History of Sunshine¶

• Introduction
• Early European settlement
• The rise of Braybrook Junction
• The bad times
• The Federation years
• After the war
• The thirties
• WWII
• New migration & the Baby Boomers
• Seventies & Eighties
• Nineties
• The new millenium
• References

Thanks to Gary Ayton for all the text used here.

I have used all of Gary Ayton's text and added some of my own and found some images from the State Library of Victoria.

Introduction:

• Situated 13km west of Melbourne, on a volcanic clay-soil plain dominated by grasslands which were prized by the early grazers but with lower rainfall than the east of Melbourne and thus not as good for cultivation
• The rail footbridge and the HV Mackay Memorial Gardens are included on the Victorian State Heritage Register for their historical and social significance. Historically, both elements formed and integral part of an industrial complex of national importance in the history of Australian manufacturing. The still evident close spatial relationship of the footbridge, adjacent housing, Gardens and the former factory demonstrated and early application of ‘garden city’ planning principles in Australia. Socially the footbridge was an important reminder of the dominance of industrial activity to the Sunshine community, particularly as it was the only access across the railway lines for several hundred metres, leading directly to the factory.
• Sunshine became a crucial town in the late 19th and early 20th century as it was the junction of the railroads that joined Melbourne and its ports in Williamstown & Newport to Ballarat and Adelaide in the west and Bendigo to the north, thus creating economic benefits of creating industries there whose product could be railed to most parts of inhabited Victoria and Sth Australia or exported overseas.
  • The dominant industry during this time was H.V.McKay's wheat harvester manufacturing plant.
• After WWI, returned soldiers settled in the newer estates creating demand for more amenities
• After WWII, immigrants from regions suffering upheaval migrated to Australia in several waves, with many settling in newer estates in the City of Sunshine, creating a multicultural society such that by 2001, 40% of residents were from non-English speaking backgrounds

Early European Settlement:

• Aclan of the Wurungeri aboriginal tribe called the Marin-Bulluck lived in the region
• Charles Grimes, Surveyor General of NSW conducted an exploratory survey mission, 1803,
• Hume & Hovell passed through the grassy plains of Sunshine & Keilor, camping in the vicinity of Taylors & Sydenham Rds, 1824.
• John Batman camped at the junction of Deep Ck & the Maribyrnong River before moving north to Sunbury, 1835.
• James Watson named Keilor after a town in Scotland, and for the next 50yrs it became a thoroughfare for gold diggers travelling to Bendigo region, 1840.  
• Newcomers arrived from 1835 onwards, disrupting the lives of indigenous occupants, they & their grazing animals soon displacing the kangaroos & emus from the open plains

• 1850's:

  • The gold rush largely bypassed Sunshine as the main route to Ballarat was via Geelong & Lal Lal, while the main route to Bendigo was via Keilor
  • Some of the early pastoral occupiers of Melbourne's west, such as 'Big Clarke', built up vast estates through land purchases, creating a virtual pastoral monopoly, which hindered settlement & development
    • W.J.T. Clarke, reputably Victoria's wealthiest man, held 2,500 acres between Rockbank and Gisborne, a fraction of the 120,000 acres he held in Victoria alone. He chose to live in his "Rupertswood" mansion in Sunbury, and in 1859, was instrumental in insuring one of Victoria's 1st railway lines was through Braybrook to Sunbury. The Melbourne-Sandhurst (Bendigo) line was built in 1860 and extended to Echuca in 1864.
  • The district was dotted with quarries, small farms, hotels, small businesses (eg. blacksmiths' shops, bootmakers)
  • Street plan of  'Albion' drawn up using the names of English counties, was the basis of much of the later settlement of Sunshine

• 1860's:

  • Local government area known as 'Braybrook Road District' from 1861
  • William Taylor buys the "Overnewton Estate" which stretches from from Keilor to Sydenham

• 1870's:

  • Braybrook Shire created in 1871, stretched from Footscray, almost until Melton
  • Main townships were:
    • 'Albion' - just south of Maribyrnong River (now Nth Sunshine)
    • 'Braybrook' - east of 'Albion' nearer Ballarat Road
    • 'Maidstone' - further east again
    • 'Kororoit Creek' - later re-named Deer Park
  • Braybrook Junction formed when new rail line to Ballarat was made (this junction was re-named Sunshine in 1907). 1875.

