Brunswick, Victoria

Brunswick is an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moreland.

Approximately four kilometres due north of the central business district, it is bounded to the south by Carlton, Parkville, and Fitzroy. It is separated by the Merri Creek from Northcote to the east, Coburg to the north, and the massive Tullamarine Freeway to the west.

Brunswick is located on relatively flat terrain and the streets are laid out in an approximate grid. The main thoroughfares are the north-south Sydney Road (part of the Hume Highway) and Lygon Street, though the tourist strip of Lygon Street is substantially to the south in Carlton. Commercial activity in Brunswick is mainly centred on these two streets, though there is a shopping centre called Barkly Square located between them on Barkly and Weston streets.

Contents

1 History 2 Commerce 3 People 4 Politics 5 Nightlife and Culture 6 Media 7 Transport

History

Occupied from time immemorial by the Wurundjeri people who spoke the Woiworong dialect, white settlement began in the 1830s with Robert Hoddle surveying the area and land speculators taking title to it. The suburb gained its name by early settlers Edward Stone Parker and Thomas Wilkinson in 1840, who named their property after the wedding of Albert and Queen Victoria; two of the east-west streets in Brunswick are named in their honor. Wilkinson in particular was an active developer of the area. A number of hotels and markets were established in the 1850s, as the road from Melbourne to the goldfields of the Victorian gold rush ran through Brunswick.

The Brunswick municipal council was established at 1857 at the Cornish Arms Hotel, which still stands. The first municipal chambers were established in 1859 on Sydney Road at Lobb's Hill, between Stewart and Albion Streets. The present Brunswick Town Hall is an imposing Victorian edifice, built in 1876 near the centre of Brunswick on the corner of Dawson Street and Sydney Road. In 1908 Brunswick officially became a city.

In the 1860s, quarries, and, notably, a large brickworks, were established in Brunswick, using the local clay and bluestone. This quickly became the largest industry in the area.

Train and tram lines arrived in the 1880s, as did a number of local schools and the Brunswick mechanic's institute.

Textiles became a large industry in the area in the early parts of the 20th Century. Quarrying declined with the depletion of reserves.

During the Great Depression in 1933 Brunswick was the site of free speech meetings by the Unemployed Workers Movement, which were harassed and suppressed by the police. Young Australian artist Noel Counihan played a significant part in this campaign. A Free Speech memorial was built in 1994 outside the Mechanics Institute on the corner of Sydney and Glenlyon Roads to commemorate the free speech fights. Counihan's work as an artist and local resident is also commemorated by the Counihan Gallery run by the City of Moreland Council.

A cable tram service ran from the city to Brunswick, with the cable house located on Brunswick Road near Sydney Road. The last cable tram to run in Brunswick was in 1936.

In the post-World War II era, Brunswick became the home of a large number of migrants from southern Europe. More recently, migrants from Turkey and other Islamic countries have arrived. The brickworks and much of the textile industry has also begun to close, as gentrification began in the 1990s, and considerable amounts of renovation and new residential development is occurring.

In 2004, Brunswick and nearby Carlton were the location of several murders in what has been widely reported in Melbourne's media as a "underworld war"; in any case, the violence occurred between a numerically tiny group of organised criminals and left the overwhelming majority of residents unaffected. The area's overall crime rate is not regarded as particularly high.

Commerce

Commercial retail activity is mainly centred on Sydney Road (part of the Hume Highway) and the northern end of Lygon Street. While separated from the tourist strip in Carlton, northern Lygon Street has a substantial number of restaurants, though mainly catering to locals, as do some on Sydney Road. There is a small shopping centre, Barkly Square, in Barkly Street, between the two.

People

Brunswick is a suburb in demographic flux, with a number of distinct population groups making their presence felt. A considerable number of immigrants from southern Europe made the area home in the 1950s, and some of this group still remain, though they are now quite elderly. The suburb is also home to a considerable Islamic community, particularly from Turkey. Finally, there is also a substantial group of students and young professionals, many familiar with the area through its relative proximity to the University of Melbourne. These groups live together with little discord.

Politics

Brunswick has long been a stronghold of left-wing politics in Melbourne, with the federal and state parliamentary seats held by the Australian Labor Party with very comfortable margins over the conservatives. Australian Greens candidates are gaining an increasing proportion of the vote, and in 2002 elected a Greens Councillor to Moreland Council. As well as the "mainstream" left, however, Brunswick and nearby suburbs have for many years been a holdout of other left-wing parties, radical socialists and anarchists.

The Brunswick Progress Association has had an active role in representing residents particularly on local issues to Council, but also at the State and Federal levels. It was formed in 1905.

Nightlife and Culture

In the 1980s, Brunswick's major nitespot was the Bombay Rock, a notoriously dangerous venue that saw considerable violence between ethnic groups. It was destroyed by a fire in the mid-1990s. Also worthy of note was the Sarah Sands Hotel, which hosted tours from a number of local and international acts, mostly punk, goth or alternative in nature. It ceased operating as a venue for original bands in 1993 when the owner leased management of the venue to the Bridie O'Reilly's group.

The gradual gentrification has increased the numbers of bars, coffee shops, and restaurants in the area; most are fairly unpretentious and aimed at the locals but the food is often good and the prices quite reasonable. Several of the bars now offer live original music as well; the Cornish Arms hotel, in particular, is regarded as one of Melbourne's major blues and roots venues.

The Sydney Road Street Party, held annually in late February, is a major event in the suburb, and is a prelude to the Brunswick Music Festival, held in March, featuring blues, roots, and world music.

Media

Two free, weekly suburban newspapers are distributed in Brunswick. The Moreland Leader is part of the News Corporation-owned Leader Newspapers group and covers the area within the Moreland City Council area, while the Melbourne Times covers most of Melbourne's inner suburbs and devotes considerable efforts to covering local politics and urban planning issues.

Transport

The area is amongst the best-served by public transport in Melbourne, containing the Jewell and Brunswick stations on the Upfield suburban train line. In addition, there is the number 19 tram service to Melbourne University and the city on Sydney Road, and the number 1 and 8 (formerly 22) trams along Lygon Street, and the number 55 tram also heads through Royal Park and to the city from nearby West Brunswick.

There are also east-west buses on Brunswick Road, Glenlyon Road and Victoria/Blyth streets, though these bus services are not frequent enough to adequately serve cross-suburban travel in the way that the trams serve travel into and away from the city. None of these services operate after 10pm weeknights (most in fact cease at 7pm), nor do any of them operate at all on Saturday or Sunday nights.

Brunswick itself is relatively flat and is ideal for cycling. East Brunswick is bounded by the Merri Creek Trail; and West Brunswick by the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail, though neither of these can be described as flat. The Upfield Bike Path follows the Upfield railway line from Fawkner, through Coburg and Brunswick joining the Capital City Trail at Park Street. Many local streets also have painted cycle lanes adjacent to parked cars, presenting a significant hazard to cyclists in the form of rapidly opening car doors.

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