Brunswick Community History Group

02/06/2026

High Class Pastries in Brunswick

The sign reads ‘George Rath High Class Pastrycook.’ Rath, who had a factory in North Melbourne, was a cake-making expert who had manufactured a 10-ton cake for the Centenary of Melbourne celebrations in 1934. (Apparently it was cut up into 2,500 pieces. Glad I didn’t have that job!) The following year, in his role as Vice-Consul for Austria, he made a special chocolate cake for the visiting Vienna Boys Choir. During the 1940s he had this cake shop at 165 Sydney Road, right next door to the Cornish Arms Hotel.

01/06/2026

Two bowls from the Hoffman Pottery which were recently donated to the Brunswick Community History Group. The Hoffman company (named for the German Hoffman kilns which they used) was most famous for brickmaking but also made household pottery like these bowls and the plainer mixing bowls found in many Australian homes.

22/05/2026

Primitive Methodist Hall
This building at the corner of Albert and Minnie Streets was once a Primitive Methodist Mission Hall. Built in about 1889, it demonstrates the values of the Primitive Methodists who kept to a simple, unadorned style of worship, unlike the more mainstream Wesleyan Methodists. The building still stands, no longer a place of worship, but testament to its endurance, despite the primitive building methods.

15/05/2026

Rosser Street terraces

This group of houses in Rosser Street was photographed in the 1980s by Jack Barnes. Known as McGeorge’s Terrace, they were built in the early 1870s for the McGeorge brothers who were well-known blacksmiths and wheelwrights in their day.

09/05/2026

08/05/2026

The changing face of Brunswick

This gully trap was still in use in a house in Piera Street, Brunswick East until the house was demolished about 10 years ago. The owner had no running water inside and his kitchen was in a covered-in veranda running alongside the house. He’d ‘modernised’ to some extent because there was a plumbed in bath and toilet in the lean-to at the back of the house. No more walking down to the end of his property to make use of the outdoor ‘privvy’ that abutted the back lane!

08/05/2026

Brunswick's vanishing industrial past

This building was located at the end of Jenkin Street (formerly Baden Street) and a lane leading to Glenlyon Road, Brunswick East until it was demolished earlier this year. It began life in the 1950s as the premises of biscuit manufacturers Broadway Wafer Company and later became the Morgat Hosiery Mills factory, one of the all-but-forgotten small textiles manufactories in Brunswick.

06/05/2026

Two photographers of the Upfield Line. In 1992 John Werrett took a series of photographs of the heritage features of the railway line and the people who worked on it. These were used for a series of postcards sold to raise money for the Save the Upfield Line campaign. Over the last three years Nicholas Walton Healey has taken photos of the line and people associated with it and some of these are displayed in an exhibition at Brunswick Neighbourhood House. Here are the two photographers at a floor talk at the exhibition. Photo by Oskar Weimar.

01/05/2026

Do you have a connection to Brunswick North Primary School?

The school is celebrating 100 years of BNPS and creating a short film to capture the stories and memories that have shaped our school community.

They are looking for from past students, teachers and families who can share memories, photos, or take part in a short interview.

If this sounds like you, or you know someone we should speak to, we’d love to hear from you.

You can add your memories and photos here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdz4M4Mp0G2lnyJ1_BCrL0HEXxloMdeHrKE5zEZ86NKornJfA/viewform


Submissions close 31 May.
Brunswick North Primary School Centenary
docs.google.com
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