the Chinese.

188 Collins Street, next to Town Hall (Athenaeum Theatre)

Directions: from 115 Collins Street walk west on Collins Street for 230m. 188 Collins Street, now the Athenaeum Theatre, is on the right

The forerunner of the Melbourne Athenaeum, so named in 1873, was the Mechanics' School of Arts, founded in 1839 to spread literary, scientific and other useful knowledge amongst its members" by means of classes and lectures, a reading room, an art gallery, and a circulating library. Early members included Jewish communal stalwarts Michael Cashmore (joined March 1842) and Asher Hymen Hart (joined April 1842). In an upstairs meeting room of the original brick premises, erected in 1842, Jewish services took place at Rosh Hashana at the formal request in August of Michael Cashmore. In granting his request, the committee resolved to charge no fee for the use of their space. Erected in 1885, the present building, remodelled to comprise a theatre in 1927, hosts a variety of theatrical, musical, literary and cultural events.

Corner Collins and Swanston Streets

Directions: from 188 Collins Street walk 85m. Melbourne Town Hall is on the right

In December 1842 Melbourne formally became a town, governed by a mayor and councilmen. From 1843 to 1851 the Melbourne town council met in the Mechanics' Institute (see 025). In 1846 Michael Cashmore became the first Jew elected to the council; he was followed by Asher Hymen Hart. Edward Cohen (001) was Melbourne's first Jewish mayor (1862-63) and he hosted the earliest mayoral ball. The foundation stone of the Melbourne Town Hall was laid in 1867 by Queen Victoria's son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and the Town Hall opened in 1870.

A myth persists that Sir Benjamin Benjamin's (see 001) splendid inaugural dinner as mayor was a proudly kosher affair: in fact, to the disgust of many in the Jewish community (and despite the presence at the dinner of Rabbi Dr Joseph Abrahams of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation) oysters, ham, pork and mayonnaise of lobster were served. The foundation stone of the Town Hall's front portico was laid in 1887, and that of the administrative annexe, completed in 1910, was laid in 1908. The Town Hall was rebuilt and enlarged following a fire in 1927.

271-281 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Directions: from 299 Little Collins Street walk 58m east, towards Masons Lane; turn left into Swanston Street and walk for 120m. 271-281 Bourke Street (Leviathan Building) is on the SW corner of Swanston Street and Bourke Street Mall.

The first Jewish-owned drapery store in colonial Melbourne was established was that of Michael Cashmore (see 040) but the Leviathan Clothing Company, at this site by 1865, was almost certainly the largest. Occupying what soon became the busiest corner in Melbourne, it existed by 1865. It was founded by Lewis Sanders, who by the time of his death in 1911 aged 79 had been in business for 60 years, and his relative Nathaniel Levy (Levett), who like his near namesake Nathaniel Levi left one of the largest fortunes recorded in Victoria.

Sanders had been a justice of the peace and consul for Liberia, and died after a long illness. His sons inherited the business, and in 1913 the company's new premises on the same site were completed. Designed by the architect partners Bates, Peebles and Smart, it was inspired by Whiteley's department store in London. Made from gleaming white reinforced concrete, it consisted of three storeys and a flat roof, its steel frames plated from top to bottom with mirrors, and its great plate glass windows shone brightly owing to concealed lights, reported The Argus of 16 May 1913. Leviathan Limited ceased trading here in 1972, and by the late 1970s the building's ground floor consisted of small stores, mainly clothiers.

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314-336 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Directions: from 271 Bourke Street (Leviathan Building) walk west along Bourke Street Mall towards Union Lane. Myer Emporium is on the right.

Shown here is the drapery store of Russian immigrant Simcha Baevski (1878-1934), better known as Sidney Myer, which he established in the little Victorian country town Bendigo at the start of the twentieth century, having after his coming to Australia in 1899 been a hawker of haberdashery in the district with his brother Elcon (1875-1935), who had arrived earlier. The brothers, both known for their good nature and integrity, took the name Myer from the middle name of an older sibling. But, unlike Sidney, Elcon refused to trade on the Jewish Sabbath, and eventually opened a clothing factory in Melbourne's Flinders Lane.

