Moorabbin 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 Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

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 ...

, 15 km 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

City of Kingston The City of Kingston is a local government area in Victoria, Australia in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, its northern boundary lying approximately 15 km from the Melbourne city centre along the north-eastern shorelines of Port P ...

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 ...

. Moorabbin recorded a population of 6,287 at the . Most of the eastern side of Moorabbin has been an industrial area since the first development in the mid-1960s. Major businesses with a presence in the area include

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

. Moorabbin is also well known locally for its residential area built after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

History

The word ''Moorabbin'' is believed to have come from the Aboriginal word moorooboon meaning ''mother's milk'', as it was purportedly a place where women and children stayed and rested while the men hunted further afield. In 1846 the first European settlers arrived, brothers John and Richard King, who are thought to have come from the Western Port area. The Post Office opened on 1 September 1857 as South Brighton, was renamed Brighton South around 1886 and Moorabbin in 1909. The Moorabbin East Post Office near Chesterville Road opened in 1960. The seat of local government moved from Moorabbin to Cheltenham when the former City of Moorabbin was incorporated into the larger

. In August 1998, Moorabbin was the scene of the Silk-Miller police murders.

Transport

While by name ''Moorabbin'' would appear to be home to the regional general airport

Moorabbin Airport Moorabbin (Harry Hawker) Airport is a mostly general aviation airport for light aircraft located in between the southern Melbourne suburbs of Heatherton, Cheltenham, Dingley Village and Mentone. It also receives commercial airline service. T ...

, the airport, also called th
Harry Hawker Airport
is its own suburb, sharing the postcode of 3194 with Mentone. Moorabbin is serviced by a variety of

Public Transport Victoria Public Transport Victoria (PTV) is the brand name for public transport in the Australian state of Victoria, Australia, Victoria. It was the trading name of the Go Public Transport Development Authority (PTDA), a now-defunct statutory authorit ...

bus and train services including Moorabbin station.

Housing

Housing in Moorabbin comprises mainly 3-bedroom red or cream brick detached houses built between the 1940s and 1970s. More recently villa units and townhouses have been built.

Notable places in Moorabbin

The Moorabbin Campus of the

Holmesglen Institute of TAFE Holmesglen Institute is a vocational education and higher education institute situated primarily in the South-Eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. History Since its inception in 1982, Holmesglen has grown from a delivery of 90 programs to 7, ...

is located in Moorabbin, the campus formerly belonging to the

Chisholm Institute Chisholm Institute is a government-owned Technical and Further Education (TAFE) Institute located in the south-east Melbourne Australia. It provides adult education in a number of areas including the arts, hospitality, information technology, tra ...

and before that was the location of Moorabbin Technical College. Moorabbin has two public primary schools (Moorabbin Primary, Southmoor Primary) and one Catholic primary (St. Catherines Primary). Moorabbin High School closed in 1984 but the former campus is now being used by the Bayside Special Development School, which provides individual programs for children with special needs. The

Gould League The Gould League is an independent Australian organisation promoting Natural environment, environmental education, founded in Victoria, Australia, Victoria in 1909 and named after the English ornithologist John Gould. Largely autonomous branche ...

also uses the former Moorabbin High School site and specializes in education that relates to the environment and sustainability.

Sport

The suburb has an

Australian Rules Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

football team, Moorabbin Kangaroos Football Club, competing in the

Southern Football League The Southern League is a men's football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from the South and Midlands of England. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven and eight of the English fo ...

. The football and cricket venue in the suburb is

Moorabbin Oval Moorabbin Oval (also known as RSEA Park under a naming rights agreement) is an Australian rules football ground in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia at Linton Street in the suburb of Moorabbin, Victoria, Moorabbin. The ground was most ...

, located in Linton Street. The ground was used by the

St Kilda Football Club The St Kilda Football Club, nicknamed the Saints, is a professional Australian rules football club based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. The club plays in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier league. The club ...

VFL/AFL The Victorian Football League (VFL) is an Australian rules football league in Australia serving as one of the second-tier regional semi-professional competitions which sit underneath the fully professional Australian Football League (AFL). It ...

games between 1965 and 1992, and continued to serve as its training and administrative home ground until 2010. From 2018 the ground has again become the training, entertainment, member and community base for the Saints. The former Australian Touring Car Championship team

Perkins Engineering Perkins Engineering was a team contesting the Australian V8 Supercar Championship Series, operating as an active racing team between 1986 and 2008. From 2009 onwards, the involvement of Perkins Engineering in the championship wounded back into ...

was based at Moorabbin Airport.

Notable people

* Sir

Thomas Bent Sir Thomas Bent (7 December 1838 – 17 September 1909) was an Australian politician and the 22nd Premier of Victoria. Early life Bent was born in Penrith, New South Wales the eldest of four sons and two daughters of James Bent, a hotel-keeper ...

, politician and land speculator * Bernard Evans, architect * Elizee de Garis, farmer and shire councillor *

Harry Hawker Harry George Hawker, MBE, AFC (22 January 1889 – 12 July 1921) was an Australian aviation pioneer. He was the chief test pilot for Sopwith and was also involved in the design of many of their aircraft. After the First World War, he co-fou ...

, aviator *

William Highett William Highett (1807 – 29 November 1880) was a banker, landowner and politician in colonial Victoria. He was also a member of the Victorian Legislative Council. Early life Highett was born in Weymouth, Dorset, England, in December 1807. His p ...

, banker and politician

References

External links

Australian Places: Melbourne, Victoria
{{Authority control Suburbs of Melbourne Suburbs of the City of Kingston (Victoria) 1857 establishments in Australia