Fawkner, Victoria

The area was originally called and was part of Box Forest, named by Melbourne settler pioneer, John Pascoe Fawkner.[2] In 1867 John Jukes bought a parcel of land in the area and named it Fawkner in honour of the pioneer settler.[3] John Jukes grandson, David Jukes, continued to live in the area until the 1970s.

One of the original settlers in Fawkner was Michael Dowling and his family, who settled on their property at Major Road near Merri Creek in September 1902, grazing cattle to fatten for market. Miss Dowling described the area then as a harsh windy place with few trees and a few unfinished shacks.[3]

The first school in the area was the Fawkner State School, opened 1909, on Lynch Road. The school was decommissioned in the 1990s and was subsequently purchased in 1997 by the Quang Duc Buddhist Welfare Association to build the Quang Duc Temple.[4]

The opening of the Upfield railway line on 8 October 1889 (electrified to Fawkner on 2 December 1920);[5] and the development and opening of the Fawkner General Cemetery in December 1906 encouraged residential development in the south of the suburb.

By 1910 there were 35 houses within walking distance of Fawkner station.[3]

Electricity was extended to Fawkner in 1920 by the City of Coburg Electricity Supply Department. Returned soldiers started settling the suburb in the 1920s. By 1939 post office directories listed 180 buildings in Fawkner.[3]

North Fawkner remained a dairy farm owned by the Coyne family until 1945. The period after World War II saw the most significant period of development in the suburb, with the first public housing built by the Housing Commission in 1949 and continuing up until the 1960s, with the development of the Moomba Park estate, named after the initial Labour Day Moomba Parade held in 1955. Other facilities established included the Fawkner Swimming Pool in 1964, and Fawkner Library in 1969.[3]

The Post Office opened in 1878 as Box Forest, was renamed Fawkner in 1885 and closed in 1888. The next Fawkner office was open in 1904 and 1905. The third (known briefly as Faulkner) was open from 1909 until renamed Fawkner South in 1960. The fourth was open from 1960 until renamed Fawkner East in 1970, when the current Fawkner office opened. In addition, a Fawkner West office was open from 1962 until 1993, and the Fawkner North office on Anderson Road in the Moomba Park area opened in 1961.[6]

The suburb was transferred from the City of Broadmeadows to the City of Moreland (now City of Merri-bek) in December 1994, when the Victorian Government forced local government mergers.[3]

According to Merri-bek Council's suburb profile, Fawkner has a larger percentage of population aged over 70 years (17.7%) and aged from 5 to 11 years (8.9%), than the average for the municipality (11.8% and 7.0% respectively).[7]

The suburb also has a lower proportion – In Fawkner, 45.2% of people were born in Australia. The most common countries of birth were Italy 9.7%, Pakistan 8.9%, as against the municipal average of 59.3%.[7]

The most common responses for religion in Fawkner were Catholic 33.5%, Islam 31.9%, No Religion, so described 10.1%, Not stated 8.0% and Eastern Orthodox 6.0%. In Fawkner, Christianity was the largest religious group reported overall (49.1%) (this figure excludes not stated responses).

In Fawkner, 31.1% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Italian 13.8%, Urdu 12.4%, Arabic 9.2%, Greek 4.1% and Bengali 2.9%.

Fawkner was briefly in the news after Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 included a mysterious nonexistent towering skyscraper in Fawkner at launch.[14]

• City of Broadmeadows – Fawkner was previously within this former local government area.