Playable City Brunswick: Local History Research (Studio 3 - Week 2)

As part of my research into Brunswick, I was also keen to learn about its history all the way back to times before settlement. So I decided to visit the Brunswick Library, and ask for special access to their local history section (which is usually not openly accessible to the public).

Here are some interesting tidbits from my readings of the books at the Brunswick Library:

• Brunswick was a chief manufacturing suburb, and well-known for its brickyards, potteries and textiles industries. It was the brickyard capital of Victoria.
• Five and a half million Brunswick bricks were used in the Shrine of Remembrance alone.
• Many of its streets were named after settlers, brickmakers and builders
• Brunswick was named after the wife of King George IV of England - Caroline Amelia Elizabeth of Brunswick Wolfenbuttel, Germany
• Sydney Road was the main route to the goldfields
• A special electrical department was established behind the Town Hall at the corner of Saxon and Dawson Streets
• The Retreat Hotel was actually used as halfway house for the stone quarrying industry
• Many Aboriginal sites that used to be in Brunswick have been destroyed or buried by landfill.
• Brunswick Baths used to have a diving tower that was taken down now for safety reasons.
• Influx of European migrants - Italians, Greeks, Lebanese, Turks and others during the 1950s.

Overall, there was a lot of emphasis on the industries and manufacturing in Brunswick, as that played a huge part in Brunswick's history. 

I found these library books especially useful in my research into Brunswick:

• Barnes, L 1987, It Happened in Brunswick 1837-1987, Brunswick Community History Group, Brunswick, Victoria.
• City of Brunswick & Penrose, H (ed.) 1994, Brunswick: One History, Many Voices, Victoria Press, South Melbourne, Victoria.
• Folk-Scolaro, F (ed.) 1999, Brunswick: Stories and Histories, Brunswick Community History Group, Brunswick, Victoria.
• Folk-Scolaro, F (ed.) 2013, The Street Names of Brunswick: The Story behind the Sign, Brunswick Community History Group, Brunswick, Victoria.