VICPlanned settlement
Broadmeadows
From village paddocks to an army camp and a planned new town.
1850Government township surveyed
WHAT STARTED IT
Open, lightly wooded country between the Merri and Moonee Ponds creeks drew pastoralists in the 1840s, and a government village named Broadmeadows was laid out on Moonee Ponds Creek in 1850. When the railway passed two kilometres to the east in 1872, growth drifted toward the line, where today’s Broadmeadows stands.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
For decades the district stayed one of dairy farms and unbuilt subdivisions, and its open paddocks became the army’s mobilisation camp in 1914. From 1951 the Housing Commission built nearly 8000 houses here, Melbourne’s largest public estate, and the Ford factory opened nearby in 1959.
TURNING POINTS
1850A government township named Broadmeadows is laid out in the Moonee Ponds Creek valley, now Westmeadows.
1872The railway to Seymour opens with a station about two kilometres east of the village.
1914Tents go up on 13 August for the Broadmeadows mobilisation camp of the expeditionary force.
1951The Housing Commission announces a 2270-hectare housing estate at Broadmeadows.
1959Ford’s car factory opens on former Housing Commission land.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A suburb and civic centre in the City of Hume, with a large shopping centre, a railway station and a community in which most families have parents born overseas. The original village, now Westmeadows, keeps its early church and hotel.