Further to my previous note, below, FW Thring, who produced this movie, was notable Australian for his major contributions to the development of early Australian Cinema: He opened the Paramount Theatre in Bourke St in 1915 which later became The Lyceum. He became managing director of J. C. Williamson's Films in 1918, which eventually merged to become Hoyts in 1926. Thring was also responsible for introduction of sound equipment to make Australian “Talkies” - one of the first of which is this Film of Melbourne.
While Melbourne now is much bigger ( 5 million vs 1 million ) not many of the sights featured have vanished : The original Wilson Hall at Melbourne University burnt down The Foundation Tree in the Botanic gardens died off The Tan around the Botanic Gardens has became a running track( rather than an equestrian track ) There would have been a lot of pretty slummy buildings just out of camera range when this was filmed -say where Southbank and Docklands now are Of course a lot of fine heritage buildings (say in Collins St and St Kilda Rd) are now also gone
It would have been so awesome if melbourne kept its all beautiful architecture and kept building more amazing in this style to make it a really European looking city I think architecture has deteriorated so much over the years
They demolished all the beautiful homes as a few left a victorian mansion with the turret called The in anaesthesia surgeon College but there's not many left and it was beautiful homes and then all just glass and concrete Towers
Spectacular buildings of such high craftsmanship and quality - and made in a time of horse and cart! And no electricity!! Just amazing! Given cameras were around in the 1850's there must be loads of photos of the construction of these magnificent buildings. And there must be loads of peoples who's great grandparents worked on these buildings and proudly shared stories. So...where are the photos and the stories.....
Fascinating from several points of view: FW Thring was father of actor Frank Thring, a star of Hollywood films including Ben-Hur (1959) and The Vikings (1958) - also the Australian film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). The narrator speaks of the King and Queen as having driven down St Kilda Rd and of His Majesty the King, opening the first Australian Parliament. To be correct, he should have said ‘As Duke of York…‘. He also claims that the State Library’s concrete dome is the largest in the world - it wasn’t - because at 142 ft, the Pantheon in Rome is nearly 2000 years older and 28 ft wider. “Finest city in the British Empire” was another dubious claim, although at the time, 1930 - and up until the 1956 Olympics - it probably was the largest city of Victorian era architecture in the world.
The many who claim that there was nothing in Australia until post War immigration was in full swing, should look again at this video of Melbourne with its grand buildings and boulevards,......a lasting legacy of its stone masons, its builders and architects . Les Griffiths
Thank you for saying this. The modern narrative is that this land was some sort of backwater or wasteland before then. Rather it had amazing institutions, great work ethic and enormous prosperity. If not, why did everyone come here?!
@@Peter-wd2ho Indeed Peter. Why did so many chose to make their home here? And in the case of Melbourne in particular, we are all fortunate that many from postwar Southern Europe came to this Grand old lady of the South, bringing with them their food culture and their inherent instinct for hard work. And I am a North Queenslander. Les Griffiths
Wow Gezza, I'm gobsmacked! That footage is amazing! I'd give anything to go back in time to the age when Australia was Australia.... Long before we became the land of woke and honey....
Wow!! Excellent video. Thanks for sharing. My dad actually first visited Melbourne from his home in Sydney back in 1938. I am presuming that he would have seen Melbourne much like this video.
@@TheNomad2727 There was the 6 o'clock swill at hotels/pubs. This was the mad dash by workers to get to their watering hole after work at 5pm (or thereabouts) and consume as much booze as possible (generally beer) before closing time at 6pm! The idea was to curb the drinking/inebriation culture among the male population by shutting pub doors very early in the day. Prior to this, most pubs closed by 11:30pm. However, patrons generally consumed as much beer in one hour, as they would drinking slowly over the course of the evening to the later closing time! Many patrons also drove home after the pubs closed causing car crashes, injuries, etc. Eventually, pub closing hours were extended once again. Clearly the Australian temperance experiment failed in this case!
@@fordlandau - No you are incorrect. I live 5km from the CBD and my ancestors have live in Melbourne and Victoria since the 1850's. Melbourne has the most extensive tram network in the worlds and many wide roads and freeways. Many radiating train lines too for commuters. People still want to live in greater Melbourne and in 20 years time Melbourne will be larger than Sydney.
Our forefathers had such foresight from 1860 to 1900 to build such magnificent buildings. Unfortunately many, many superb buildings and street verandahs were DEMOLISHED between 1953 to 1980 to the shame of Melbourne. It could have been truly the 'Paris of the South', but ended up as a mish-mash of old and new monstrosities of skyscrapers of plain steel and glass. It's too late now. The heritage laws came too late!
