Irishtown Brighton, Preston ... All In A Name
	If it hadn't been for a small group of followers of the Baptist Church from Sussex in England, the O'hAilpin boys could well be playing for the Irishtown Football Club rather than the Northern Bullants ...

Although there were small settlements from around 1840 further to the north on the rich alluvial plains of the Plenty River, it is generally recognized that the first permanent resident in the Preston district was Samuel Jeffrey.

One account of Jeffrey's life indicates that he first established a farm near the corner of Tyler and High Streets in 1846 after arriving from Tykernaughton, Ireland on the Coromandel in 1841 and spending his early years working on a property at Yan Yean, the account suggesting, "that between his house and Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne, there was not another place of domestic abode" (the claim must be taken with a grain of salt – "New Town", later Fitzroy and Collingwood was substantially settled by 1846).

Many of the early settlers were fellow Irishmen, which led to the area being informally known as Irishtown, although there is little surviving evidence to suggest the name was used outside of the district. The report also suggests that at the time, there was an aboriginal population very much in evidence, and that "Chinamen and bullock drays laden with wool passed through Irishtown en route to the city".

Although he was brought up as a Presbyterian, Jeffrey had been heavily influenced by the Methodist revival in Ireland and in 1852, he lent the use of his barn for the first church service in the district with a minister travelling from Brunswick each Sunday.

The barn was subsequently used as a church, Sunday School and day school, the latter as the Wesleyan School lasting until 1875. Stones from the barn now form a small monument to Jeffrey outside the Uniting Church on the corner of High and Tyler Street, close by the original farm.

Jeffrey faced some opposition over the Irishtown name.

Much of the area in what became Preston and north to the Plenty River attracted a number of followers of the Baptist Church in England, many of whom originated from Brighton in Sussex.

Included in these was Alfred Hurlstone, described in the Preston Leader in 1914 on the death of the wife of his eldest son, John, as "the first flour miller in Victoria, establishing his mill on the Plenty River near Janefield" and suggesting he carted the granite for the rollers from Dandenong.

A key resource for research of the pioneers of the Melbourne district is the Port Phillip Directory, published by Sands and MacDougall. The directory first appeared in 1838 and lasted until the Second World War and amongst a mass of information was included lists of residents of Port Phillip, initially by surname, but later by suburb and then by street when districts were sufficiently developed to establish a grid of street names.

For some of the older suburbs the "topographic grid" as the Directory called it was included from the mid-1860s, but for the backblocks of Preston, nothing appeared until 1892 - and then as "Preston" (north of Cramer/Gower Streets) and "South Preston", the two areas remaining as separate entries until at least 1920.

The early entries for families known to have lived in the Preston and Northcote area were listed simply as "Merri Creek" or "Darebin Creek", while those further north as "Mill Park" (from the flour mill) or "Plenty River". Hurlstone's mill was later moved to what we know as Wood Street (then Mill Lane) and the directories show the family as "Merri Creek", but in 1847, the family put the cat amongst the pigeons when John, Peter and Adelaide Hurlestone (a dressmaker) were all listed as "Little Brighton".

Directories over the next year or two become confusing with entries for "Little Brighton", "Greater Brighton" and "Brighton" appearing in roughly equal numbers. Comparing names from year to year reveals that most of "Little Brighton" was what we know as Hampton, but Hurlstone and a few other locals persisted, including Thomas Holt who had a half-crown each way by giving his address as "Irish Town near Little Brighton".

Further complicating the issue was the family of Robert Keys, believed to have originally settled in "Preston" but later appearing prominently in "Little Brighton". Fortunately it is known that the family did in fact move south where Keys ran the Little Brighton Hotel - the influential family later lending their name to Keys Road and the suburb of Keysborough.

Sadly with the colony's rapid growth during the early years of the gold rush, 1851 was the last of the directories for a few years (when Preston is believed to have been named) to list residents outside of the Melbourne area. Just what names were used for the area in these years is uncertain.

Among the more influential Baptists were William Tyler and Edward Wood. Wood in 1850 opened a store at the corner of High and Wood Streets and was a founding member of the local Baptist Church in 1859. Wood's store also attracted the Cobb and Co, coaches of the day, and was ultimately awarded the contract to conduct a Post Office. Being somewhat anti-Irish, Woods objected to the name Irishtown, and he, Tyler and other members of the Baptist gathering (undoubtedly including one or more of the Hurlstones) met at the store to formalize a name for the district when the post office was first proposed.

With Brighton already firmly established south of Melbourne, they opted to name after Preston-On-Tees, a small town dominated by a manor called Preston Park, which they had regularly visited on church outings.

That village was also the birthplace of J. C. Clinch, later to become a prominent local official who instigated a move in 1875 to set aside land in Cramer Street for the establishment of a sporting venue also to be known as Preston Park. Clinch, just before his passing in 1904, recalled in an interview with the Preston Leader that one of his fondest memories was “sitting with some others in Edward Woods’ parlour and renaming Irishtown to Preston”.   None of the few snippets  of that meeting actually give a date that the name was intriduced, but Post Office records first show Wood as the post master in 1855.

There are few references to Irishtown in the contemporary newspapers of the 1840s and early 1850s, but in 1857, The Argus carried advertisements for "the Oak Hill Races at Irishtown". The meeting centred on the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock Hotel (now the Rose, Shamrock and Thistle) with the original name perhaps reflecting the Irish influence around the hill in Plenty Road close by Jeffrey's property.   (Just when the order of the floral emblems of the three British countries got changed around is unknown).

