Melbourne Town Hall

Melbourne was officially incorporated as a town on 13 December 1842, with Henry Condell as its first Mayor. However, it was not until 1854 that its first Town Hall was completed. Begun in 1851, the work ground to a halt with the beginning of the Victorian gold rush. The foundation stone of a new, grander Town Hall was laid on 29 November 1867 by the visiting Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, after the demolition of the first.^[5][6] The current town hall officially opened on 11 August 1870 with a lavish ball, which was personally funded by the Lord Mayor Samuel Amess.^[7][8][9]

The foundation stone of the additional front portico was laid in 1887, and Sir Henry Weedon laid the foundation of the administrative annex building on 27 August 1908.^[10]

An early cinema event Soldiers of the Cross premiered at the Melbourne Town Hall on 13 September 1900 to an audience of about four thousand people.^[11]

In 1913, the city hired a hall keeper in his 30s named James "Jimmy" Dewar, a Scottish immigrant and Black Watch veteran from Dundee. He continued to work there loyally for 30 years.^[12] James lived with his wife and family in the Hall's penthouse, raising their children there, and retired in 1943. During their upbringing in the Town Hall, their only playing space was a small asphalt yard where the children went "pigeon-nesting" on the roof.^[13]

In his obituary in 1946, The Argus reported that James was a familiar face at the Hall in this era. In his duties, he greeted various visitors from locals to royals, including the French General Paul Pau, the Princes of Wales Edward VIII, and Prince Henry, the Duke of Gloucester. James was described as a "friend, guide, and philosopher" to many Lord Mayors of Melbourne.^[14] When opera singer Dame Nellie Melba performed at the Hall in 1928, she wanted to give an encore, but her piano had been packed up and there was no music. James lent her his piano from his upstairs penthouse so she could perform.^[15]

On 1 February 1925, a fire destroyed a large part of the town hall, including the main auditorium and pipe organ valued then at £15,000.^[16] It was rebuilt and enlarged, extending east over the site previously occupied by the Victoria Coffee Palace, an early temperance hotel frequented by Melbourne's power brokers. The rebuilt section lost some of Reed's original flourishes including the elaborate mansard roof.

In 1964, The Beatles attended a civic reception at the Melbourne Town Hall. "Outside 20,000 teenagers had gathered to obtain a glimpse of the pop idols. Again, frenzied and hysterical cheering and uncontrollable screaming erupted when the Beatles emerged."^[17]

The Town Hall was designed by the famous local architect Joseph Reed and Barnes, in the Second Empire style. Reed's designs also included the State Library of Victoria, the Royal Exhibition Building, and Melbourne Trades Hall.

The building is topped by Prince Alfred's Tower, named after the Duke. The tower includes a 2.44 m diameter clock, which was started on 31 August 1874, after being presented to the council by the Mayor's son, Vallange Condell. It was built by Smith and Sons of London. The longest of its copper hands measures 1.19 m long, and weighs 8.85 kg.

The building and the portico, excluding the interiors, were first classified on the basis of its Venetian Renaissance facade architecture by the National Trust in 1964 and reclassified in 1971.^[18] The organ and the 1927 murals by Napier Waller^[19] commissioned for £1,700^[20] (a 2021 value of A$138,340.00)^[21] are also classified as historically significant at the State level. They were painted directly in line onto the newly installed asbestos Celotex acoustic tiles in a redecoration of the Auditorium after a fire in 1925.^[16] Waller, who had been given a free hand in devising the artworks explained that the figures were not intended to be allegorical, but to create rhythm, and that line-work was used because a skin of paint would interfere with the panels' sound-absorbing quality. The actual painting on the series of 7 metre high by 4m wide wall sections from Waller's half-scale cartoons produced in his Darebin studio was undertaken by H. Oliver and Sons under the artist's supervision.^[22]

The Main Auditorium includes a magnificent concert organ, now comprising 147 ranks and 9,568 pipes. The organ can be played by a fixed console located directly beneath the front pipes or by a secondary mobile console which is placed in close view of the audience for recitals. This organ is of great significance as it is the largest and most comprehensive pipe organ in Australia (measuring by number of voices/stops, the Sydney Opera House organ has more pipes thanks to its entirely "straight" design; there is no borrowing or duplexing at all whereas the Melbourne Town Hall organ makes extensive use of borrowing in the pedal division). The organ is best suited for romantic and symphonic works but is capable of playing just about anything thanks to its vast tonal resources.

The organ was originally built by Hill & son (of England) in 1872 before a fire destroyed it in 1925.^[16] A new organ constructed by Hill Norman & Beard was installed in 1929 and has since then been rebuilt and enlarged by Schantz Organ Company of the United States of America from 1995 to 2001 at a cost of $4.5 million.^[23] The rebuild included 2 new floating divisions (Fanfare & Bombarde), many new voices and a secondary moveable console

The stop list is as follows:

• List of Town Halls in Melbourne
• List of Mayors and Lord Mayors of Melbourne
• Architecture of Melbourne
• List of heritage-listed buildings in Melbourne
• Victorian architecture

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Melbourne Town Hall.

• Town Hall History on the City of Melbourne official website
• Town Hall in Melbourne
• Melbourne Town Hall Organ details
• Grand Organ Specifications (2001)