Fitzroy, Victoria

:This article is about the suburb of Melbourne. For the mount in Patagonia, Argentina see Fitz Roy. For the sea area Fitzroy named after Robert FitzRoy, see Shipping Forecast.

History

Fitzroy takes its name from Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, the Governor of New South Wales from 1846-1855.

Related Topics:
Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy - New South Wales - 1846 - 1855

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Fitzroy was Melbourne's first suburb, created when the area between Melbourne and Alexandra Parade (originally named Newtown) was subdivided into vacant lots and offered for sale. Newtown was later renamed Collingwood, and the area now called Fitzroy (west of Smith Street) was made a ward of the Melbourne City Council. On 10 September 1858, Fitzroy became a municipality in its own right, seperate from the City of Melbourne.

Related Topics:
Collingwood - Melbourne City Council - 10 September - 1858

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Surrounded as it was by a large number of factories and industrial sites in the adjourning suburbs, Fitzroy was ideally suited to working mens' housing, and from the 1860s to the 1880s, Fitzroy's working class population rose dramatically. The area's former mansions became boarding houses and slums, and the heightened poverty of the area prompted the establishment of several charitable, religious and philanthropic organisations in the area over the next few decades.

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The establishment of the Victorian Housing Commission in 1938 saw swathes of new residences being constructed in Melbourne's outer suburbs. With many of Fitzroy's residents moving to the new accommodation, their places were taken by post-war immigrants mostly from Italy and Greece, and the influx of Italian and Irish immigrants saw a marked shift towards Catholicism from Fitzroy's traditional Methodist and Presbyterian roots. The Housing Commission would later build two Commission housing estates in Fitzroy: one in Hanover Street and one at the southern end of Brunswick Street.

Related Topics:
1938 - Italy - Greece - Irish - Catholicism - Methodist - Presbyterian

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In June 1994, the City of Yarra was created by combining the cities of Fitzroy, Collingwood and Richmond.

Related Topics:
1994 - City of Yarra

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