Football Teams in South Kensington, Victoria

 
I was fortunate to be given access to a South Kensington Football Club (Victoria) with all players and office bearers named of the Premiership team of 1932.   This was followed a day later by another photo, of the Kensington Football Club Grand Finalist team of 1961, also named.

The 1932 team has many surnames reflected in a "History of Kensington" written by Sylvester Baker in 1976.  Sylvester grew up in Kensington, and his recollections of the various areas around Kensington are very good - including South Kensington, West Melbourne and an area called Brown's Hill.

Kensington Skating Rink

Fancy dress competitions were popular events at Skating Rinks.   Courtesy SLV

At the height of a craze  for skating, in 1888, the Kensington Skating Rink was quickly erected in a flush of enthusiasm, but by 1900 the skating rink rage seems to have, on the whole, departed never to return.  In this story of the skating rink, we look at just how long the craze lasted in Kensington, and to what other purposes a skating rink could be turned before it meets an inglorious end.  Disappointed Time Travellers can go here to hand in their skates.

"Johnsville", 74 McCracken St, Kensington

"A house named "Johnsville", location unknown".     Source: Leigh McKinnon posted this to "Australia - Vintage Photos of Cities and Towns in Australia Facebook Group", 10 April 2018.

The photo was later identified as being at 74 McCracken St, Kensington, and the woman and boy to be Jessie Douglas and her son John. 

The woman's dress dates to about 1880, and the boy appears to be around 12-14, so I am a little doubtful about the identification of the Douglas mother and son.  By 1880 John would have been 24, and Jessie 66, neither age applying to the two in the photo.

The house, on the other hand, does conform with the shape of the front of the house shown in the MMBW plan from 1901, detail below, though of course many others did.  I have not yet seen any other image of the house, so that is also open to question.  

The Douglases weren't in the house as early as 1880.  The 1884 Sands & McDougall Directory shows two houses between the school and the Wesleyan church, occupied by Charles Dalton and J Rossthorn.

See the Time Travellers website for further details about "Johnsville".  Please get in touch if you can shed any light on the house or the people in the photo.

UPDATE
Alex Bragiola advises that the house was built circa 1882 by James Rawsthorne a local builder, according to the rate books, before the Methodist church on the left was built.   Presumably the J Rossthorn mentioned in the Sands & McDougall directories was actually James Rawsthorne.

6th Melbourne Scout Troop, Kensington, 1919

6th Melbourne Boy Scout senior scouts taken at the Dover Studios, Moonee Ponds in 1917.  Centre front is Scoutmaster William Arthur Robins, and centre back is Sylvester James Baker, both of Kensington. Courtesy of Kathleen Baker.

In 1917 the 6th Melbourne Scout troop was referred to in the newspapers of the day as the Irish Scouts or Catholic Boy Scouts, associated with Holy Rosary Church, Kensington.  Or was this merely a reporter's error.  One article refers to the troop colours as red and green, but the current troop uses a different coloured scarf.

Can anyone identify the other scouts in the photo?    

In 1917 the troop was meeting in Gower St, Kensington, but is now located at the 6th Melbourne Scout Hall in McCracken St, Kensington.  That hall has lately undergone renovations.

History of Kensington, 1905 to 1930

Macaulay Road, Kensington, looking south.  Courtesy of Flemington Heritage Facebook

In 1976 Sylvester James Baker was asked to write down his recollections of Kensington and South Kensington as he remembered from  his youth.  Sylvester at age 4 years had moved to South Kensington with his family in 1905 where they lived in Ratcliffe Street, Brown’s Hill until 1910,   Bruce Street from 1910 until 1918, and Wolseley Parade from 1918 until his marriage at Holy Rosary Church in 1928.  After his marriage he moved to Yarraville, but maintained his connection with Kensington as the Secretary of the  Kensington Hibernian Society for 52 years.

Kathleen Baker, Sylvester's daughter, has kindly given permission to publish Sylvester's story on the Time Travellers of Essendon and Flemington website.

Did your aunty play for Kensington Meths?

Kensington Methodist Basket Ball Team, circa 1930s, courtesy of the Kelvin Edwards Collection, State Library of Victoria Collection.

The Kensington Methodist Basket Ball Club fielded two teams in the Methodist Basketball League from the early 1930s.   Two further photos of the teams can be found on the Time Travellers website, one of which includes the initials and surnames of the Premiership Team of  1935.  The surnames included Cox (3), Smith, Hocking, Thomson, Williamson and Cameron. The sport is now more familiarly known as netball.

If you can't find your relatives in the Kensington Methodist teams, you might try the Ascot Vale West Basket Ball Club of 1928 and 1928, or  the Flemington Basket Ball Team of 1937.

Any identifications welcome. Please get in touch.

Circulating libraries in Kensington and Moonee Ponds

I have added two photos of shops with circulating libraries, one in Macaulay Road to the Flemington and Kensington list, and the other in Pascoe Vale Road to the Moonee Ponds list.

Kensington State School, before button-up boots went out

This detail shows some real personalities from Kensington State School in 1913, in their button-up boots and sporting Eton collars, sailor collars, and Little Lord Fauntleroy collars.  You can view the larger photo here, and perhaps identify some of the little people if you can.

Suburban Bicycle Club

While working on a little project on the photographers who operated in Essendon, Moonee Ponds, Flemington, etc, I came upon this one, taken in the studio of H C Edwards, Kensington. It is from the collection of the State Library of Victoria, item number H2005.34/1181.   They seemed to me to be attired as cyclists, so I went back to the SLV catalogue to see if I could find some other cycling clubs, and located another one identified as the Suburban Bicycle Club, 1892, item number H6265. 

This photo had a number of the faces in the crowd named, though the number of names doesn't match the number of faces, so it is a little unclear what names belong where.  But I did notice a number of names associated with Flemington.  There were three Councillors named, for instance, all of whom served on the Flemington and Kensington Borough Council.  W K Barmby was licensee at the Flemington Hotel for a period in the 1890s.  A race sponsored by Barmby commenced at the Newmarket Railway Bridge, to Keilor and return.

The cap badges in the top photo seem to match some of those in the bottom photo, and I think I can recognise three of the men in the top photo in the second photo.  The three have cloth badges on their sleeves indicating - Secretary, Captain and Sub-Captain.  The man standing behind the back wheel of the right-hand bicycle has a badge on his sleeve, which I think is Captain, and thus is presumably F J Speakman.  (You can download a high resolution image from the State Library to have a closer look).

See the Time Travellers website for the list of names.  If anyone can help with identification of any of the men in the two photos, please get in touch.