Eastern Market, Melbourne

The Eastern Market, also known as 'Paddys Market', was one of the three markets established in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia in the 1840s. It operated from 1847 until the demolition of its buildings and sale of its site in 1960.

In 1841 the New South Wales government (which administrated the colony of Victoria) called for the election of 'Commissioners' for a future market in Melbourne. In 1846 three sites were gazetted for this purpose:

The two smaller markets can be seen in Frederick Proeschel's 1853 'Mercantile' map of Melbourne with the annotation showing the Eastern Market had sections for hay, straw and fruit and housed a gaol on its south-eastern corner (presumably the 'old female gaol, situated within the market area' referred to during redevelopment in 1859).

In a discussion at the Melbourne Town Council it was stated that 'between 1 September 1848 and 31 August 1849' income and expenses for the three markets were:

Despite the Western Market appearing to be the least profitable of the three, at a Council meeting the following month, Alderman Johnston argued 'the Eastern Market was a losing concern and...would most assuredly fall'. While this didn't eventuate supporters of the two general markets ensured there was lively debate about the future of both into the 1850s.

In 1871 a writer for The Australasian recalled the early years of the market in less than flattering terms:

""It was originally a dreary waste with an ugly looking gaol shrinking away in the farthest corner of it, as if ashamed both of its purpose and of its appearance. Then hawkers, miscellaneous dealers, and houseless new arrivals pitched their tents upon it, and spread their motley merchandise along the edge of the footpath to allure the attention of passers-by. One summer morning as I turned out of Spring-street into Bourke-street I saw a whiff of flame spring from one of the tents and flash from end to end with inconceivable rapidity. It is no exaggeration to say that by the time I reached Stephen-street the encampment was a heap of ruins, and the owners of the tents were surveying their blackened ite with such a look of incredulity and amazement that there was quite as much of the ludicrous as of the pathetic in the incident. After this, I think, no more tents were suffered to be erected; but hay and corn factors set up their sentry-boxes on the scene of the fire; and then stall keepers were permitted to utilise the vacant ground; and there might be found the strangest assortment of damaged provisions to be met with outside of the New Cut, the Whitechapel-road or the High-street, Shoreditch. There were cheeses strong enough to waft their odour to Carlton, dried fruits that had been honeycombed by insects, salt fish of perdurable toughness, tins of jam and bottles of pickles with the shabbiest of anonymous labels, sides of bacon of wonderful antiquity, and a conglomerate of so-called dates which appeared to have been cemented together with paste blacking. Who bought those things? And, oh! by whom were they consumed? Sometimes I fancy that the vendors, finding no market for such unconsidered trifles, were driven to consume them themselves, and so perished miserably."

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Wikipedia