Innovative merchandising methods ensured Sidney's business's success, allowing him to expand. In 1911 he bought an existing drapery store in Bourke Street, keeping the manager, raising staff wages, and holding a sensationally successful sale. Thus began the Myer Emporium that remains in the same location today. Branches opened in Adelaide and elsewhere. In 1920, he and his Jewish wife having divorced, Sidney converted to Christianity and married a member of the wealthy non-Jewish Baillieu family. He was extremely philanthropic in his lifetime and, thanks to his bequest this commitment to deserving causes continued afterwards. Thus the Sidney Myer Fund financed the construction of the famous Sidney Myer Music Bowl in the Domain, opened in 1959 for open-air concerts. As well, the Myer Foundation, established by his sons, continues his philanthropic legacy by donating vast sums to charitable causes.

164 Queen Street, Melbourne

Directions: Facing Myer Department Store turn left and walk west towards Royal Arcade. 164 Queen Street (Theatre Royal) will be on the righthand side, NE corner of Bourke and Queen Streets.

The spacious Theatre Royal occupied this site from 1855 to 1933, when it was demolished the year after it closed, a victim largely of the Great Depression; it had burned down in 1872 and had been immediately rebuilt, more splendid than before. But there was an earlier Melbourne theatre of that name here, in the early 1840s. In 1844 it staged The Jewess; or The Council of Constance. Billed as 'a triumphant success', that play caused an affray in the theatre when Irish Catholics in the audience misinterpreted a scene depicting Passover as a mockery of the Mass. An actress was assaulted, damage occurred, and several rioters were arrested. Following other mishaps that theatre closed in 1845.

456 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Directions: from the site of the Theatre Royal cross over Queens Street, going up Bourke Street for 82m. Benjamin Lane is on the right.

This was named for wealthy merchant and public figure Sir Benjamin Benjamin (see 001), the first Jew in Victoria to receive a knighthood. The naming occurred during the Australian centennial year 1888, which was midway through his term as mayor of Melbourne (that office was upgraded to Lord Mayor in 1902, following Australia's Federation the previous year). Benjamin was told of the knighthood by the town clerk, who approached him when he was seated at the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation's synagogue in Bourke Street (see 031), of which he was at that time president, members excitedly crowding round him to offer congratulations.

478 Bourke Street, Melbourne

Directions: from Benjamin Lane walk 44m towards Little Queen Street (formerly Synagogue Lane). The Synagogue was on the corner of Little Queen Street and Bourke Street.

The Melbourne Hebrew Congregation had its origins in the Jewish Congregational Society founded in September 1841 with Michael Cashmore as president and Solomon Benjamin as vice-president. In January 1844, under the presidency of Asher Hymen (sic) Hart, with Cashmore as secretary and Benjamin as treasurer, the Society was upgraded to the status of 'the Holy Congregation of the Remnant of Israel'.

In 1847 Benjamin, who had become president, laid the foundation stone of its synagogue on land in Bourke Street purchased by pioneer settler Joseph Solomon in 1837, and Hart read the dedication chair. The synagogue opened in 1848. Owing to the increase in Jewish immigration during the Gold Rush, its successor, on the same spot, was consecrated in 1855. A dignified structure approached by a flight of bluestone steps leading to an Italianate portico with six marble columns, it had become too small for the congregation's needs by the late 1920s.

Sold and demolished, it was replaced by an office building (which incorporates in its facade the two central columns of the shul's portico). The Melbourne Hebrew Congregation moved into the synagogue that was consecrated on 25 May 1930 and remains its base, a magnificent copper-domed Nahum Barnet-designed premises at the corner of Toorak and Arnold Streets, South Yarra, commonly called 'The Toorak Shul'.

60 Queens Street, Melbourne

Directions: from Bourke Street Shul walk back towards Benjamin Lane and continue to Queen Street. Turn right at Queen Street and walk 26m. Your destination is n the SW corner of Queen and Collins Streets.

Commercial House was the residence and business address of redoubtable Jewish congregational leader Asher Hymen (sic) Hart (1810-71), mentioned in 014 and 031. He was a draper who became an auctioneer and commission agent following a fire here that destroyed his premises leaving him with only the clothes he was wearing. His library of Judaica was also destroyed. Unfortunately for him and four neighbouring shop owners, their insurers went broke soon afterwards. In 1853 he returned permanently to Britain.

Approximately 376 Collins Street, Melbourne (on NE corner of Queen Street)

Directions: Waterloo House was on NE corner of Collins and Queen Streets.

