1920–1945: Electric City
It was an overcast day in February 1921. Returned war hero General Sir John Monash, now head of the State Electricity Commission, stood in a windswept Gippsland paddock with his pipe in one hand and a roll of drawings in the other.
He had come to witness a start to the construction of Victoria’s greatest industrial enterprise – the harnessing of brown coal to generate cheap and “clean” electric power for Melbourne.
If there was a single moment when Melbourne entered the electric age, this was it.
Key Dates
1920
Melbourne’s population: 763,000
1924
Melbourne’s first radio station starts transmission
1927
Federal Parliament moves from Melbourne to the new national capital Canberra
1929
Start of the Great Depression
1930
Phar Lap wins the Melbourne Cup
1932
Australian Aborigines’ League formed in Footscray to fight for Aboriginal rights
1934
Last major flood of the Yarra River
1934
Shrine of Remembrance opened
1935
Centenary of Melbourne celebrated
1938
Housing Commission of Victoria formed to create affordable public housing
1939
Black Friday bushfires across Victoria kill 71 people
1939
World War two begins, ends in 1945
1940
Last cable tram runs in Melbourne
1945
Melbourne’s population: 1,180,200