Brighton, Victoria

Brighton is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Bayside local government area. Brighton recorded a population of 23,252 at the 2021 census.

Brighton is named after Brighton in England.

In England, on 29 August 1840, Henry Dendy (1800–81) purchased 5,120 acres (2,070 ha) of Port Phillip land at £1 per acre, sight unseen, under the terms of the short-lived Special Survey regulations. Dendy arrived on 5 February 1841 to claim his land. The area was known as Dendy's Special Survey.

The area Dendy was compelled to take, called "Waterville", was bound by the coastline to the west and the present day North Road, East Boundary Road and South Road. A town was surveyed in mid-1841, defined by the crescent-shaped street layout which remains today, and subdivided allotments were offered for sale. The area soon became the "Brighton Estate", and Dendy's site for his own home was named "Brighton Park". Unfortunately, the land did not have any ready sources of water. Sales were slow at first, and the financial depression came and Dendy's scheme for emigration and land sales failed. The family of his agent Jonathan Binns Were (1809–85) who had arrived in Melbourne in 1839, bought the land. All of Dendy's business ventures failed, and he died a pauper.

After the depression, sales of land resulted in Brighton becoming the third most populated town in the Port Phillip District (after Melbourne and Portland), by 1846. Brighton attracted wealthy residents who wanted generous building sites and the prospect of sea bathing. By the late 1840s stately homes were built in an area known as 'The Terrace', now called the Esplanade, overlooking Dendy Street Beach. The Brighton Post Office opened on 19 April 1853.

St Andrew's Anglican Church, Brighton, one of the earliest churches in Victoria, was founded in 1842. Wesleyan and Catholic churches followed by 1848, and a Methodist church in 1851. Schools were opened on the Anglican Church land (1849) and by the Catholic Church in Centre Road (1850). Another was opened in the Wesleyan Church in 1855. In 1854, Brighton had a census population of 2,731.

A railway connection to Melbourne was built in stages: Windsor to North Brighton was completed in 1859 and connected to the loop line to St Kilda station; the connection to Melbourne was made in 1860; and the line was extended from North Brighton to Brighton Beach in 1861. A single line railway-tram from St Kilda to Brighton Beach was completed in 1906. The railway tramline was duplicated in 1914. In 1919 the railway was electrified. A tram ran down Hawthorn Road; the section from Glenhuntly to North Road was completed in 1925 and extended to Nepean Highway in 1937.

The noted bathing boxes in Brighton are known to have existed as far back as 1862, although the earliest ones were at the water's edge at the end of Bay St rather than their present location on Dendy Street Beach just south of Middle Brighton. In 1906, the completion of a tram line from St Kilda to Brighton led to an increase in applications for bathing box permits and significant construction between 1908 and 1911; final numbers are uncertain, but between 100 and 200 bathing box sites may have been allocated prior to the Great Depression. As part of capital works programs during the Depression to help relieve unemployment, the City of Brighton, backed by State Government funding, relocated all bathing boxes to the high-water mark on Dendy Street Beach, or removed them completely. The boxes were relocated again in 1934 to their present position at the rear of this beach.