I recently moved from Melbourne’s ‘leafy’, wealthy suburbs of Armadale/Toorak to the well-settled northern suburb of Coburg. It’s been like moving to a different country. In a good way.
Coburg, originally named Pentridge, was carved out of the traditional lands of the Woi Wurrung Aboriginal people, in the 1830s. The site of one of Australia’s most notorious prisons, Pentridge, residents changed the name to honour Queen Victoria’s deceased consort, Prince Albert’s, German family, Coburg, in 1870. Throughout the 19th century Coburg and surrounds provided its famous heavy bluestone to other parts of Melbourne as well as hay, some fruit and grapes.
The town was incorporated in the 1920s and has a long history of progressive social and political causes. A stronghold of the then new Australian Labor Party (which just kicked the Conservatives out of existence last weekend) the community pioneered child health facilities that were among the first in the State.
Sydney Road runs through the heart of the area and is one of Melbourne’s many local communities. Today its home to recent immigrants (Afghan, Iraqi, Syrian, Somali, Ethiopian, South Asia) as well as small group of older Italians and Greeks. Young people like the endless number of farmers’ markets, cafes and used bookstores. They wear black, dye their hair bright blue and bling themselves up with tattoos and all sorts of silverware.
I took a stroll down Sydney Rd on Saturday, after voting.
Missionaries, Mercenaries and Misfits 