angry of east malvern

Starting a new project, or trying to, I am beginning by looking for new angles on the broader story of the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission by prodding around the edges. In this case the machinations and protestations of the East Malvern Ratepayers' Association in the early 1930s. Long story short, the state government passed a bill in the mid-1920s to extend the railway line from Darling to Glen Waverley, but the funding was to come in part from the local landholders, who would pay a tax/levy/whatever on their land under the assumption that their property would increase greatly in value with the new railway line. 

In the abstract it kind of makes sense, but of course by the time shit got real in the early 1930s, many people who were arguably land-rich had often become really cash-poor.* So there was major unhappiness about the situation and the people of East Malvern got really radicalised over it all. 

I was originally interested because of the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission's plan for the area (and at the moment, I still can't entirely see where the connection is between the plan and the funding strategy, but I am pretty sure there is one) but I'm also always really interested when ordinary 'decent' people get up in arms about something attacking their solid view of the world, so the EMRA's papers really grabbed me. Though for now, my main interest is the way people were a hundred years ago when their photo was being taken. It wasn't 'I'm part of the delegation to see Stanley Argyle, got to look serious and determined' it was 'gosh, I'm having my picture taken! What larks!' 

 

The good old days! Even if you were being screwed by the government for a railway you never wanted (but by the way which would ultimately make your property worth a lot more and indeed make your region a middle-class wonderland) still everyone you knew was white and protestant (presumably) and you all wore hats. 

*Probably there were also a lot of people who would have resisted the whole idea even if it hadn't been the Great Depression, but who knows.