Presentation by local resident Stephen Hatcher to the Future of Melbourne committee meeting, 14th October 2014 at the Melbourne City Council regarding a development application lodged by the Eighth Day Baptist Community parish church in North & West Melbourne for 4 multi story apartment blocks proposed to be erected by the pastor on land given to the Baptist church for FREE by the Land Titles Office of Victoria back in 1866. History researched and gathered by the reader from the Public Records Office of Victoria, TROVE and the North Melbourne Library. In 1864 some parishioners got together and wrote a letter to the Land Titles Office of Victoria asking for a land grant in the name of the Baptists. They weren’t church officials and they didn’t have the authority (as the head of the Baptist denomination has) to act on behalf of the Baptist denomination as a whole. They knew that land grants to individual people had long since ceased, so the only other way for them to get a FREE piece of land was to apply for it in the name of a church. The Land Titles Office of Victoria back in the early days did have Government permission to make FREE grants of land to a head of a religious body/denomination for places of worship. The churches being built around the early days of Melbourne helped morally guide the exploding population of Melbourne and maintain moral order. The Victorian Gold Rush had started in 1851, some 13 years earlier and the Australian population had tripled during that time frame. Forty seven per cent – almost half of Australia’s population at that time were residing in Victoria, mostly because of the gold rush and Melbourne had become on of the great cities of the British Empire, being the largest city in the world at that time. The sudden explosion of great wealth and population is what resulted in the building boom in the Victorian timeframe and is why Melbourne today has the best example in the world of Victorian period architecture. The importance of our history is acknowledged and protected by the Heritage Overlays in the Melbourne Planning Scheme. For decades the heritage streetscapes have been protected because it is an important part of what gives Melbourne it’s definitive character. So the Land Titles office of Victoria in the 1860’s managed all the gold claims, mining licences and land sales. It would have been a very busy place. History also records it was a time of shonky behaviour in attempted land grabs, claim jumps and land disputes and a Royal Commission into the dealings within the Land Titles office of Victoria at that time. So it’s easy to see why applications for a church land weren’t scrutinised too closely, the Land Titles office was simply just too busy, and land grants for places of worship were low risk because Crown Grants were awarded subject to very specific restricted conditions of use: Use it as a place of worship and a place of worship ONLY, or hand the land back to the Government. This piece of land here on the corner of King, Hawke & Curzon Streets in North & West Melbourne that was adjacent to the Benevolent Asylum was always indented for community use. What the community needs now is child care, schools and more open green space. Councillors, please vote against the Eighth Day Baptist Community apartment development. http://www.nwmelbourne.com/ https://www.facebook.com/NorthWestMelbourneVoice http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/28365037?q=+&versionId;=34370622 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5779230 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/8841376?searchTerm=&searchLimits;=l-publictag=Baptist http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5768259

• published: 14 Nov 2014
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