ASHBURTON’S history is like no other suburb in Boroondara. Yet it barely rates a footnote in the area’s history books. In my new book, Ashburton Stories: A History of the Melbourne Suburb I sought to redress its omission and examine why it occurred.
One historian I asked thought it was because Ashburton is not as “old” as the rest of Boroondara. But various British settlers bought the land that became Ashburton soon after Melbourne’s settlement. The arrival of Edward Stocks in 1850 established the boundaries of Ashburton today.
If over 170 years is not history, then what is?
Another explanation was Ashburton’s long-running absence from Council records. Aside from the influx of visitors every Sunday on the steam train, Ashburton’s population did not begin to expand significantly until the 1920s. As a result, Ashburton remained overlooked in Council investment activities and therefore absent from its records.
The Ashburton Progress Association at a fundraising event at Ashburton Hall, 1937
But in history, sometimes omissions tell you more than inclusions. As I delved further, I found that something more insidious emerged in the records that fed local histories: prejudice. In the 1930s, the conservative City of Camberwell struggled to cope with the pace of growth and the changing socio-economic landscape within its borders. Yet it still managed to stretch its finances to build Camberwell’s burgeoning population roads, sewers, parks and sports pavilions. Ashburton remained ignored.
Also absent from records was how its new residents began to loudly and publicly complain about this civic neglect. Even the more liberal Camberwell Councillor, James Nettleton, weighed in: “We have purchased throughout Camberwell 265 acres for parks and playgrounds, but not one acre of it in Ashburton. I do not pretend to know the value of the land but I do know that Ashburton must have a playground,” he said in 1932.
This prejudice really came into its own after World War II and the arrival of the Housing Commission. Boroondara had little social housing at all before the Commission built the large estate south of High Street. These new, cheaply assembled houses for returned servicemen and their families were “far below the standard of privately built homes [in the area],” said the Camberwell Mayor at the time. The Council then proceeded to drag their feet, fulfilling their obligations to the new Alamein Estate.
In commissioned histories, Ashburton also remained absent. With no private schools, it never appeared in any of their history books. In sports histories, it remained referenced as an occasional opposition team, but still largely hidden. This absence compounded in the 1980s, when Ashburton committed the most cardinal sin a suburb can in Boroondara: its adults abandoned Australian Rules football for soccer. The round ball sport helped women and girls appear on Boroondara’s green spaces far earlier in Ashburton than anywhere else. But playing on a square pitch in Boroondara ensured Ashburton remained on history’s “offside”.
Ashburton Park when football was still played there (picture circa 1975)
Fortunately, Ashburton’s schools and churches produced short histories over the years. By the 21st century, The Alameiners: from mud to palaces became an important oral history of life in the early years of the Alamein Estate. The comprehensive history of the Ashy Redbacks, now one of the most successful junior football clubs in Victoria, is a major source on community-level sport.
All these histories, original research, and the stories of Ashburton’s residents are now brought together in one book. In the end, it’s up to us to put Ashburton in its rightful place in Boroondara’s history.
SARAH CRAZE
Ashburton Stories is available to buy for $27.50 from the Ashburton Community Centre or online at: www.sarahcraze.com/online-store
