Frankston ( ) is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Located south-east of the Melbourne central business district, it is in the local government area of the City of Frankston and serves as its administrative and activity centres.
Positioned on the eastern shoreline of Port Phillip, Frankston became a popular seaside destination of Melbourne in the 1880s. Its beach continues to be one of the most frequented in Victoria, and is recognised as one of the cleanest in Australia. Due to its proximity to the north of the eponymous wine and tourism region, the suburb is also referred to as the "gateway to the Mornington Peninsula".Frankston Waterfront and Boardwalk. Visit Melbourne. Retrieved 21 April 2024
The traditional custodians of the lands on which Frankston is situated are the Boonwurrung people of the Kulin nation, to which it was an important source of fish and meeting place of the Mayone-bulluk clan for around 40,000 years. Colonisation of the area by Europeans began at approximately the same time as the foundation of Melbourne in 1835 and started as an informal fishing outpost supplying the growing settlement. It was formally established in 1854, when official land sales for a new village first took place on 29 May, and has subsequently given its name to its broader local government area since 1893.
Neighbourhood areas within the suburb are Frankston Central,Frankston Central. Frankston City community profile. Informed Decisions. Retrieved 21 April 2024 Frankston East, Frankston Heights,Frankston Heights. Frankston City community profile. Informed Decisions. Retrieved 21 April 2024 Karingal,Karingal. Frankston City community profile. Informed Decisions. Retrieved 21 April 2024 Long Island, Mount Erin and Olivers Hill. At the 2021 census, Frankston had a population of . Its demonym is Frankstonian.Te Koha, Nui (30 August 2009). "Frankghanistan title news to honoured Mal". Herald Sun. Retrieved 13 October 2009
Toponymy
The toponymic origins of Frankston are subject to conjecture, and of which there are four popular theories. One of the earliest of these theories (published in the Victorian Historical Magazine in March 1916) is that it was named after one of its early European settlers, Frank Liardet, who also became one of its first official land owners. The Liardets were prominent pioneers of early Melbourne and arrived aboard the William Metcalfe from England in 1839. Liardet's father, Wilbraham, founded what is now the Melbourne inner suburb of Port Melbourne and the family established and managed hotels around Melbourne as well as the first mail service of the early township.
Frank Liardet settled in the Frankston area in 1847,Ballam Park. Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure. government of Victoria. Retrieved 14 September 2015 after taking out a 300-acre depasturing license for land that is now the Frankston locality of Karingal.Staff Writer (17 November 1843). "Government Gazette". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 4. Retrieved 30 September 2015 During this time, Liardet built the first wooden house in the Frankston area—which would later become part of his Ballam Park estate after the formal land sales of 1854. Prior to settling in the area, Liardet had also worked on the cattle run of the first Postmaster of the Port Phillip District, Captain Benjamin Baxter, which was located over what are now the City of Frankston suburbs of Langwarrin and Langwarrin South.Staff Writer (4 June 1985). "A Chapter of Baxter's History ". Hastings Sun. Westernport Publishing Company. pp. 8–9. (republished by the Baxter Residents and Traders Progress Action Committee). Retrieved 14 September 2015 By the time Liardet had taken out his depasturing license for the Frankston area in 1847 an unofficial fishing village was also developing around its foreshore.
Considering Frank Liardet's early presence in the Frankston area, and his connections to the early mail services of Melbourne, it is plausible that "Frank's Town" became nomenclature for describing the area and its unofficial village. As a consequence it is possible that the name of "Frankston" was further adapted from it when officially naming the village for its formal land sales in 1854.
However, in a letter to the editor of The Argus newspaper (published on 30 May 1916) a member of the Liardet family said that this was in fact not true.Liardet, C. Evelyn (30 May 1916). "Naming of Frankston". The Argus (1846–1957). p. 9. Retrieved 29 January 2014 In the letter was excerpts of correspondence between the Liardet family and the Victorian state Department of Lands and Survey which refuted the theory. Instead, it puts forward the theory that Frankston was named after the Irish-born settler Charles Franks; who was the first European to be killed by Indigenous Australians in Melbourne.
Charles Franks arrived in Melbourne aboard the Champion from Van Diemen's Land in 1836 and made a squatter's claim to land on the western side of Port Phillip near Mount Cottrel (northeast of what is now the Melbourne outer-western suburb of Wyndham Vale). Franks' land neighboured that of the early Melbourne explorer and surveyor John Helder Wedge, which was managed by his nephew Charles Wedge—prior to him gaining a pre-emptive right to land license of his own for the Frankston area. The correspondence with the Department of Lands and Survey states that, at the time of surveying the area for the land sales of 1854, the name "Frankston" was probably suggested to honour the Wedge's deceased former neighbour.
Another theory—that has become folklore—is that Frankston was named after a pub named "Frank Stone's Hotel".Charlwood, Don (8 February 1930). "Early History of Frankston" (first article in a series). The Frankston & Somerville Standard. p. 6. Retrieved 29 January 2014 In 1929 the author Don Charlwood, a student of Frankston High School at the time, compiled a history of Frankston using both local records and oral sources supporting the theory (published in The Frankston & Somerville Standard newspaper on 8 February 1930).
