Preston

Preston is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km north from the Melbourne central business district.

Preston is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 9 km north from the Melbourne central business district. Its local government area is the City of Darebin. At the 2016 Census, Preston had a population of 32,851.

The area was first surveyed by Robert Hoddle in 1837. Parcels of land between 300 acres (in the southern area) and over 1000 acres (in the north) were all sold during the Melbourne 'land boom' sales of the late 1830s.The first permanent white resident was Samuel Jeffrey in 1841 and from him the area's early name was Irishtown.In 1850, Edward Wood, a settler from Sussex, England, opened a store at the corner of High Street and Wood Street which was also the district's first post office. Meeting at Wood's store, members of the Ebenezer Church, Particular Baptist from Brighton, England met to change the name. They wanted to name the town after their former home in Sussex, but Brighton was already taken. Instead they named it after Preston, a small village nearby, where the church members had happy annual outings.Preston Post Office opened on 1 March 1856.The first church was accompanied by a growing number of hotels and other stores, which had emerged some 2 kilometres south of Wood's store at the junction of Plenty Road and High Street, the latter of which served as a route to Sydney. Throughout the 1880s the area between Wood's Store and the junction would be known as "Gowerville".In April 1939, Mr. Vara Tidd, aged 91 years, who had lived in Preston since arriving with his family as a seven-year-old, recalled the early settlement:

"He retains a wonderfully clear memory of the early days of Preston when the settlement was known as Irishtown. He can recall the camp of aborigines on the banks of the Darebin Creek and the old toll gate at Wood street Preston as well as the flour mill in the same street with Emery's pottery behind the mill. Transport in those days was primitive and limited. The waggonette left the old Royal Mall Hotel in Bourke street."

1854 saw the establishment of the area's first primary schools, an Anglican and a Wesleyan school. The first state school opened in 1866 to the east of the junction settlement, but was later joined by another, the Tyler Street School which had opened in 1875, north-east of Wood's store. The two denominational schools closed shortly before the Tyler Street School had opened.

During its formative years, Preston was heavily reliant on an abundance of fertile land for farming, dairying and market gardens. Areas that were not productive however, yielded clay for pottery and bricks. The 1860s saw the development of Preston's industrial capacity, with a bacon-curing factory opening in 1862, followed by a tannery in 1865. These original establishments would be followed by several larger factories, including Huttons Hams and Bacons and Zwar's Parkside Tannery.By the 1860s, the area had a population of around 200, and five hotels, three of which survive: The Preston Hotel (1856), The Junction (1861), and the Rose Shamrock (1854) in nearby Reservoir.The Railway reached Preston in 1889 with the Collingwood to Whittlesea line passing through. The new line provided stations at Bell Street, Regent Street, Reservoir and centrally in Preston.

Throughout the 1880s, Preston with its abundance of land and newly built rail stations was marketed as a residential area, capable of supporting 20,000 inhabitants. Between 1887 and 1891 Preston's population nearly doubled from 2,000 to 3,600. The majority of residential development took place within the corridor contained by Plenty Road and High Street, however there was also limited development in the west of the town, along Gilbert Road. These areas would remain areas of growth well into the 20th Century.

Urban growth accelerated in Preston during the 1920s, thanks largely to the establishment of a direct rail link between Collingwood and Flinders Street in 1904 (later electrified in 1926), and a building of a tram line to the Melbourne central business district in 1920. The Preston Workshops would later be built in 1925 by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board. The reticulation of electricity took place in 1914, with the building of Preston's sewers taking place between 1909 and 1915. 1915 also saw the establishment of the West Preston Primary School, which by 1927 had grown to accommodate more than 1,000 students. West Preston Primary School would later be joined by a primary school in Preston East in 1927, and later by a girl's high school in 1929. By 1922, Preston had been formally recognised as a Borough, two months later it had become a Town, and finally by 1926, Preston had been proclaimed a City.

With the 1930s and the Great Depression came economic hardship for Preston. However, capital works projects, which included the designation of new parks and reserves and the paving of roads, helped attract new residents to the area. Preston bucked the economic status quo by recording rapid growth between the period 1933 and 1947, with the population growing by some 40%. This growth also resulted in the establishment of a technical school in 1937, which would later become a campus of the Northern Melbourne Institute of TAFE. A notable highlight for Preston residents during the era of depression was VFL legend Roy ("Up There") Cazaly's coaching of the local football team.

Two World Wars provided Preston with two awardees of the Victoria Cross – the Empire's highest military award for valour; Bruce Kingsbury and William Ruthven, both of whom lent their name to future localities.

The post war period would also see Preston experience rapid growth. Between 1947 and 1954 the population grew by 37% topping 64,000. A 15-year joint vision between the Preston and Northcote Councils would later culminate in 1958 with the construction of the Preston & Northcote Community Hospital (PANCH). This period also saw the construction of some 2,600 Housing Commission of Victoria dwellings which continued up to 1966, by which time said dwellings accommodated approximately 11% of Preston population.

The acquisition of former Housing Commission land by the Myer Emporium led to the opening of the Northland Shopping Centre in 1966.

Currently, the suburb of Preston exists to the south of the original Preston municipal area. Suburbs which were once part of this include: Reservoir, Ruthven, Keon Park and Kingsbury.