Perhaps some local rivalry still existed. 

The following year a more publicised "Preston" race meeting came off behind the Preston Arms Hotel (now simply the Preston Hotel) close to Wood's store, but the Irish were not to be denied - even as late as 1865, there was an Irishtown Grand National Steeplechase meeting held opposite the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock.  The Steeplechase was organised in part by the licencee of the hotel, James Smith, who claimed to be "the only Englishman living in Irishtown".     

The advertisements simply referred to Irishtown, implying that the citizens of other areas were aware of the location, and even as late as 1875 (some 20 years after "Preston" came into being), The Argus carried reports of a ploughing match "at Irishtown".

Coincidentally it was Clinch who was instrumental in acquiring our ground in Cramer Street just before it was to be developed into housing lots.

Early sporting teams used the paddocks around the Preston Arms (and sometimes the Rose, Thistle and Shamrock) and both football and cricket are believed to have been played at the Preston Arms until at least 1914 when a Second Eleven from the Preston Cricket Club still used the "ground".

Although use of hotel grounds by the local sportsmen wasn't uncommon (Northcote's main sporting venue was behind the Croxton Park Hotel), in some circles it wasn't regarded as the ideal location for the young men of the district to gather.

"… I asked them what they would sell nine acres on the flat for, telling them the only place the young fellows had to play was at the back of one of the hotels which was great temptation for them to drink"

Cr. J. C. Clinch on his moves to acquire Preston Park, The Preston Leader, 25 November 1889

The Shire of Jika voted on April 10, 1875 to allocate £40 as a deposit on the purchase of land for recreational purposes after an earlier move to acquire land behind the Court House and Shire Offices just behind the Junction Hotel was defeated. Clinch later claimed the credit for the purchase (and the consequences, blaming the cost as being the reason for him temporarily voted out of office), but it is known that there was a public meeting held some weeks beforehand to press the case to the Council for the purchase of land "next to the tannery".

The "real" Preston Park

"Preston", according to the Oxford Dictionary of Place Names, is Old English for "Town of Priests", the earliest usage noted as being in the year 1163.

While Clinch and his fellow councilor's efforts were to provide a lasting legacy for the future citizens of the growing village, the Baptist's original picnic site in Sussex is commemorated by a much grander Preston Park, a 117 acre (400,000 square meter) public park (ours is just nine acres) owned by Stockton Borough Council and located next to the River Tees in Preston-on-Tees.

The current English Preston Park owes its existence to legendary English bookmaker, William "Billy" Davies, who bequeathed $70,000 to the Stockton Council in 1879 to purchase the original 67 acres. The holding was subsequently added to several times, the last in 1947 when the Council acquired the neighboring Preston Hall, opened in 1953 as a museum.

As well as the museum, the Park includes twelve tennis courts, a miniature railway which operates during the summer, Butterfly World, woodland walks, a mountain bike track and a showground hosting various summer fairs (but of course, we have our canteen).

The Park also lent its name to a variety of geranium, the Preston Park Zonal.

Two views of Preston Park  (for the life of us, we can't find the scoreboard!)

Preston - 1842

"Suburbs" that we might recognize today that were mentioned in the 1842 Port Phillip Directory included William's Town, Dandenong Creek, Heidelberg, Brighton, Pascoeville, Moonee-Moonee Ponds, Pentridge (from 1872, Coburg) and Collingwood. Much of what we think of as the Collingwood, Richmond and Alphington districts were termed Yarra Yarra – that name being shown for John Dight's Mill next to the falls and close by Victoria Park (originally Dight's Paddock) – and the entries that appeared under "Collingwood" were probably in Fitzroy by today's standard.

"Merri Creek" certainly included parts of Northcote, with one of the known local identities in Peter McArthur, M. D. shown under the generic name.

Other family names listed as either at the Merri or Darebin Creek (DC) included Alston, Arden (DC), Ardlee, Cooper (DC), Cropper, Dutton, Eddington, Hutton, Kennedy, McFarlane, McLane, Morris, Shaw (DC), Sinclair, Smith, Stainforth, Sullivan (DC), Sutherland, Tancred and last, but by no means least, the only woman, Mrs. Mary Walsh. Some of these may well have lived at what we know as Campbellfield, this area being an early outpost on the Sydney Road.

Mr. John Henry Wilson was the only settler mentioned as at Jika Jika, but perhaps the best-known Merri Creek resident was Henry Pulteney Dana, the Commissioner for Native Police. The Aboriginal force operated in the Port Phillip district for around 11 years from 1842 under Dana's command as troopers to help keep the peace between the traditional inhabitants and the white settlers.

Many of the area names of 1842 and for some years later were based on geographical features and have long since disappeared from use, perhaps in some cases to our loss.

Surely an country estate at No-Good Damper Creek would attract buyer's attention with a minimum of advertising!

The location has never clearly been identified, but the creek may have been one of those now feeding the Cardinia Reservoir.

Just where this oddly named spot was is a mystery – the 1842 Directory has two settlers listed, Messrs. R. B. Grange and William Scott, the latter's entry shedding a little light on the subject with the additional note "on the Western Port road".  Other references suggest "the track from Brighton to Western Port and Gippsland, and the area inland behind  Cheltenham was known as Damper Flats.

There was briefly a Squatter's Rest Hotel at No Good Damper Creek, registered to C. J. Villiers in 1841, but the licence was not renewed the following year due to de Villier's bankruptcy and "bad accommodation"