Residential suburb of
Melbourne,
Australia, situated approximately 8km north of the city centre. Bounded by the
Merri Creek to the West and
Darebin Creek to the East. The name is believed to have been given by
Surveyor General Sir Andrew Clarke, after
Stafford Henry Northcote, a barrister and co-author of the
Northcote-Trevelyan report.
Prior to the 1880s, Northcote was a rural area, consisting of orchards, preserving factories, farms, and the
Yarra Bend metropolitan lunatic asylum.
Throughout the 1870s, industries slowly began moving to the area, including slaughtering yards, piggeries and claypits.
Northcote lagged behind in the 1880s land-boom of Melbourne, most likely due to the lack of fast, reliable public transport.
Cable trams began running up
High Street in 1890. The train line was connected in 1891, but passengers had to travel through
Fitzroy North,
Carlton North, through
Flemington, to
Spencer Street Station. The connection of the
Epping Line with
Clifton Hill (creating a shorter route) was made in 1901. The St. Georges Road tram line was opened in 1920.
With public transport came people, and during the 1890s, Northcote's population doubled, from 7000 to 14,000. The Northcote Football Club was formed, the Fitzroy Racecourse (near Croxton Station, nowhere near Fitzroy) hosted pony racing, and one of Australia's first picture theatres opened.
John Cain, a fruitpicker from
Goulburn Valley, began selling fruit and rabbits on the streets, before opening a fruit shop on High Street. In 1915, after joining the
Labor Party, he was elected to the Northcote council. Two years later, he entered
State Parliament lower house, and eventually became Premier of
Victoria in 1943.
Italian and Greek
migrants began to settle in Northcote during the 1950s. By 1961, 9.5% of the population was Italian. Evidence of this still exists today, with many Greek residents and businesses in the area.
The New Northcote Brick Company sold its quarry to the council, which turned the site into a tip. The unquarried land became
Northcote Plaza shopping centre. The tip was later filled in and the shopping centre expanded. This drew customers away from the traditional shopping hub of High Street, leading to a high amount of shop-front vacancies, a trend still in place today.
As
gentrification spread through the nearby working-class inner-city suburbs of
Fitzroy,
Collingwood, and
Carlton, Northcote became an attractive option for
students,
artists, and the
working class. Today, there exists healthy populations of
lesbians,
anarchists, and
aboriginies.