1874 Spencer Street looking south from Collins StreetA photo from early 1874 looking south along Spencer Street from Collins Street. On the left of the photo we see the large store and factory of Brunton and Gillespie, and behind that is the original Sir Charles Hotham Hotel located on the corner of Flinders Street. In the centre of the photo we can see activity along the wharves of the Yarra. Many years later Spencer Street would have a bridge to join up with Clarendon Street, which in the photo lines

Before Grimes' report (which identified sources of fresh water) had been tabled

so the photograph has to be after that date

when he entered an immense bay

formerly R

then MYER's

with a cable car

Alexander 19

Artwork attributed to Robert Russell

the Old Law Courts

Further up the road past Flinders Lane is the towering Australian Building

He chose khaki uniforms instead of the more British scarlet and blue jackets

By the 1850s the Yarra had become quite polluted and was the cause of an epidemic of typhoid fever