The pending redevelopment of the Footscray Town Hall is not the first time the municpality’s civic administration headquarters has undergone a major renovation.

Just over a century ago, councillors debated the future of the original Town Hall and Courthouse which was built in 1875 and was by then showing serious signs of wear and tear.

In The Age, Wednesday July 10, 1908, then Mayor, Cr Caldecot was reported as saying “Our town hall is really going to ruin. There is a great crack over the portico, the front is in a disgraceful condition, and if something is not done, I don’t know what is going to happen.”

What eventually happened was the construction of a replacement in 1936. Designed by British born architect, Joseph Plottel, the second Town Hall bore a passing resemblance to the old. It is the only known example of Romanesque style architecture applied to a civic building in Victoria.

Made from bluestone and freestone, the new building was erected by day labour under supervising contractors ARP Crow & Sons, who were well known Melbourne builders specialising in highly technical brickwork. Their founder, Archibald Rae Paterson Crow, arrived in Victoria from Scotland around 1886 aged around 20. He later settled and raised a family in Yarraville.

With offices on the ground floor and the council chamber and reception hall on the upper level, the new Footscray Town Hall includes Corinthian columns on the exterior and a contrasting interior with a streamlined modernist design.

It was built on the original site, which today retains its original landscaping reputedly laid out by David Matthews, the City of Footscray's Superintendent of Parks & Gardens (1916-64), and its associated external fencing and lighting. A commemorative granite drinking fountain and horse trough, outside the site on the Hyde Street footpath, designed by local monumental mason James Taylor & Sons, was a gift by Mayor James Cuming to celebrate the achievement of "City" status in 1891.

Photo courtesy of Footscray Historical society