Glen Iris is a suburb in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

, south-east of Melbourne's

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the commercial and business centre of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides with the "city ...

, located within the Cities of Boroondara and Stonnington

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

s. Glen Iris recorded a population of 26,131 at the 2021 census. Glen Iris has been Melbourne's geographical centre of population since the 1990s.

History

Captain Thomas Henderson, of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

, arrived in Melbourne on a ship called ''Iris'' in 1850. He acquired a property bounded by Gardiners Creek, High Street and a line extending Summerhill Road to Gardiners Creek. The property was advertised for sale as ''Glen Iris'', in 1852. Robert Kent, a subsequent owner of the ''Glen Iris'' homestead, suggested a Mechanics' Institute be established, but it was never completed. A

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charles W ...

church was established in 1865 and in 1871 land was granted for an adjacent school (now Glen Iris Primary School). By the 1880s reference was made to the Township of Glen Iris. Glen Iris Post Office opened on 28 August 1890. A Glen Iris Upper Post Office was open from 1947 until 1994.

Places of interest

A number of government and independent schools are located in Glen Iris, including Camberwell South Primary School, Glen Iris Primary School, St Cecilia's Primary School, St Roch's Catholic Primary School,

Sacré Cœur School Sacré Cœur is a Roman Catholic, independent, day school for girls, located in Glen Iris, a south eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1888, the school caters to over 700 students from Prep to Year 12 and has an o ...

Korowa Anglican Girls' School , motto_translation = No Reward Without Effort , established = 1890 , type = Independent, single-sex day school , denomination = Anglican , slogan = We can. We will. , ...

and

Caulfield Grammar School Caulfield Grammar School is an Independent school, independent, co-educational, Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican, International Baccalaureate, day school, day and boarding school, located in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1881 as ...

Malvern campus (the latter three are all situated within a few blocks of one another, south of High Street and east of

Burke Road Burke Road is a major north–south thoroughfare in Melbourne, Australia. It runs from Ivanhoe East to Caulfield East and through the major shopping district at Camberwell. It is aligned with the western boundary of Elgar's Special Survey, an ...

). Recreational and sporting facilities include the Harold Holt Swim Centre, a

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the earl ...

track at Hill'n'Dale Park, Burwood District

Bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

Club and a number of reserves and ovals, including Hartwell Sports Ground, Ferndale Park and T.H. King Oval. The Glen Iris wetlands were established by the former City of Malvern in 1989. Glen Iris Road

Uniting Church The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union ...

incorporates part of the original 1865 Wesleyan Church building. The division between the Boroondara and Stonnington municipalities follows the course of Gardiners Creek, which is a tributary of the

Yarra River The Yarra River or historically, the Yarra Yarra River, (Kulin languages: ''Berrern'', ''Birr-arrung'', ''Bay-ray-rung'', ''Birarang'', ''Birrarung'', and ''Wongete'') is a perennial river in south-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stre ...

. A tributary of Gardiners Creek, running north through the suburb, Back Creek, has largely been turned into a drain. Also roughly following the course of Gardiners Creek is the

Monash Freeway The Monash Freeway is a major urban freeway in Victoria, Australia, linking Melbourne's CBD to its south-eastern suburbs and beyond to the Gippsland region. It carries up to 180,000 vehicles per day and is one of Australia's busiest freeways ...

, and the Glen Waverley train line. The Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre was built in memory of former Prime Minister Harold Holt whose electoral seat was Higgins and included Glen Iris. This pool has led to the amusement of many locals and visitors as they realise a pool was built to commemorate a man who was presumed drowned after going missing, at Cheviot Beach, Portsea in 1967.

