St Kilda Junction

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Title St Kilda Junction
Alternative Title A Brief History and Photographic Journal
Abstract/Description From the beginning, St Kilda Junction was a gateway to St Kilda and the surrounding area. It's early life from the 1840s was a time of steady but dramatic change. The Junction played a pivotal roll in the settlement and development of the St Kilda village and the transformation of the environment from a natural to an urban landscape. The first European settlers recorded piles of shells left by the Boon wurrun people (presumably the Yalukit-willam clan) on the St Kilda foreshore and corroborees near the vicinity of the future St Kilda Junction. The first census of the original inhabitants made in 1839 recorded only eighty-nine Boon wurrun people by 1863 there were only eleven.1 The collapse of the Boon wurrun society and population is a sorrowful legacy of the European settlement. A relict and remainder of these first people still survives at the Junction; an old Corroboree Tree (river red gum) which stands vigilance in memory of the first people. The Victorian Field Naturalists' Club in the early 1950s lobbied for the tree's protection and to raise Melbourne’s aware of its significance. In July 1952 the St Kilda City Council had a plaque placed at the tree which stated: 'Aborigines of early settlement days congregated and held their ceremonies under and in the vicinity of this tree'.2 A lonely reminder of that the settlement of St Kilda was for the Yalukit-willam clan and all of the Boon wurrun people, a devastating event.
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Language English
Citation St Kilda Junction
Resource Identifier 65898
Dataset AusStage