When we last explored the foundation of Wattle Park, Eliza Welch, part-owner of the prestigious Melbourne department store Ball & Welch, had agreed to sell the large block of land she owned on Riversdale Road to the Hawthorn Tramways Trust for the very reasonable price of £9,000. The only condition was that it could not be sub-divided, nor used for any other purpose but a park.
After the sale finally went through… nothing much happened to the land. Turns out you can’t have a Tramway Park without building a tramline to it first. The Hawthorn Tramways Trust got to work and by 22 December 1916, the Riversdale Road electric tramline had made it to the corner of the new park on Boundary (Warrigal) Road in time for Christmas.
This was quite a feat considering many of the HTT’s workers and staff were off fighting and dying in the Great War.
Wattle Park receives its name
During the building of the tramline, the land at the end of it remained officially unnamed or referred to as ‘Tramway Park’ in correspondence. Although it had some pre-existing acacia pycnantha (golden wattle) growing on it and other native shrubbery spread by birds, it was mostly overgrown pasture when the name ‘Wattle Park’ emerged from still-mysterious origins. But locals and Melbourne residents embraced it, believing it gave the patch of unoccupied wilderness a sense of whimsy among the farms of the district. The land officially became Wattle Park on 14 April 1917 at its Opening Ceremony.
To supplement Wattle Park’s meagre wattle supply, the Opening Ceremony involved the planting of 50 acacia pycnantha trees by various local dignitaries.
“Sydney certainly had its harbour, but Melbourne could be proud of what had been done to provide breathing spaces, and on the beauty of its plantations,” optimistically pronounced Cr Read, the Mayor of Camberwell.[1]
Despite its natural shortcomings, Wattle Park was immediately a popular destination for Melbourne’s tram travellers seeking to escape the inner city.[2] This meant that it was not long before the volume of visitors combined with the absence of sanitation facilities, potable water and accessible food to create a sanitation crisis. But multiple public organisations had pooled their resources to pay for the land, and this meant that responsibility for the Park’s ongoing development and maintenance belonged to … someone else.
Fortunately, the Field Naturalists’ Club of Victoria came to Wattle Park’s rescue. Established in 1880 and still operational today, the FNCV dedicated themselves to retaining native vegetation in Victoria’s green spaces. They set to work planting more wattles and eucalyptus trees to help the Wattle Park name move from aspiration to reality.
Wattle Park’s facilities develop
In the 1920s, the State Government took over the operation of Melbourne’s tram network and formed the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramway Board. By extension, this meant it also became responsible for the maintenance and operation of Wattle Park. Thanks to the FNCV, the Park now had a rudimentary toilet and a rustic tea-room near the Boundary/Riversdale Road intersection. The dedicated volunteers at the Field Naturalists Club and the Victorian Wattle League did the bulk of the environmental labour; planting over 5,000 wattles in the park by 1925. They had also converted Frederick Goyder’s old dam into a fountain and lilypond to help attract more insects and bird varieties. Wattle Park had become an important green space that continued to attract regular visitors, now joined by the residents moving in to the rapidly developing surrounding suburbs.
For years, the Park’s tram operator custodians resisted pressure from local sporting clubs keen to use the Park to help returned servicemen re-engage with community life through football and cricket. Eventually, they realised sports clubs brought in revenue that could be used for the park’s maintenance. The only suitable flat space for organised team sport in the Park was at the very top of the hill and over time, this became a football and cricket pitch.
Wattle Park Golf Course and Chalet
Thoughts of converting some of the Park land into a golf course pre-dated the end of World War I. Mr Cameron, the chairman of the Tramways Board, even invited the Victorian golf champion Arthur Le Fevre to visit the land for his opinion on its suitability for golf. “He was very favourably impressed with it,” said Mr Cameron, “and thought that an 18-hole golf course could be made without interfering with level portion of the park.” It would be very expensive, warned Mr Cameron but “I think that such an expenditure would be justified” if it meant bringing golf to people who could not afford to join expensive clubs. Plans for a proper tearoom and a children’s playground also floated around.
Fortunately for Wattle Park, the Chairman of the MMTB, Arthur Monsbough emerged as a strong champion for its significance. He got the golf course, playground and tearooms up and running. He was also a keen and progressive recycler, repurposing and re-using tram line fittings including large wooden spools, old pieces of abandoned farm equipment, and the bricks of the old tramway chimneys to build the playground and the new Wattle Park Chalet, opened in 1928.
By the end of the decade, Wattle Park was a major local attraction. Ironically, after former owner Orlando Fenwick spent years advocating for improvements to Riversdale Road, the deteriorating state of the tram line became the major barrier to visiting it. To improve the existing line, the MMTB decided to invest in expanding it past Wattle Park to Elgar Road. Although they managed to pull this off, the looming economic downturn affected the building and maintenance of Wattle Park’s facilities.
The Wattle Park Lone Pine
Wattle Park’s history as a place of military commemoration dates soon after WWI. It was the site of ANZAC day ceremonies, Trooping the Colour processions by local regiments, and accompanying military bands and musical guests.
On 7 May 1933, the MMTB decided to formally acknowledge Wattle Park’s significance to the Australian war effort by planting a Lone Pine. The tree represented the solitary tree on the Gallipoli Peninsula after the Turkish cut the rest down for timber and trench cover.
Wattle Park’s original Lone Pine began its life as a pinecone brought home as a souvenir from Gallipoli by Private Thomas Keith McDowell, a member of the Melbourne-based 23rd Battalion. At Gallipoli, Keith’s 23rd Battalion often fought with the 24th Battalion that originated as the Kooyong Regiment. Keith had many friends in both Battalions who still lived in the Burwood area. Keith gave the pinecone to his wife’s aunt, Mrs Emma Gray of Warrnambool and Emma, a talented gardener, managed to successfully propagate the seeds into four seedlings.