Waterloo House was a clothing store managed by Edward and Isaac Hart who arrived in 1840. They were brothers of Asher Hymen (sic) Hart. Edward was elected to the committee of the newly constituted Melbourne Hebrew Congregation ('The Holy Congregation of the Remnant of Israel') in January 1844. His marriage, in April that same year to his bride Isabella, was the first Jewish marriage to occur in Victoria. Isaac's marriage, to Moses Benjamin's daughter Rachel, was the fourth. Edward died in 1854, leaving one of the largest fortunes ever recorded in colonial Victoria.

375 Collins Street, Melbourne (southside between Elizabeth and Queen Streets, next door to Cheapside House)

Directions: from Commercial House on Queen and Collins Streets, cross Queen Street Portland House was approximately 16m further on the right at 375 Collins Street.

Moses Lazarus (1808-70) was a noteworthy figure in the establishment of Jewish congregational life in early Melbourne. From London, he was a draper who carried on business at Portland House, and it was in that wooden building in 1839 on Rosh Hashana that, despite the lack of a sufficient number of Jews in Melbourne to form a minyan (the quorum of ten adult males necessary for public worship to occur), a Jewish prayer gathering of some sort was held. Participants included fellow drapers Solomon and David Benjamin (see 035) and, probably, Lazarus's relative Michael Cashmore (see 041). In 1842, Lazarus's Portland House was used by John Pascoe Fawkner, vying (successfully) for a place on Melbourne's first constituted town council, as his campaign headquarters.

351 Colins Street, Melbourne (southside Collins Street between Elizabeth and Queen Streets)

Directions: from Portland House at approximately 375 Collins Street, keep walking to 351 Collins Street where Cheapside House was thought to have been.

Rented on a four-year lease that expired in 1843 by the draper brothers David (1815-1893) and Solomon (1818-88) Benjamin, brothers of Sir Benjamin Benjamin, Cheapside House is believed to have burned down in 1845. One of their earliest advertisements in the local Jewish press proclaimed the availability of a substantial range of coats, trousers, hosiery, beaver hats, bonnets, children's caps, varied fabrics including 'shirting or sheeting calicos' , drapery, even combs, for sale at bargain prices, while below it an advertisement placed by Moses Lazarus offered just English-made ladies' summer dresses and dresses of 'superior colored [sic] muslin'.

It was at Cheapside House, at Rosh Hashana 1840, that, thanks to an increase in the number of Jews who had arrived in Melbourne during the past year, the first Jewish service with a minyan took place. The setting was Solomon's living quarters above the shop. At his death in 1888 Solomon left one of the largest fortunes ever recorded in colonial Victoria.

320 Collins Street

Directions: from 351 Collins Street cross over Collins Street and walk west 110m to reach 320 Collins Street

Here was the residence and shop of Moses Benjamin, father of Sir Benjamin Benjamin (see 001). At his death in 1885 Moses left one of the largest fortunes ever recorded in Victoria.

330 Collins Street, Melbourne (NW corner of Collins & Elizabeth Streets)

Directions: from 320 Collins Street (Albert House) walk to the corner of Collins and Elizabeth Streets. Liverpool Mart was on the NW corner.

Yet another Jewish-run drapery store in early Melbourne, Liverpool Mart operated by Samuel Henry Harris, a former convict, and Jacob Marks. In 1841 the drapers of Melbourne, including these partners and other Jews (mindful that Jewish tradition stresses the dignity of labour) tried to improve conditions for their employees by advocating early closing in advertisements placed in the local press. They set the example by vowing to closing their stores at 8 p.m. precisely, except on Saturdays (when they would stay open late to compensate for closing their businesses on the Jewish Sabbath). There were several such initiatives over the years, notably a Sabbath Observance Society set up by a group of prominent Jews in 1872, but competition from non-compliant shopkeepers usually thwarted them.

99 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne (next door to Liverpool Mart, corner Elizabeth and Collins Streets)

Directions: from Liverpool Mart at Collins & Elizabeth Streets, London Mart was next to Liverpool Mart, facing Elizabeth Street.

Also run by Harris and Marks, this triple-storied drapery store built in 1840, stood next to Liverpool Mart. It failed during an economic downturn, but Harris would, in 1867, die a very wealthy man, leaving one of the largest fortunes ever left in the colony of Victoria.

Intersection Elizabeth and Collins Streets

Directions: from 99 Elizabeth Street (London Mart) turn towards the intersection of Elizabeth and Collins Streets. Cashmore’s Lake was here.

