Rural Camps and Rural Settlements

The Carrum Downs Settlement

The questions of unemployment, slum housing and other serious social problems in Victoria were of particular concern during the Great Depressions of the 1890s and 1930s. Among the solutions favoured by the church and other groups, often with government support, were schemes for moving poor families from the inner suburbs to country areas accessible by public transport where it was thought that the healthier environment and lifestyle might lead to rehabilitation and a cure for this social malaise. Carrum Downs was one of the places chosen for the establishment of such a welfare housing scheme during the 1930s depression.

18 Tucker settlement chapel, Carrum Downs, 1997.

This settlement was particularly notable among social experiments in Victoria during recent times. At a time when the Carrum Downs area was still regarded as a remote and isolated country place with Frankston the nearest town of any size, the Brotherhood of St. Laurence in 1935 decided to establish a settlement there for the unemployed from Melbourne's inner suburbs.

20 Frankston township c.1886 [Jones, p.23 cites 'Illustrated Australian News' 12/12/1886]

George Coles, the major business figure of G.J. Coles, gave a grant of 500 pounds towards the purchase of a farmhouse and 45 acres of Carrum Downs land.1 According to one account, "To the nature lover the place had a charming rustic atmosphere, with its weatherboard farmhouse and the clumps of gum trees".2 Because of the practical problems encountered, however, it was known as "Tucker's Folly" after the Rev. Gerard Kennedy Tucker, the founder of the religious order.3 Another 50 acres with a farmhouse was rented. Gradually more cottages were built, often of second-hand timber with iron roofs.

19 Figures which illustrate clearly the suburbanization of a once semi-rural bay-side town.

They usually consisted of two bedrooms, a living room, fire stove, bath and tiny verandah, and could cost as little as 100 pounds.4 Many school children from the Frankston region and Melbourne came to the settlement for work camps to help construct the small cottages.5

The design of the settlement was the work of Saxil Tuxen, engineer, surveyor and town planner. His original plan survives showing The Avenue (now Tuxen Avenue) extending east from Dandenong Road. The complex contains houses built over a number of decades, comprising architectural styles from each era. These include the 1940s fibrous cement sheet bungalows, the single unit Besser Brick Cottages of the 1950s and the brick veneers of the 1960s. There is also a chapel and an Op Shop.6