“She grew them in flower pots outside the back door and looked after them like pet lambs,” Emma’s granddaughter Jean Giblett said years later.
Keith presented one seedling to the 24th Battalion. The Mayors of Camberwell and Box Hill planted it at Wattle Park during the 1933 ceremony. Another seedling went to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance in honour of the 24th Battalion and planted by Lt Col Stanley Savige (who founded Legacy, a club dedicated to helping returned servicemen care for their families).[3] The third seedling was planted at The Sisters (a settlement) near Terang and the fourth in Warrnambool Gardens.
In 1995, the Australian Infantry Battalion Associations arranged for the Lone Pine’s dedication to the 24th Battalion to include Sir Frank Selleck. Sir Frank, a decorated veteran of the Gallipoli campaign, became a successful businessman and Lord Mayor of Melbourne three times. A friend of Sir Stanley Savige, Sir Frank was also one of the founding members of Legacy. When Sir Frank died in 1976, he requested his ashes be scattered under Wattle Park’s Lone Pine.
A ferocious 2006 storm damaged Wattle Park’s Lone Pine to such an extent that the park’s spiritual keepers feared death was imminent. The affection for the Pine in the community spearheaded a concerted effort to save it. Meanwhile, disease struck down the Shrine’s tree in 2012. Fortunately, it had produced countless new pines that are now planted all over Australia.
After lightning felled the Terang tree in 2017, the Wattle Park Lone Pine lives on as one of only two Lone Pines bred from the Gallipoli tree. It is protected by a sturdy fence and the community’s fierce protection of it.
The Wattle Park Clock
During World War II, Wattle Park hosted morale-boosting picnics and events to entertain service people on leave. One day, soon after WWII ended, an unnamed elderly lady shuffled into the office of the new chairman of the Tramways Trust, Mr Hector Hercules Bell.
“She came in rather timidly and didn’t want to be a nuisance. All she wanted to find out was when our tram stops would be put back,” he said. Apparently during the War, Mr Bell had overseen a reduction in the number of tram stops on Melbourne’s tram lines to help cars move through faster. Mr Bell, who sounds like a very unpleasant person, took personal offence to the lady’s question. He had no intention of reinstating the stops. “Walking never hurt anybody,” he told her pompously. “I walk five blocks up to Swanston Street and back for my lunch every day. I leave room on the trams for the people who are too lazy to walk,” he snapped.
This story foretold Mr Bell's reaction when another inconvenient elderly lady came to see him.
“She came in here quietly and said she would like to give me a clock for Wattle Park,” he said. It would cost a lot of money, he warned her. That didn’t matter, the old lady told him. She would instruct her solicitors to arrange to give £100 for the clock.[4]
“She didn’t want an inscription of a plaque, she just wanted it to be an anonymous gift from someone who was grateful for the happiness the park gave her,” Mr Bell continued. This seemed to cause him to soften. “She’s 85 years old and she still walks in the park every day. If she can do that then we’re not putting the tram stops back, people can walk.”
And that was how the Wattle Park clock, built out of rock used as ballast in the Wanganella hospital ship, found its way to Wattle Park.
It remains still reliably working today.
The Tram Car Picnic Shelters
Few children visiting Wattle Park missed the opportunity to drive the Wattle Park trams.
Records suggest that old tram cars have acted as picnic shelters at Wattle Park since around 1928, pre-dating the tea rooms.[5] They arrived because the Tramways Board felt they really could not have the only Tramway Park in Australia without some kind of namesake. It was also a useful place to put old de-commissioned trams and contributed to the Park’s culture of recycling and reusing. The trams were stripped of all glass and working parts, including their numbers and the curved roof replaced with a flat roof.
Although now iconic to Wattle Park, the Park’s various operators have had to replace the tram shelters at Wattle Park at least 10 times over the century. They are magnets to vandals. The current W-class tram, donated by VicTrack and reconditioned by the Bendigo Tramways Trust, was placed there in 2013. It is now covered in netting after vandals graffitied all over it. This tram replaced the tram vandals destroyed by arson on 26 December 2011, causing $20,000 damage. That tram replaced trams graffitied by vandals in 2007. And so on and so forth... you get the picture.
Parks Victoria, who took over the management of Wattle Park in 2000, is well aware of the park users’ affection for the trams. But they are expensive to acquire and maintain. Current speculation is that the current desecrated trams may be replaced by a stainless steel sculpture or ornament to honour their significance to the Park and reduce their allure to (generations of) vandals.
In 2022, Parks Victoria began a major refurbishment of Wattle Park’s playground and surrounds to reflect its Wurundjeri heritage. They demolished the old wooden fort-like playground and replaced it with one more inclusive for all children.
Despite grumblings about change from locals, Wattle Park remains a beautiful and idyllic space. Bands still play there, the birds still sing in the trees, the wattle still blooms. The park lives on, just as Eliza Welch wanted, as the tram bell rings in the distance.
References
[1] "Wattle Park: Opened by the Governor," The Argus, 2 April 1917.
[2] Peace, Ray, Eliza's Vision: A History of Wattle Park 1838-2006 (Prahran Mechanics Institute Press, 2006).
[3] Bright, Ed, "Wattle Park Patriotic Area: Victoria's Legacy," Burwood Bulletin,
[4] Seager, Helen, "Good Morning Ma'am," The Argus, 9 August 1947.
[5] Prasel, Sonia, "A Tram Ride in Wattle Park," Burwood Bulletin, Sept-Nov 2006.
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