By 1845 no less than 25 of the Melbourne's 47 drapery shops were run by Jews. In 1836 Michael Cashmore (1815-87), a pioneer of the drapery trade in Melbourne, arrived in Sydney from his native London. He worked at a Jewish-owned store in Sydney's George Street, where before long he opened his own store some doors away.

In December 1840 he and his wife Betsy (née Solomon; 1821-98) left for Melbourne, and having survived a shipwreck early in the New Year, losing valuable goods, lived and traded at Cashmore's 'Victoria House' (see 040). The building stood near a creek-bedded water hole dubbed 'Lake Cashmore', which flooded badly during heavy downpours, inconveniencing drovers and wagons until drainage was completed in 1850. In 1842 the Cashmores became the parents of the first Jewish baby girl born in the Port Phillip District. Several members of Cashmore's family also emigrated to the region — an example of the 'chain migration' that was a major factor in Jewish settlement here.

300 Colins Street, Melbourne (NE corner Collins and Elizabeth Streets)

Directions: from the ‘lake’ in the intersection, walk to the footpath at 300 Collins Street, NE corner Elizabeth & Collins Streets

The site long known as Cashmore's Corner (and later as Altson's Corner) was purchased in Melbourne's first land sale in June 1837. It was long rented by Michael Cashmore, who established here Victoria House, where he lived and ran a drapery store. Four storeys high, it was at that time the tallest building in Melbourne, and the venue of occasional weekly services held by the Jewish Congregational Society, founded in 1841 with Cashmore as president. In 1843, during the economic depression (1841-46) that gripped Melbourne after the early land boom waned. The Scottish artist and diarist Georgiana McCrae noted that 'the scarcity of actual coin' was such that 'Cashmore ... is the only man in town who can give you the full change of a five pound note'.

In 1846 Cashmore became the first Jew elected a Melbourne councillor. In 1903 what had been Cashmore's premises, then owned by prosperous Yorkshire-born Jewish tobacconist Barnet Hyman (Barney) Altson (1859-1945), were demolished to make way for a splendid eight-storey building commissioned by Altson from prolific Jewish architect Nahum Barnet (see 024).

Barney's wife and first cousin Rose (Altson; 1864-1952), was president of the Ladies' Zionist League Hatikvah ('hope'), founded in 1906, and in 1908 Barney succeeded the state parliamentarian Nathaniel Levi (see 020) as president of the all-male Victorian Zionist League, founded in 1902. Barney's father was a Russian-born Talmudic scholar active in the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation; Barney's brothers Aby (1866-1949) and Myer (1881-1965) were distinguished artists.

282 Collins Street, Melbourne

Directions: from the corner of Collins & Elizabeth Streets walk 45m east to Block Court

Block Court (built 1890-92) was designed by David C. Askew. It was commissioned by arch-speculator Benjamin Josman Fink (1847-1909) and his City Property Company on the site formerly occupied by the George brothers' drapery store that burned down in 1889 and in its reincarnation elsewhere on Collins Street developed into the prestigious department store Georges.

Born in Guernsey in the Channel Islands to parents of Prussian Jewish origin who brought him to Victoria as a boy, Fink was a talented pianist who put his musical skills to good use when he worked in Melbourne at the Elizabeth Street furniture and piano emporium of Wallach Brothers, of which in 1880 he became sole owner thanks to a huge bank loan that enabled him to buy out his partner. He went on to speculate and expand his business empire recklessly, reliant on sometimes breathtakingly enormous bank loans.

The six-storey Block Court with impressive offices above an exquisitely decorative shopping Arcade resembling the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, symbolises the ostentation and opulence of the 'Marvellous Melbourne' of the land boom period. On summer afternoons the Collins Street pavement outside Block Court was the place for the prominent, the fashionable, and the flamboyant to see and be seen, as they promenaded up and down. A regular among them was the genial, popular and witty parliamentarian Ephraim Zox (see 020) attired as always in one of his trademark pristine white waistcoats. When the land boom era came crashing to a halt Fink's complex financial dealings began to unravel but were never wholly disentangled. He died intestate in London, but had shrewdly placed substantial assets in the name of his wife and first cousin Catherine, who by subdividing and sold at a profit land in western Melbourne she had thereby acquired.

