Few of the hundred and twenty thousand people who live in the City of Waverley know much of its history; for Waverley is a young City, inhabited largely by newcomers, in new houses most of which have been built since 1939. But the Rural Shire of Mulgrave from which the City was formed, was one of the earliest parts of Victoria to be settled by roving cattlemen seeking new pastures and it has always played an important part in the rural, and later suburban development of Melbourne. This history is an attempt to identify the roots of Waverley’s past and tell the story of its remarkable development. The first settlers came to the district trailing their herds of cattle in 1839, but its early pastoral period lasted only until 1851, when the flood of gold immigrants into Victoria pressured the Colony’s administrators into selling ‘country blocks’ of land, in the hope that they would become farms. From the 1850s to the 1880s Mulgrave’s small farmers struggled to fulfil that hope, selling hay, butter, eggs and cream in the Melbourne markets as well as firewood and fencing timber. A handful of them engaged in the riskier business of growing small fruits and vegetables, but it was not until 1885 that government bonuses encouraged them to plant orchards of apples, pears and stone fruits. From then until the Second World War the northern section of Mulgrave played an important part in the growth of Victoria’s fresh fruit industry, while during Melbourne’s expansion after the First Wold War its southern section became part of the city’s vital vegetable growing belt. An electrified railway line was opened in 1930 linking Glen Waverley with Melbourne, but major suburban growth was fortunately delayed until the 1950s, when the master plan for the growth of Melbourne was being shaped. As a result Waverley now enjoys a distinctive air of planned suburbia, despite its astonishingly rapid transition from rural Shire to suburban City.

Contains references to the following places:
Black Flat, Boroondara, Burwood, Camberwell, Clayton, Damper Creek, Dandenong, Dandenong Creek, Doncaster, East Malvern, Ferntree Gully, Gardiner Road Board / Shire, Glen Waverley, Harkaway, Hartwell, Heidelberg, Hughesdale, Jordanville, Lake Leaghur, Moonee Ponds, Moorabbin, Mordialloc, Mount Waverley, Mulgrave, Murrumbeena, Narre Warren, Norwood / Thorncombe, Notting Hill, Nunawading, Oakleigh, Pentridge, Port Phillip Bay, Prahran, Richmond, Scoresby, Scotchmans Creek, Scotchmans Creek Run, Springvale, Stringy Bark Ranges, Syndal, Talbot Colony for Epileptics, Tally-Ho, Waverley City, Wellington village, Yarra River.

Index available at: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~whsvic/publications/CatcomIndex.pdf