Hawthorn, Victoria

Hawthorn is an inner suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) east of Melbourne's central business district, located within the City of Boroondara local government area. Hawthorn recorded a population of 22,322 at the 2021 census.

The name Hawthorn, gazetted in 1840 as "Hawthorne", is thought to have originated from a conversation involving Charles La Trobe, who commented that the native shrubs looked like flowering Hawthorn bushes. Alternatively, the name may originate from the bluestone house—named 'The Hawthorns' and built by James Denham Pinnock at 5 Creswick Street—which stands to this day.^{[full citation needed]}

The mansion named Invergowrie – originally Burwood or Burwood Hill - was built by James Frederick Palmer in 1850 and is the original source of the name of the current Burwood Road. Mayor of Melbourne in 1846, he established the first punt to cross the eastern Yarra around the current Bridge Road area in 1842. The cost was said to be around the equivalent of 45 cents (expensive for the time) but it was very successful and assisted the development and sale of the original Hawthorn allotments. The house was sold after Palmers death in 1871 and subdivided by entrepreneur George Coppin to create the landmark Saint James Estate.

'The Hawthorns' is one of Hawthorn's oldest houses, built of bluestone in 1845 for James Denham Pinnock (1810–1875), Deputy Registrar of the Supreme Court, before there was a bridge across the river. His property stretched from Church Street to the river, between Denham Street and Lawes Street and was subdivided circa 1850. The homestead block, west of Calvin Street was acquired by pioneer squatter Henry Creswick, whose family remained there for 70 years. Its view was altered by the subsequent development along Creswick Street and Osbourne Court. In the 1856 electoral roll, Creswick's address was given as Hawthorne House. Both Pinnock and Creswick were leading members of the Anglican Church.

Tay Creggan, 30 Yarra Street on the banks of the Yarra River, was built in 1892 and was perhaps intended by architect Guyon Purchas to be his own home. However, it was tenanted during the 1890s depression, then the McKean family before World War I and then by the Mortell family. Later, it was owned by the Roman Catholic Church and occupied by the "Ladies of the Grail" from 1939 until 1969. Now owned by Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School, it is used as a Year 9 campus. The roof and detailed chimneys were restored in 1993 and boatsheds built near the river. It is frequently rented out by the school to use the original hall for functions.

The house Kawarau was built as Warrington for Robert Robinson in 1891 and 1892. It had 12 rooms and 22 acres of land in 1893. Frederick John Cato (of Moran & Cato fame) bought the house and moved in with his family in 1895. The name Kawarau comes from the name of a New Zealand river. Much later it became "Stephanie’s Restaurant" for some years. It is now occupied by Alia College. Frederick Cato's daughter wrote a book about the family. She contacted the historical society about names of Hawthorn streets. With the possibility of a brickworks on the north part of the original Tooronga estate, her father bought the property. It was partly subdivided as Tooronga Heights before World War I, with street names for family, friends and New Zealand place names, beginning with "B" for streets lying east and west and "L" for those lying north and south. In 1934, the present Cato Park was donated to Hawthorn.

Hawthorn expanded rapidly during the 1880s land boom when grand Victorian houses built in subdivisions like the Grace Park Estate spoke of an upper class suburb. High rates of home ownership, a plethora of noteworthy independent schools (including, from 1916, Scotch College), grand churches, and prominent sporting clubs such as the Grace Park Tennis Club, consolidated Hawthorn's status as an affluent area. Yet the outstanding opulence of residences like John Beswicke's Rotha in Harcourt Street was still the preserve of a minority. By the 1880s working-class families lived in single-fronted, wood-blocked cottages on low-lying subdivisions like those forming Melville, Smart, Barton and Connell streets. Many worked in Hawthorn's clay brickworks found principally in Auburn, east of the village and around the lower parts of Gardiners Creek. Hawthorn bricks referred to as 'pinks', 'blacks' and 'browns' adorned the polychromatic façades of many local houses. During the depression, residential sections of Hawthorn were equally as run-down as those in determinedly working-class Richmond across the Yarra River.

Grace Park Estate, Hawthorn is located on a gently-sloping site in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and contains a residential subdivision to the north and public gardens and sporting facilities to the south. The residential portion of the estate contains three curved crescents, intersecting streets and Mary Street as the northern boundary. Streets are tree-lined and contain a fine collection of Victorian and Edwardian houses. A curved portion of open land runs through the estate, once the site of the Kew railway line.