Street Name Changes

The creating and the renaming of street names in the City of Stonnington has been going on since the 1840's when the early tracks and stock routes were first given names.  Sometimes the reason for the names chosen was obvious - Fitzroy Road, for example, took you to Fitzroy, and Brighton Road to Brighton.  Problems could arise however if there were several roads leading to the same destination:  Middle Dandenong Road - so named to distinguish it from two others heading to the same place - was also referred to as High Holborn Road in the early records of the Prahran Council.  Today we know it as just plain High Street.  And Great Dandenong Road is now simply Dandenong Road, since the two competitors for that status have been renamed.

At times, the reason for choosing a particular name for a street remains shrouded in mystery.  Perhaps Mr Blakemire was the man who first cut through the scrub in Mount Erica to form a pathway now known as Packington Street - possibly constructing a track from a 'government road' to his property.  In any event, the name Blakemire's Track has not survived.

Local developments sometimes led to a creative renaming of roads - Chapel Street, for example, in replacing Fitzroy Road, bore proud wittness to the opening of Prahran's first church in 1850.  Similarly, the nameless Government Road that became known as Gardiners Creek Road was later referred to as Toorak Road after the Governor came to live in Toorak House in 1854. Ironically , this change did not become official until 1877, by which time the Governor had moved on.

From Punt Road (literally, the road to the punt over the Yarra) to Warrigal Road (formerly West Boundary Road), early estates and grand houses have left their mark in numerous street names, often at the time of their subdivision in the early years of the twentieth century.   Montalto Avenue and Banole Avenue are just two examples from the myriad.

Our ancestors were often not strong on originality when it came to naming streets; at one stage in Prahran there was a Nelson Street, a Nelson Street East and a Nelson Road, to baffle the stranger - and the postman.  To solve the problem of 'the three Wynnstays', Wynnstay Grove became Woodfull Street, Wynnstay Place became Harvey Street, and Wynnstay Avenue reinvented itself as Elgin Avenue.  In Malvern, there were three variants on Pine Street to contend with, two of them now changed to Ash Grove and Carrum Street.

In part this ambiguity reflected the parochialism of earlier times - Windsor and South Yarra, for example, were originally quite distinct settlements, and  Chapel Street, South Yarra, was seen as somehow different to other sections of Chapel Street.  Two parallel sets of street numbers for Chapel Street evolved - both starting at Malvern Road - but one set increasing as it headed north through South Yarra, the other increasing as it headed south through Prahran and Windsor.  The Malvern Road boundary has a confusing history itself, having once been part of Commercial Road, and before that one of the three Dandenong Roads.

In the case of Prahran, systematic revision and standardisation of street names and numbers occurred around 1890, shortly after the introduction of an electoral ward system.  If you examine the ratebooks of this era, you will often find old street numbers crossed out and the new ones written next to them.  For this reason, great care must be taken in using street numbers from old documents.

One other notable source of street renaming was anti-German sentiment during World War I.  Thus Karlsburg Road became Surrey Road North in South Yarra, and in East Malvern, Bismarck Street became Hughes and Fischer was reformatted as Fisher.

Many street names in Stonnington have been changed over the years.  If you are researching a street name that is not listed in the current Melways Directory, download and check the file: 

 Stonnington_street_name_changes_by_former_name1.pdf (89.46 KB)

This will provide you with the current name of the street. If you would like to establish whether a particular street was ever known by another name, download:

 Stonnington_street_name_changes_by_current_name1.pdf (87.86 KB)