276 Flinders Street, Melbourne (corner Flinders and Elizabeth Streets)

Fink's Buildings, at the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth Streets, were owned by Benjamin Josman Fink (see 041) but, as briefly mentioned the towering eight-storey edifice was almost completely destroyed in the early hours of Sunday, 21 November 1897 by what was the biggest fire ever experienced in the city. A particularly graphic description of this devastating, vigourously fought blaze was graphically described in The Australasian, 27 November 1897, which included a plan of the damage from which the above plan comes, the shaded buildings being the structures that escaped damage.

Apparently starting in Craig, Williamson, & Thomas's large warehouse in Elizabeth Street, the fire ravaged the block bounded by Elizabeth Street, Flinders Street and Flinders Lane (also known at that time as Little Flinders Street). The Flinders Street and Flinders Lane frontages all suffered; the Swanston Street frontage escaped.' Small buildings that might have escaped caught fire owing to their proximity to tall ones. 'One of the highest piles in the city — Fink's Buildings ... acted as a distributing centre.' When the fire was at its most intense, fragments of paper and cards were blown high in the air as far as the neighbourhoods of Richmond, Burnley, and Hawthorn, three and four miles away. Fink's Buildings were left an empty shell.

So iconic was that landmark, though, that it was rebuilt. In 1967, during a period that saw the removal of many of Melbourne's heritage buildings, now widely regretted as vandalism, it was demolished. A modern office building above shops now occupies the site. Flinders Lane itself has long been a centre of Melbourne's 'rag trade', many 20th century Jewish clothing manufacturers having had their start there, both before and following the Second World War. Not far away, towards the Yarra, Jewish dealers carried on a brisk canvas rent trade in old clothes during the Gold Rush period. Dubbed 'Rag Fair', it was eventually closed by order of the Council, seeking to develop the area; its final day of trading was 17 August 1855.

corner Flinders and Swanston Streets

Directions: from the site of Port Phillip Club to the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets, near the clocks.

Opened in 1854, Flinders Street Station faces the site of the long-disappeared Fink's Buildings on the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets and the iconic Young and Jackson's Hotel at the corner of Swanston and Flinders Street that escaped the fire. The station, with its clocks alongside train departure times above the station steps facing Young and Jackson's, is a Melbourne landmark.

The initial privately run steam rail service arriving here brought passengers and their luggage the short distance from Port Melbourne, and in 1857 the line was extended southwards as far as St Kilda, enabling that seaside suburb's growth as a fashionable residential area and encouraging St Kilda's development and expansion as a neighbourhood sufficiently popular with middle-class Jews that during the early 1870s a synagogue was built there and a minister engaged. Further extensions to the neighbourhoods of Prahran and Brighton soon followed, and in the meantime another private company began offering services to Richmond and subsequently beyond.

Such were the beginnings of a station that at one time had the longest passenger platform in the world, and is today one of the busiest rail travel hubs in Australia, 'meet me under the clocks' being a phrase used by successive generations of people awaiting friends and relatives, and still used today.

Inside Flinders Street Station

Directions: from the corner under the clocks, enter Flinders Street Station and the mural is on the inside wall at the Yarra River end of the station, next to Clocks restaurant.

Born in Paris to Eastern European Jewish parents, Mirka Madeleine Mora (née Zelik), survived the war years in hiding in France, married Georges Mora in 1947, and arrived with him in Australia in 1951. They became restaurant owners and cultural icons, Mirka's artwork encompassing drawings, paintings, sculpture and mosaics proving influential in modernistic circles.

Featuring a motley assortment of creatures, her typically bright-coloured mural, created in 1986, on the inside wall of the Yarra river Flinders Street Station, is one of that station's most popular attractions.

St Kilda Road, Melbourne

Directions: from the Mirka Mora mural at Flinders Street Station walk on to St Kilda Road, turn right and walk 180m to Princes Bridge.

As described in stop 014, Asher Hymen Hart participated in the official ceremony in 1846 that laid the foundation stone of the first stone bridge to span the Yarra. The resultant bluestone and granite structure opened in 1850, and was named Prince's Bridge in honour of Albert, Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII.

With the continued growth of Melbourne's population in the wake of the Gold Rush and of traffic across the bridge a replacement became necessary and in 1884 the bridge was dismantled, its materials reused in its replacement, designed by architect John Grainger (father of the famous composer Percy Grainger). The foundation stone of this new bridge, the present structure, today known as Princes Bridge with the current policy of omitting apostrophes from place names, was laid on 7 September 1884, the Jewish parliamentarian Ephraim Zox (MLA for East Melbourne) apparently participating in the ceremony.

