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Produced and published by the School of Historical & Philosophical Studies, The University of Melbourne
Published July 2008
Published July 2008
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(3012, 10 km W, Maribyrnong City)
An industrial district between Brooklyn, Kingsville/ Footscray West and Sunshine, Tottenham lies along the railway west of Tottenham station, south to Somerville Road and north along Ashley Street to South Road. The station (1891) took its name from the English working-class suburb north of London. Railway-marshalling and gravitation yards established in the area in the 1910s were further developed when the western goods line was constructed in the late 1920s. A single-platform station was built between Tottenham and Sunshine in 1927 to service White City, a tin-hare dog track. This sport was banned in 1929, and the platform stood unused until 1940, when White City joined Tottenham station in servicing war industries: government stores and a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) depot to the north, and Elders' and Australian Estates' wool stores and Olympic Cables (today Olex) to the south. Apart from railway and RAAF housing, residential development in this bare and flat area, known facetiously as 'Tottenham Jungle', has always been sparse. A primary school and a technical school ('Tottie Tech') once carried the name.