The Rise of Braybrook Junction:

• 1880's:

• The region was still largely basaltic plains of open paddocks covered with small boulders, divided by dry stone walls made from lumps of volcanic rock or basalt, with few made roads, and few trees near a lonely house, red gums along the creeks, with views to ranges on the horizons to north, south and east, but few industries:
  • Aust. Explosives & Chemicals Factory - a dynamite factory in 'Deer Park' commenced in 1876
• The animal by-product industries had developed along the Maribyrnong River which was used as a drain, and the offensive air pollution gave Footscray & Braybrook an unsavoury reputation
• The new railroad-based industries tended to be metal trades and were much more acceptable to live near
• Early community was dominated by 'railway families', employees of the Railroad Dept.
• Melbourne was amid a property boom with speculators using borrowed money to buy land, sub-dividing & promoting new estates, in the west, this was mainly Footscray, but extended to Sunshine after its railroad station 'Braybrook Junction' opened in 1886 which was the junction for trains to Bendigo and the newly opened Ballarat line (opened in 1884).
  • The 1st estate in "Braybrook South" of 48 allotments was just east of Braybrook Junction bounded by Dickson St, Martin St, Railroad Pde & Durham Rd and promoted in 1886 as the "Greatest Junction in Victoria" with trains every hour, destined to become the 'principal manufacturing centre of Australia', 'the Manchester of Australia', forecasting 10,000 men would be employed here within 12 months. Purchasers required a £5 deposit.
  • The 'Braybrook Station Estate' to the south-west of Braybrook Junction, bounded by Anderson St & Railway Rd and included the streets of Morris St, Benjamin St, Chapman St & Couche St, all of which crossed Hampshire Rd
  • Most new houses were weatherboard, some very small (20' wide) and although most allotments were 40'x120', some builders put 2 houses on one allotment, while rows of single-fronted brick houses were built in Benjamin St by 1891.
  • The streets were still unformed, unmetalled and many uncleared of boulders & impassable by drays, there was still not a night-soil collection service and no basic amenities such as a post office, and poor water supply
  • Suburb of St Albans was architecturally designed with intention of luring professional people there as it had a healthy climate, but the crash of the 90's ended that hope.
• New industries commenced:
  • Braybrook Implementation Company on Devonshire Rd
  • The Mellor Bros of Sth Aust. made farm machinery and bought 63 acres of land in 1888, started an office in 1889 and would become the nucleus of H.V.McKay's Sunshine Harvester Works
  • Wright & Edwards carriage works chaired by Sir Benjamin Benjamin (the land is now a park - 'Parson's Reserve')
  • Huge quarries in 'Albion' which exported crushed rock overseas:
    • Albion Quarries owned by Sir Matthew Davies
    • Parson's Quarry owned by Rev Joseph Hay, on a site formerly known as McDonald's farm
• Early 1890's:
  • The new community fought for basic amenities:
    • 1890:
      • Water supply from Yan Yean completed, but was not connected to houses or even some industrial factories yet
      • Post Office
      • Nearest doctor was in Footscray, nearest hospital in Melbourne central.
      • Wesleyan Sunday services & Sunday School
      • Public health inquiries into contamination in Braybrook dairies
    • 1891:
      • Epidemic of typhoid signalled the unsanitory conditions
      • Finally get their 1st State School "Braybrook Junction", school number '3113', which opened on the former private school building with its 1st head teacher being Thomas Flynn, his son John, who completed his secondary school training at University High, a private school in Carlton, and then Uni. of Melbourne, was to develop the world's 1st aerial medical service.
  • New estates:
    • "Post Office" estate bounded by Anderson St, Derby Rd, Hampshire Rd, Norman St
  • Industry:
    • by 1891:
      • Nearly 1000 men were working in factories & quarries in the area, most travelled by train, but some 50 tradesmen lived at the Junction with their families
      • Phoenix Fireworks Company, just north of Ballarat Road
      • Several companies brought land but did not develop for some years:
        • Danks & Barnes - smelting & ore treatment (1894)
        • Edmund Parsons horsehair factory near Kororoit Ck (1900)
      • Three main shops at Braybrook Junction - Caflisch's general store; Armstrong's grocery; Aminde's butcher's shop;
      • Derham's Braybrook Hotel
    • By end of 1891, leading companies collapsed (eg. Albion Quarries; Wright & Edwards) & hundreds of men lost their jobs