The pub to which Charlwood refers was originally named the Cannanuke Inn and was the first permanent building in the Frankston area. It was built by the pre-emptive Frankston settler James Davey in the 1840s. The Victorian Heritage Database states that it was located on the present site of the Frankston Mechanics' Institute; at 1 Plowman Place in the Frankston Central Business District (CBD).Former Cannanuke Inn site. Victorian Heritage Database. Heritage Victoria. Department of Transport, Planning and Local Infrastructure. government of Victoria. Retrieved 28 September 2015 According to Charlwood, it was purchased by a "Mr. Stone" in the early-1850s who, after the birth of his son, "Frank", renamed it "Frank Stone's Hotel" and around which the village developed and also had its name adapted from for its formal land sales in 1854.
As there appear to be no licensing records for the Cannanuke Inn, it is difficult to determine if this is in fact true. However, Charlwood does mention that Stone had purchased the Cannanuke Inn from "a man named Standring". Licensing records state that Benjamin Standring was the owner of the Frankston Hotel from 1857 to 1860. Also, according to the terms of his pre-emptive right to land licence,Squatting Act (7 Wm. IV No. 4, 1836) (UK), and subsequent 1839 amendment, s. 9, by Orders in Council, permitting licenses beyond the Nineteen Counties.Waste Lands Occupation Act (9 & 10 Vic. c. 104, 1846) (UK), CIV, s. 1 providing for "leases exclusively for pastoral purposes". Davey did not have the right to sell or sub-let the Cannanuke Inn. It is therefore unlikely that Stone purchased or leased the Cannanuke Inn from Davey or Standring before the formal land sales for Frankston in 1854—and after which the name "Frankston" was already in use.Map of the Village of Frankston at Kananook Creek, Mount Eliza, Port Phillip Bay (1 May 1854). Office of the Surveyor General of Victoria. government of Victoria"Advertising – Victoria" (19 May 1854). The Argus (1846–1957). p. 5. Retrieved 29 September 2015Staff Writer (26 April 1854). "Domestic Intelligence". The Argus (1846–1957). p. 5. Retrieved 29 September 2015
A more recent theory, put forward by the author and historian Michael Jones in his local history book Frankston: Resort to City (published in 1989), is that Frankston was named after the heroic British army general Sir Thomas Harte Franks. The theory is strengthened by the fact that a number of places near Frankston also have names that are derived or adapted from those of British army generals and statesmen (such as Cranbourne, Hastings, Lyndhurst, Mornington and Pakenham). Jones states that the Surveyor General of Victoria from 1853 to 1858, Sir Andrew Clarke, named all of these places.
History Pre-history
Indigenous history
Prior to the foundation of Melbourne by Europeans in 1835, the area surrounding Port Phillip was originally populated by Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. Particularly, the Frankston area was inhabited primarily by the Mayone-bulluk clan from the Bunurong tribe of the Kulin nation.
The tribes of the Kulin nation were a nomadic people with no sedentary settlements. As a result, there is minimal physical evidence of their past. The Bunurong tribe in particular were mainly hunter-gatherers that maintained an ecologically sustainable tradition of travelling between areas of seasonally abundant resources. For the Mayone-bulluk clan; Kananook and Sweetwater creeks and the former swamps and wetlands of the Frankston area were rich sources of fish and eel as well as summer fruit and vegetables.Frankston Coastal Arts Discovery Trail (2006). City of Frankston. p. 15 An important meeting place for the Bunurong tribe clans of the greater Mornington Peninsula region was the present site of the Frankston Mechanics' Institute, at 1 Plowman Place in the Frankston Central Business District (CBD), which was used for corroborees and as a trading place.Frankston Coastal Arts Discovery Trail (2006). City of Frankston. p. 23. Retrieved 8 October 2015
Bunurong territory, of which Frankston is a part, stretches from the Werribee River in the western metropolitan area of Melbourne east to Wilsons Promontory in Gippsland and was referred to as marr-ne-beek ("excellent country") amongst the Kulin nation tribes. According to the Indigenous Australian mythology of the Dreamtime, the Bunurong territory was created by the ancestor spirit Lohan. Patrilineally, all Bunurong tribe members are considered direct descendants of Lohan. The creator of the Kulin nation-proper was the deity eaglehawk spirit Bunjil, and the protector of its waterways and keeper of the wind was the trickster crow spirit Waa.
Bunjil and Waa are the two moiety totems that govern the kinship system of the Kulin nation tribes. The Mayone-bulluk clan of the Frankston area was closely linked through marriage to the Wurundjeri-balluk clan of the Melbourne central business district, from the neighbouring Woiwurrung tribe, based on this system. Two wooden sculptures of eagles, inspired by Bunjil, by artist Bruce Armstrong; a 5-metre version on Mayone-bulluk clan land, erected on Young Street in Frankston in 2001,Sentinel art installation. Visit Frankston. Frankston City Council. Retrieved 25 August 2015 and a 25-metre version on Wurundjeri-balluk clan land, erected on Wurundjeri Way in Melbourne Docklands in 2002,Birnbauer, William (16 May 2002). "Bunjil has landed in Docklands". The Age. Retrieved 26 August 2015, are representative of this link.