#melbournesfirstsuburb #Fitzroy #Heritagewalks

Fitzroy was Melbourne's first suburb, created in 1839 when the area between Melbourne and Alexandra Parade (originally named Newtown) was subdivided into vacant lots and offered for sale.
Originated from the FitzRoy ward of the Melbourne City Council, named after the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Charles FitzRoy.

Irish: Anglo-Norman French patronymic from fi(t)z 'son' + Roy in one or other of its senses.

The layout of streets was mostly in the lands of private subdividers: the government surveyor had prescribed only main arteries such as Nicholson, Brunswick, Smith, Gertrude and Johnston Streets. Building types were a mixture of masonry, timber and prefabricated, a few mansions and predominantly terraces after the gold rushes. Several terraces in Gore Street, Victoria Parade and Gertrude Street are Heritage registered buildings.

Brunswick Street became the main commercial sector, and Smith Street less so but lying on the route to Heidelberg. The route skirted Fitzroy North, which was laid out in the mid 1850s as a more gracious suburb.

During the 1880s the south area s of Fitzroy became increasingly working class. Mansions became boarding houses, and the single men in them attracted prostitution, sly-grogging, cocaine dealing and internecine activities between pushes of under-employed larrikans. Coinciding with the descent into unlawful activity the Churches increased the charitable activities, focusing on ragged children, facilities for single women and the relief of distress. Much of the philanthropic initiatives, though, came from organisations outside Fitzroy.

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence, founded by Gerald Tucker in Newcastle in 1930, began in Fitzroy in 1933 when Tucker took over the Anglican Mission Church of St. Mary. He organised for the relief of distress and declared war on slums.
Tucker's activity coincided with F. Oswald Barnett's Slum Study Group, which led to the establishment of the Housing Commission in 1938. Fitzroy's slum reputation was accompanied by the decline in the shopping areas as central Melbourne (Bourke Street) grew stronger and modern strips were built in newer suburbs.

When the Housing Commission built modern estates in outer suburbs in the postwar years some of Fitzroy's population took advantage of the new houses. Their places were often taken by postwar immigrants. By 1954 about 12% of Fitzroy's population was Italian-born; in 1966 33% were Italian or Greek-born, and Australian-born had fallen from two-thirds to one-half. The Italian-born and the population with an Irish background constituted a strong Catholic body. Within ten years, however, the numbers of Italian-born and Greek-born residents had halved and within another ten years they had halved again.

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