The 'Bad Times':

• The depression years of 1892-1900 which followed the collapse of many companies, even banks, after the 1880's boom years resulted in unemployment with many people leaving Braybrook Junction, never to return.

• 1892:

  • During 1892, 6 in every 7 people living in Braybrook Junction found they could not pay their rates & the shire council's income dropped accordingly.
  • As the council regarded the housing estates as "private" it would not pay for street lamps, whilst quicklime was sprinkled on pools of sewage lying in streets twice a week
  • Locals gained some sustenance from mushroom-hunting and eel fishing in Kororoit Ck
  • New State School building at Braybrook Junction
• While the Braybrook Implementation Company had thrived building its stump-jump ploughs in a virtual monopoly while many other companies had to close in the early 1890's, a severe drought that ended the century left the company struggling, affected by difficulties of farmers, and was destined to close in 1904 after stiff competition from imports as well as Australian manufacturers.
• Footscray connected to Sunshine by road by the opening of Napier St in 1895.

The Federation years - new life:

• Braybrook Junction was a small township of 51 dwellings, population 250,when the new nation - the Commonwealth of Australia - was born in 1901.
• H.V.McKay:
  • With the demise of the Braybrook Implementation Company in 1904, H.V.McKay, who came from a farm in Drummartin, was an already famous & successful manufacturer of his 'Sunshine Harvester' from his Ballarat factory purchased the Plant and Works of the Braybrook Implementation Company and 4 acres of land for £3651 sterling with option to buy remaining 16 acres at £15 per acre.
  • The plant was renamed "Sunshine Harvester Works", and he gradually moved his Ballarat works there and the move was almost complete by 1907, most of its employees came by train particularly from Nth Melbourne & Footscray.
  • Braybrook Junction quietly changed in name to 'Sunshine' after his harvester in 1907
  • In 1906, H.V.McKay decided to branch out into the land selling business:
    • Purchased 276 acres from Charles Holdfeldt Houen, a grazier, who had brought the land in 1901, which stretched from Ballarat Rd to the Kororoit Ck, and just beyond the Bacchus Marsh railway line - what is now regarded as 'Albion'
      • A 25 acre paddock he owned opposite his factory was pegged out as 76 large allotments to form the "Sunshine Estate" which were put up for sale in 1907:
        • The 1st houses were his own house "The Gables" and his brother's house next door "Kia Ora" in Talmage St
          • This was destroyed by fire in 1950's?
        • His employee, George Bult among the 1st to build in King Edward Avenue
        • In 1909, he built a row of concrete houses on the south side of Ridley St to rent out to employees, and also commissioned the establishment of gardens & tennis court as well as donating land for a Presbyterian Church adjacent to it.
        • Many of the families settling now had come from Ballarat
        • Many of the new houses were built in 'Federation-style' although using weatherboard and corrugated iron roofs rather than bricks & tiles
        • By 1916, houses cost £340-400 to build and including bathrooms, scullery & pantry next to kitchen, 2 bedrooms and a living room, whilst the toilets were outside.
    • Purchased lots in some of the older subdivisions, which allowed:
      • Development of Hampshire Rd east side as the main commercial centre of Sunshine, so by 1908, the Bank of NSW had opened, the Post Office moved
  • In 1911, a 13 weeks strike by workers disrupts activity and showed there was a shortage of skilled labour, providing an impetus for H.V.McKay to push for:
    • Establishment of a technical college for which he donated the land, and opened in 1913
    • Apprenticeship schemes
    • Immigration of Scottish skilled labourers (hence the formation in 1912 of the Sunshine Scottish Society)
  • During WWI, the factory had Commonwealth contracts to make ammunition shells
  
  April 1908 Sunshine train crash kills 44 and injures 431 when a Bendigo train crashed into a Ballarat train.