Opened on 4 October 1888, during the mayoralty of Sir Benjamin Benjamin, who was duly on hand for the ceremony, it resembles London's Blackfriars Bridge, is 30 metres (99 feet) wide and 120 metres (400 feet) long bridge to span the Yarra. It is, incidentally, across this foot and vehicular traffic bridge that trams from the city to such southerly neighbourhoods of Jewish interest as St Kilda and Caulfield pass. For instance, the St Kilda Synagogue is at 12 Charnwood Grove, off Alma Road near 'Stop 32, Alma Road' (route of tram 67, marked 'Carnegie', from any stop on Swanston Street, State Library side, travelling across Princes Bridge and down St Kilda Road). Stop 32 is also convenient for the Jewish Museum of Australia and for Temple Beth Israel, both in Alma Road and easily walkable from St Kilda Road.

Old Melbourne Cemetery- Occupied by buildings and car park of Queen Victoria Market

Simpson and his donkey - Statue in the gardens just to the east of the Shrine of Remembrance

Solomon's Ford - Crossing place on the Maribyrnong River, South of the west end of Canning St, Avondale Heights. Was settled by December 1836, for many years was the only way from Melbourne to Geelong and the west.

Metahar House - Melbourne General Cemetery Carlton

Sir John Monash -Statue, right of entrance to Government House

Melbourne Hebrew Congregation - Synagogue, CornerToorak and St Kilda Roads, South Yarra

Montefiore Homes - Jewish Care - 619 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne

Architect, Nahum Barnett - (some listings) MHC Synagogue, Her Majesty's Theatre, Austral Building (incl. in WALK) , Chinese National Club, RMIT and London Hotel (incl. in WALK).

Here is a sample of relevant books:

Joseph Aron and Judy Arndt, The Enduring Remnant; The first 150 years of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, 1841-1991, Melbourne University Press, 1992.

Cannon, Michael Life in the Cities : Australia in the Victorian Age :3, West Melbourne, Nelson, 1975.

John S. Levi and G. F. J. Bergman, Australian Genesis; Jewish Convicts and settlers, 1788-1860, Carlton, Vic., Melbourne University Press, 2002.

John S. Levi, These are the Names: Jewish Lives in Australia 1788-1850, 2nd ed., Melbourne, Miegunyah Press, 2013.

Hilary L. Rubinstein, The Jews in Victoria, 1835-1985, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1986.

Hilary L. Rubinstein, Chosen: The Jews in Australia, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1978.

Hilary L. Rubinstein, The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History... 1788-1945, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1991.

W.D. Rubinstein, The Jews in Australia: A Thematic History ... 1945 to the Present, Melbourne, Heinemann, 1990.

W. D. Rubinstein (ed.), Jews in the Sixth Continent, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1987.

Suzanne D. Rutland, Edge of the Diaspora: Two Centuries of Jewish Settlement in Australia , 3rd ed., Sydney, Brandl & Schlesinger, 2001.

Suzanne D. Rutland, The Jews in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Sue Silberberg, A Networked Community: Jewish Melbourne in the Nineteenth Century, Carlton, Vic., Melbourne University Press, 2020.

Howard Freeman, A Jewish Walk thorugh Marvelous Melbourne, unpublished reference book, Melbourne 1993.

A Jewish Walk through Marvellous Melbourne, brochure published by AJHS Vic 1993.

This app, inspired by the AJHS Vic's former president Dr Howard Freeman's research notes and brochure 'Jewish Walks Through Marvellous Melbourne' (1993), was devised by Liz James and David Chester. Its text was written by Dr Hilary Rubinstein. The Society thanks AJHS (NSW)'s Peter Keeda for advice and assistance regarding the technical features and appearance of the app. We hope you have enjoyed it. If you have any suggestions or comments, please email lizronjames@hotmail.com.

There are many relevant articles Australian Jewish Historical Society's Journal, all of which are available online to members. Contact us at lizronjames@hotmail.com for membership details.

The Australian Jewish Historical Society Inc. (henceforth AJHS), nor any of its officers, employees or agents, shall bear any liability whatsoever for any claim, suit, action or demand arising in any way from the use of the app known as 'A Jewish Walk through Marvellous Melbourne', whether sounding in damages or otherwise. Any person downloading that app hereby indemnifies and saves harmless the AJHS from any claim, suit, action or demand, made against the AJHS, its officers, employees or agents, by any person associated with the aforesaid person who downloads the app.