Fawkner 3060 Fawkner 3060

Fawkner is a residential area 12 km. north of Melbourne with the Hume Highway on its west and the Merri Creek on its east. To is south is Coburg.

The area was first known as Box Forest, after a farmlets subdivision sold by John Pascoe Fawkner in the early 1850s. The name was superseded by Fawkner fairly soon, although a Box Forest (Anglican) school was opened in 1846 and a Box Forest Road runs along the northern boundary of the Fawkner cemetery. (The original Box Forest subdivision is west of present-day Fawkner.)

When the area north of Coburg was entirely rural, a railway line was opened from Coburg to Somerton, where it joined the main line to Seymour, (1889). In anticipation of this the Coburg Reserve Estate Co. subdivided land for housing, citing the convenience of the North Coburg railway station and another near the present Fawkner station. The venture was unsuccessful.

In 1905 the State Government approved the New Melbourne General Cemetery for the northern suburbs, one year after the new eastern suburbs cemetery was opened at Springvale. The cemetery is immediately west of the railway line and the Fawkner station was opened in 1906. Although the station only received mortuary trains at first, a small amount of housing was encourage by its presence, and ordinary passenger trains began in 1914. In 1908 a primary school was opened.

By the outbreak of the second world war Fawkner had about 180 buildings, and shortly after the war the Housing Commission built 113 houses in south Fawkner. Private-sector developers built housing and by 1960 the Moomba Park estate (700 houses) in north Fawkner was begun. North Fawkner and Moomba Park primary schools were opened in 1957 and 1961. The high and technical schools were opened in 1957 and 1960.

Fawkner has three reserves with sporting facilities, the middle one having the swimming pool. The southern reserve is named after Charles Mutton, shire councillor (1924-54) and Labor State Parliamentarian who was the Member for Coburg. He was regarded as a Fawkner patriot. The main shopping centre is near the middle of Fawkner, near the Gowrie railway station. The railway station was opened in 1965, and is named after Gowrie Park, a grazing property named by its owner who came from Gowrie, England. The cemetery is on part of the property.

In north Fawkner the technical school has been closed and the special education unit on its campus has become the Great Prophet Islamic centre.

The median house price in Fawkner between 1987 and 1996 was about 85% of the median for metropolitan Melbourne.

Fawkner has had census populations of 307 (1911), 758 91933) and 911 (1947).

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