William Murray Ross (1825–1904) was an entrepreneur best remembered for his failed "

Rosstown Railway The Rosstown Railway was a private railway in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, running between the current railway stations of Elsternwick, on the Sandringham line, and Oakleigh, on the Pakenham line. The line was built in ...

" in the south-eastern suburbs of

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 ...

. The railway was part of a larger "Rosstown Project", which included a

sugar beet A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and which is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together wi ...

processing mill and a residential estate. Parts of the rail line easement have been preserved as the

Rosstown Railway Heritage Trail The Rosstown Railway Heritage Trail is an unusual kind of rail trail, covering the former Rosstown Railway line in Melbourne, Australia. Almost the entire length of the former private railway has been replaced by roads, except for one section of ...

. Ross was born in 1825 in Liverpool, England, He was an insurance broker for the Liverpool, London and Globe Insurance Company, and moved to Melbourne in 1852, working at the company's Collins Street office. In 1857, Ross began buying land for future subdivision and development. Purchasing in the middle of Caulfield, he went on to buy a further acres in 1859, and then a massive . By the mid-1860s, he was the primary holder of more than one-fifth of Caulfield, worth about £20,000 In 1875, he launched his new suburb of Rosstown, running this advertisement in the Argus: Ross died in 1904. His failed sugar beet mill, which had been known for many years as "Ross's Folly", was demolished in 1908.

References

*D.F. Jowett & I.G. Weickhardt (1978). ''Return To Rosstown – Railways, Land Sales and Sugar Beet Ventures in Caulfield''. Rosstown Historical Research Group. *Murray, Peter R. & Wells, John C. (1980) ''Sand, Swamp and Heath – A History Of Caulfield''. City of Caulfield.
Statement of the claim of W. Murray Ross against the government of Victoria
– 1862. * * http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/582530 Businesspeople from Liverpool Businesspeople from Melbourne English emigrants to colonial Australia 1904 deaths 1825 births 19th-century English businesspeople 19th-century Australian businesspeople {{australia-business-bio-stub

References

Further reading