After the war, the roaring Twenties:

• The end of WWI saw the return of soldiers to Australian soil and the formation of local RSL and plans for War Service Homes on land south of Ballarat Rd & north of the original McKay Sunshine Estate and by early 1920's virtually gave Sunshine a new suburb, 'Albion'.
• Influenza epidemic of 1918-20 resulted in Sunshine Tech. School being converted into a temporary hospital with 32 beds, and to complicate matters, on 4th March 1919, severe flooding of the Kororoit Ck further disrupted the community.
• By 1921, Braybrook Shire had 4,431 residents, doubling since 1911, but Sunshine's population had grown to 5000 by 1925 compared with 250 in 1901
• 1922: H.V.McKay reaches the top of Victoria's social scale and buys "Rupertswood", the historic Clarke mansion in Sunbury, together with 8000 adjoining acres.
• H.V.McKay dies in 1926 from cancer, once Victoria's richest man & the man who made Sunshine.
• New industries:
  • Aust. Reinforced Concrete Engineering Company (ARC) established a factory at Albion in 1919
  • John Darling & Son built its flour mill at Albion, one of the largest & most modern in Australia in 1922
  • Bluestone quarries were again being worked including the Albion Quarries 1st started 30yrs before
  • Nettlefolds
  • Spaldings sporting goods manufacture in 1925
  • Drayton Bros pottery firm became Sunshine Porcelain Potteries in 1922
• New facilities:
  • Moving pictures at Shire Hall from 1918
  • Baptist Church, Sydney St opened 1919
  • Roman Catholic School opened 1919
  • municipal offices opened 1922
  • King Edward Ave hospital started by the Carruthers in 1922 & later known as St Andrews
  • Baby health centre 1925
  • Sunshine Golf Club 1925
  • Selwyn Park land sold to council by HV McKay for £1000 in 1924
  • Albion State School opened in 1926
  • MFB builds Hampshire Rd Fire Station in 1927
• New housing estates:
  • 'Garden City' style estates:
    • 'Leith' - south of the Sunshine State School (1924)
    • Hampshire Rd, south of Ballarat Rd (1924)
  • Extension of the Sunshine Estate westwards to Kororoit Ck to meet the Soldier's Estate to north and west of it
  • Sunshine Heights along Glengala Rd

The Depression years of the Thirties:

• The Depression years following the sharemarket crash of Oct 1929 hit Sunshine hard and those who had a job could count themselves lucky, the others joined queues looking for jobs each morning or for hand outs of food and blankets.
• The company  of H.V.McKay goes into partnership with Canadian firm Massey Harris in 1930
• In 1930, the State Electricity Commission showroom in Sunshine promoted indoor electric lighting, while electric irons, toasters, jugs and radiators gained acceptance in addition to gas heaters, although most relied on wood-fired slow combustion stoves for cooking (many still did into the 1970's
• Crime rates rose in 1930-31 and police mainly walked or used pushbikes, and occasionally, a horse.
• Ballarat Rd between Duke St & McIntyre Rd was widened by 30' to provide two-way traffic lanes with a plantation in the middle.
• Seventh of January 1931 saw a fierce hailstorm lashing the Albion area in particular, damaging houses and more than 50 windows at Darling's Mill.
• 1931, new Sunshine State School brick building opens and the old timber classrooms demolished to be replaced by the Sunshine Girls' Technical School.
• 1932, Chalmers Bootery goes into liquidation with stocks being brought by H.J. Wittner of Footscray, whose novel use of Xrays to see if shoes fitted your feet attracted customers.
• by 1932, at its lowest ebb, unemployment in Australia reached 30%, and in Sunshine, those seeking jobs started each day early to walk or cycle doing the rounds of the local factories looking for work and queuing at the factory gates in hope. By 1937, unemployment rates fell to almost pre-depression levels.
• of a population of about 9,500 in the Braybrook Shire, 435 were recorded as drawing sustenance from the Shire in 1932, falling to 196 in 1933, and none by 1940. Sustenance "susso" was introduced in 1930 to provide just enough food to enable the person to go and look for work. Payment was initially in bags of groceries and later as coupons redeemable at shops but were unsuccessful. Those who did relief work which was often demeaning (eg. stone works on roads, cleaning gutters, draining swamps) received 40 shillings a week, whilst those without work received only 29 shillings a week when base male working wage was nearly 4 pound per week, although female shop assistants may have earned only 11 shilling per week.
• single unemployed men and women, living at home, received no assistance.
• Many men came from the rural areas to Sunshine hoping to gain work at Massey Harris, but even though this company was able to put on many men in the hope of increased production, in 1935, just 3 days before Christmas, they were forced to put off 1,400 workers.
• Hawkers plied their wares, including the often welcome "Rawleigh Man" selling condiments, panaceas, potions & salves at affordable prices. American Rawleigh products had come to Australia in 1928. A similar product range was marketed by door-to-door salesmen of Watkins products.  
• Farms still existed in the inner Sunshine district such as Jenning's farm on corner of Anderson Rd & Forrest St, and Cameron's dairy on the corner of Gunnedah & Sydney Sts, grazing their cows on the north side of Ballarat Rd and drove them across four times daily.
• South Rd to Duke St was still open paddocks with only 1-2 houses, while Monash St was quite well developed with housing.
• ABC starts radio broadcasts throughout Australia in 1935
• MMTB's bus service was extended to Sunshine in opposition to the local bus service run by Trezise Bros. 1936
• Australia was in the grips of a serious polio epidemic in 1937 during which 10 children in Sunshine district contracted the disease.
• Despite sewer connections during the mid-1930's, rats had become a problem in 1937 with Council offering rewards for each rat tail caught, while drains and un-sewered lavatories were disinfected with Lysol and phenyle.
• R.V. Seymour moved his manchester and menswear store from 200 Hampshire Rd to cnr Sun Crescent & Hampshire Rd. 1936
• Trahair's Men's Store opened in 1937 on Hampshire Rd site formerly occupied by G. Penrose.
• From 1938, Sunshine was also served medically by the Footscray & District Outpatients' Clinic & Welfare Centre at Footscray, by 1939, most of the town had been connected to sewer
• Sunshine's sun turned dark red with smoke from the Black Friday bushfires that ravaged Victoria in 48degC heat on 13th Jan. 1939.
• the Melbourne Pig and Calf Market opened in McDonald Rd (Market Rd) in 1939.
• 1939, Shire Council fails in its last bid to get the Footscray tramway extended to Sunshine.

WWII:

• McKay Massey Harris factory was used for making radar equipment, parts for armoured vehicles and other military items including shell bodies.
• Council and resident groups push for a subway under the railway junction at Derby Rd / Monash St. 1940
• Drayton Refactories, manufacturer of spark plug insulators, opens in Market Rd becoming the first factory for "Tinytown" - South Sunshine after it was rezoned as light industrial instead of residential to accommodate it, and in the process, giving up 150 quarter acre residential blocks. 1940
• Sunshine took precautions for air raids with brown-outs (eg. neon lights turned off at night), installations of camouflage, anti-aircraft guns and search lights as it was at risk due to the railway junction, McKay factory and local ammunition factories. Indeed in 1943, genuine air raid alarms were raised and gunshots heard - presumably in response to Japanese aircraft.
• Rationing was introduced in 1941 to release goods & services to supply the armed forces
  • Government issued ration books of coupons which had to be surrendered when buying petrol, food & clothing.
  • Weekly ration per person: 1 lb sugar, 0.5lb butter, 2 lb meat, 0.1lb tea, zero cream; coffee rare; 
  • Many put their cars up in blocks (to save their tyres) for the duration of the war when petrol was rationed to only those that needed it for essential travel.
• Monsanto Chemicals moves to a 70 acre site on Somerville Rd, Brooklyn, impregnating everything in the region with a chemical smell, even the mail. 1941
• Population of Braybrook Shire (Sunshine) reaches 13,000. 1942
• Government introduces Austerity wear in 1942 - no frills clothing, while women wore head scarves instead of hats.
• Uniform income tax introduced in 1942 & Commonwealth War Loans were raised by public appeal to pay for Australia's war effort.
• Communities started fund raising activities with patriotic fervour.
• State Gov. over-rules local gov. to allow N. Smorgon & Sons to built a meat cannery at Brooklyn. 1943
• The 12 operator manual telephone exchange converted to automatic. 1944
• In 1945, Sunshine residents gave more money to Commonwealth War Loans than any other metropolitan municipality.
• 1946:
  • New factories open:
    • Rubbertex opens in a temporary building on cnr Albury St & Ballarat Rd. 
    • Alliance Printing Works opens at 107 Ballarat Rd.
  • Housing Commission build low quality pre-fabricated houses in Albion.
  • Fourteen bed Sunshine and District Community Hospital opens in King Edward Ave replacing St Andrew's Hospital.
  • Australia's massive immigration program commences bringing in 170,000 over 4 years, many of whom settled in Sunshine.
• Rationing of food & clothing continued until 1949, and until 1950 for petrol.
• Manpower shortage brings self-service shopping to Robinson's grocery.
• Doctors included Drs D. Wise, Hickey, K. Brennan, Waters, C.Byrne, G.P. Jeffree & J.H. Dorman.
• 1948:
  • Portable chest XRay van to screen for TB first brought to Sunshine.
• 1949:
  • RAAF base set up in Tottenham on the west side of Ashley St along with temporary pre-fab houses which remained for 30yrs.
  • Dyecraft opens its textile factory on Ballarat Rd.
  • Migrants, especially Ukrainians, caught trains to Albion and walked to Ardeer where land at 35 pounds a block, although relatively cheap then, was still a lot of money to save. They set up home in tents and fibro-cement shelters, building their houses piecemeal as time and money would allow. There was no electricity and kerosene was used for cooking, heating & lighting. For a while, there was only one community water tap to supply all these settlers. Women washed clothes in Kororoit Creek. Forrest St at 5.30am became thick with cyclists going to work.

The New Migration & Baby Boomer Years:

• Many of the displaced persons from WWII who migrated to Australia in the 1950's, settle in Sunshine, particularly in Sunshine Heights, Ardeer, Sunshine North, St Albans, Keilor East and Keilor
• Second generation families dominate the population of Sunshine
• Victorian Railways erect many pre-fabricated houses under the "Operation Snail" scheme, along with migrant workers from the UK.
• 1950
  • A series of strikes in 1947-50 left Melbourne without power, coal and transport including 9 weeks in 1950 when there was no public transport.
  • G.J. Coles chain store buys out J.W.McGrath's grocery & hardware store in Hampshire Rd.
  • lead factory opens in Forrest St
• 1951
  • Peerless Plaster opens in Cannon St off Wright St.
  • Sunshine Cavalcade, a souvenir booklet, was produced for the proclamation of the City of Sunshine, which at this time included over 100 factories and a population of 22,000, with the immigration would expand to over 70,000 by 1966.
  • East Sunshine State School opens.
  • Medway golf course opens.
• 1954:
  • Sunshine City Public Library opens
• Keilor which had remained primarily a pastoral region until the 1950's, is proclaimed a City in 1961 when its population had grown to 33,000 as the Overnewton Estate became sub-divided
• 1955 - H.V.McKay is bought out by Massey Ferguson