Transport

Two train stations on the Glen Waverley railway line,

Gardiner Gardiner may refer to: Places Settlements ;Canada * Gardiner, Ontario ;United States * Gardiner, Maine * Gardiner, Montana * Gardiner (town), New York ** Gardiner (CDP), New York * Gardiner, Oregon * Gardiner, Washington * West Gardiner, Maine ...

and Glen Iris, are within the suburb. Passing through the eastern part of Glen Iris is the

Alamein line The Alamein railway line is a commuter railway line operating between Flinders Street railway station, Flinders Street in the Melbourne central business district and Ashburton, Victoria, Ashburton through Melbourne's eastern suburbs including R ...

, with Burwood Station also within the boundaries of the suburb (Glen Iris did not originally cover this far east, and this station and its surrounds were originally in the suburb of Burwood). Residents are also served by the numbers 5, 6, 72 and 75 tram routes. Melbourne bus routes also service the area.

Notable residents

* Mathematician Sir

Thomas MacFarland Cherry Sir Thomas MacFarland Cherry F.A.A., F.R.S. (21 May 1898 – 21 November 1966) was an Australian mathematician, serving as Professor of Mathematics (pure, mixed and applied) at the University of Melbourne from 1929 until his retirement in 1963. ...

. *

Eva Duldig Eva Ruth de Jong-Duldig (nee Duldig; born 11 February 1938) is an Austrian-born Australian and Dutch former tennis player, and current author. From the ages of two to four, she was detained by Australia in an isolated internment camp, as an enemy ...

(born 1938) - Austrian-born Australian and Dutch tennis player, author *

Herbert Feith Herbert Feith (3 November 1930 – 15 November 2001) was an Australian academic and world leading scholar of Indonesian politics. Background Born in Vienna, Austria in 1930, Feith witnessed oppression of the Jews and witnessed Kristallnacht in 19 ...

– academic and world leading scholar of Indonesian politics. *

Mack Horton Mackenzie James Horton (born 25 April 1996) is an Australian freestyle swimmer. He is an Olympic gold medallist, World Championships medallist, and Commonwealth Games medallist. At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he finished ...

- swimmer * George Johnston – author of the

Miles Franklin Award The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–195 ...

winning novel

My Brother Jack ''My Brother Jack'' is a classic 1964 Australian novel by writer George Johnston. It is part of a trilogy centering on the character of David Meredith. The other books in the trilogy are ''Clean Straw for Nothing'' and ''A Cartload of Clay''. ...

. Johnston and his first wife rented in Britten Street, Glen Iris, for a brief period in 1938–39. * Colin McDonald – born 1928 in Glen Iris, is an Australian

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er, who played in 47

Tests Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film), ...

from 1952 to 1961. *

Ross Ryan Ross Edwin Ryan (born 13 December 1950) is an American-born Australian singer-songwriter and producer. His signature tune, "I Am Pegasus", was released in September 1973, which peaked at No. 2 on the Australian Singles. Its parent album, '' ...

– singer-songwriter and producer. * Private Greg Sher – killed in action in Afghanistan on 4 January 2009 and subject of honorary garden and plaque at Ferndale Park. * Glen Iris was also the home of Australian comedian and satirist Barry Humphries' fictional character Sandy Stone. * Matthew Wales – resident of Glen Iris, who was convicted of the murders of Margaret Wales-King and Paul King in 2003, in what became known as the

Society Murders The Society Murders is the name given to the 4 April 2002 familicide of husband and wife millionaire socialites Margaret Mary Wales-King, 69, and husband, Paul Aloysius King, 75, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, by Wales-King's 34-year-old son ...

. *

Gerard Whateley Gerard Whateley is a Melbourne-based sports broadcaster and writer. Since January 2018 he has been chief sports caller and host of the ''Whateley'' program on the sports radio station SEN1116. He is also co-host of Fox Footy's ''AFL 360'' program ...

- sports broadcaster

Sister cities

Glendale Glendale is the anglicised version of the Gaelic Gleann Dail, which means ''valley of fertile, low-lying arable land''. It may refer to: Places Australia * Glendale, New South Wales ** Stockland Glendale, a shopping centre *Glendale, Queensland, ...

, United States

References