Scoresby 3179 Scoresby 3179

Scoresby is a suburb 25 km. south-east of Melbourne, urbanised on its eastern half and open country on its western half, adjoining the Dandenong Creek.

In 1857 Scoresby and the surrounding country was surveyed and named the Parish of Scoresby. It is thought that the name was given in honour of William Scoresby, Arctic explorer and an authority on terrestrial magnatism. He visited Victoira in 1856 and carried ouyt experiments on terrestrial magnetism in or near Scoresby.

When allotments in the surveyed area were sold in 1857 Scoresby vecame known as a place as well as being a Parish. A Scoresby township emerged in the 1870s around the intersection of Ferntree Gully and Stud Roads. A school was built in 1872, followed byu a Methodist church. Scoresby's commercial links were through Oakleigh anbd Ferntree Gully, which delayed the opening of shops in its district. Much further afield, in Ferny Creek, there was a "Scoresby"village settlement, unconnected with the present Scoresby locality.

Much of Scoresby was swampy because the creeks running down to it from the Dandenong Ranges did not have unimpeded outfalls - the Dandenong Creek ended at the Carrum Swamp. The land, however, produced useful pasture and later drainage works made the alluvium available for market gardens.

After the fist world war George Knox settled in Scoresby as an orchardist. He became the local member of Parliament, was knighted and the City of Knox (in which Scoresby is istuated), was named after him. By the 1930s the township had a hall, store and a motor garage. In the post war years Scoresby concentrated on market gardening - the (Brussel) Sprout Growers Association was prominent. In 1959 the first subdivision of a market garden for residential blocks occurred. Few market gardens remained by the 1990s.

A local firm, Carribean Boats, developed a lake for testing its boats, It has became Carribean Gardens, the site of several recreational facilities and an active weekend market. Land nearby has been used for industrial buildings, and a reservation for a north-south freeway passes over it. Some of the land between the reservation and the Dandenong Creek is reserved for parkland.

Urban Scoresby has its shopping centre at the intersection where it began. There are several neighbourhood reserves, a primary school, a high school and a Catholic seminary with asscoiated facilities. Public transport is limited to buses: neither a proposed Oakleigh to Ferntree Gully tram of the 1880s nor a Huntingdale to Ferntree Gully train of the 1980s has eventuated.

Scoresby's census populations have been 221 (1911) and 333 (1947).

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