The Seventies and Eighties:

• Fad for demolishing houses and replacing with very ordinary looking brick double story residential "flats" begins the degradation of residential quality in the region
• Establishment of Big Sam's supermarket in St Albans and introduction of Friday night shopping impacts on local traders in Sunshine, who by early 1980's were in considerable trouble competing with the massive Highpoint shopping centre in Maribyrnong, which lead to redevelopment of Hampshire Rd shopping centre in attempt to lure local shoppers back.
• Competition with imported manufactured goods leads to closure of many local industries which had commenced in 1920's including Spaldings, Nettlefolds, Massey Ferguson (previously H.V.McKay), ARC, John Darling & Sons as well as the large govt ammunitions factories in Maribyrnong
• Reform of the State Education system results in amalgamation of High Schools with Technical Schools to form colleges, with resultant closure of Sunshine High School and redevelopment of Sunshine Technical College and closure of its Trades Building.
• Immigrants from the Vietnam War arrive in migrant hostels in Maribyrnong and later settle in Footscray & Sunshine in particular as the younger European generations move out of those areas into new suburbs on the fringes or to more affluent suburbs.
• Suburbs of Kealba and Keilor Downs commences in mid-1970's after the Green Gully municipal tip was filled in
• The more up-market suburb of Taylors Lakes commences 1981 with sub-division of Overnewton Estate lands which had been sold to the Walton family (a retailer which was bought out by Myer in mid-1970's), initially the land east of Sunshine Avenue was subdivided and then in late 1980's, the land to the west of Sunshine Avenue was subdivided

The Nineties:

• Reconstruction of industrial zones:
  • The old Massey Ferguson/HVMcKay site converted into Sunshine shopping plaza with cinema complex
  • The old Spaldings site redeveloped as Bunnings Warehouse
  • The old Nettlefolds site redeveloped as Coles Myers' Good Buy Store then taken over as Harvey Norman
  • The old Sunshine High School site redeveloped as retail stores and Victorian TAFE facility
• Development of a major hospital - the Sunshine Hospital on Furlong Rd in St Albans, initially as a paediatric and maternity hospital with geriatric facilities, being part of the North-Western Health Service, resulting in closure of the very much smaller King Edward Avenue Hospital.
• Opening of the Western Ring Road has dramatic impact on traffic flows throughout western suburbs
• Vic Local Govt Boundary Restructuring results in City of Brimbank being formed in 1994, covering 123 sq. km and a population of 150,000.
• Residential subdivisions spread further to west and north-west with new suburbs of:
  • Keilor Lodge (north of Keilor-Melton Rd)
  • Sydenham and adjacent Hillside
  • Caroline Springs
• Old factory sites to east of Maribyrnong near Medway golf club redeveloped as housing estate
• Major retail centre developed at Watergardens, Sydenham

The New Millenium:

• Sunshine Hospital expands to include adult services as well as mental health services
• Electrification of railways finally makes it to Sydenham where it is named Watergardens Station after the adjacent shopping centre.
• By 2020 the line is now electrified to Sunbury
• Plans are in place to add a line to Tullamarine International Airport.
• Ammunition factory site along west bank of Maribyrnong River near Highpoint subdivided into housing estate

• The ETA factory in Braybrook remains a shell awaiting demolition. [see above picture from the 1960s]
• Massive redevelopment of Sunshine Hospital to relocate acute services that currently exist at Western Hospital in Footscray. Including a multi-storey carpark and a campus of Victoria University.

References:

• Harvester Town, Olwen Ford, S&DHS 2001
• When the whistle blows, Prue McGoldrick, Gippsland Printers, 1984
• ¶Gary Anton's photo site
• State Library of Victoria
  [ETA Factory]
  [Aerial view of Sunshine]
  [John Lysaght Factory, Sunshine, Vic image copyright Wolfgang Seivers.]
  [ Sunshine rail accident 1908]