If you drive down St.Kilda rd now it’s nothing like you see in this film. Too much room for bicycles & parking is frighteningly expensive. It’s 01.01.2024 today.
G’day Destiny, I hired the vhs tape from a public library about 15 yrs ago. You can’t hire it out now. It would have been a government production. Can’t help you regarding copyright details, I doubt anyone purchased the copyright as it’s never been on sale. Cheers Gezza
This is only part of "Living Melbourne" (National Archives - Canberra) I am fortunate to have the Original Film on VHS which I Burned to CD along with "Living Ballarat" also a Great Look into early Victoria. On the Ballarat Movie it end with early advent of Colour.
@@Gezza1967 Unfortunately National Film & Sound Archives have Copywright on this and downloading is Illegal. You can view both of the Movies by Logging into NFSA in Canberra. My Original was purchased Years ago Legally as I have checked NFSA so I can have this in my possession.
“The NFSA rarely owns copyright in works in the national collection”. Over the years I’ve received many thank you messages regarding uploading videos people have been searching for many years. The term ‘Copyright’ gets a little overused, it’s really there in most cases to stop piracy for $$$ reasons. Unfortunately some people go way overboard. Example I put 10 seconds of a virtually unknown 1990 Melbourne movie up on RU-vid and 5 yrs later the producer of the movie gave me a copyright strike through RU-vid. He could’ve just sent me a message or just write a comment to take it down. Reality is it didn’t make an ounce of difference being on RU-vid or not.
Ask yourselves this, if Victoria’s Parliament House was opened in 1856, who built it? There were no multi storey level cranes or cranes capable of lifting the granite pieces in to place with such precision. There wasn’t that many stone masons working in Victoria, let alone Australia, at that time! So who built all the large, multi storey building that were in Melbourne at that time?
@@malcolmcanning9553 Robert Hoddle designed the main streets of Melbourne (Collins, Bourke, etc.) to be 3 chains wide so that a six-span of horses could do a u-turn without having to back up. That was applied to St Kilda Rd as well.
@@MrPgrawe went to most capitals in Australia . looking for mud flooded building's.. as used to own 3 in UK ..it's the same architecture in Australia. .but the time factor doesn't make sense with the narrative.67 yrs old now something isn't right.
It was over 600,000 in 1900 and the nation was 6 million during WW2, so my guess would be about a million in 1931. Given the way the city was laid out, probably a good size, not too crowded.
See name thring start that's Frank Fring as we all remember him he born in a theatre it was once said ,that's his father's name they owned thertres actors ,remember him being villain skippy ,king Moomba strange man Frank Fring
Are we to believe that only 30years after the first house was built, with horse and carts, no modern machinery or tools and a tiny population, MULTIPLE world class buildings and structures with the finest architectural design and stonework known to man was just thrown together by locals, convicts and a few bags of concrete?
It is amazing but true. We have the enormous quantities of gold taken from Ballarat and Bendigo to thank for it - riches that made marvellous Melbourne along with a far-sighted leadership that built quality to last, not like the many poor quality towers that are constructed today and will be ready to be recycled in 50 years.
@@graemebdh2172 gold and riches didn't build these enormous, beautiful buildings... People did. The hand-me-downs we inherited from our Tartarian ancestors are still standing today, the cathedrals and government buildings mostly. We built our crap around it and nothing built from this early settlement lasted besides these buildings that were already there.
The truth is that these grand ornate buildings and well-established old-growth Botanic Gardens could not have been conceived and executed by the handful of people present in an early outpost and "convict settlement". History has been a lie.
Melbourne is OLD WORLD. History is laughable. They built that EXHIBITION centre in 1 year. ONE YEAR. They cant even build ugly concrete buildings that quickly but they could do that. Take FOUNDED to actually mean FOUND
Try building a crappy 3 bedroom house that doesn't have a multitude of problems these days. It is beyond us to do that with all our "technology" This history is laughable and spit out your coffee kinda stuff.
Paul B how do you mean mate ? 1950s ?? This was recorded in 1931 and refers to Melbournes buildings in the 1850s such as the state library and Parliament House , Melbourne Uni etc...
Melbourne then is a pocket of survival from the pre flood world. Architecture built to harness free energy. Buildings with multiple floors below ground level with external windows n doors now bricked up. But supposibly built by convicts using horse n buggy.
