page_title: Doncaster, Victoria
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Doncaster, Victoria / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The entrance to Holy Trinity Anglican Church at Doncaster, Victoria.
context_page_description: Doncaster is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 16 km north-east of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Manningham. At the 2016 Census, Doncaster had a population of 20,946.
  The suburb, locally known as "Donny", just as its namesake in Great Britain, is situated on 8.9 km² of land, around the top of the 120 m high Doncaster Hill. The suburb consists of a central area along the top of Doncaster Hill, which includes several historical buildings along Doncaster Road, the Westfield Doncaster Shopping Centre and surrounding high-rise apartments, while the rest of the suburb is typical of many of Melbourne's eastern suburbs, with extensive low-density housing.
  In the 12-month period to January 2020 Doncaster reported a median house price of A$1.22 million for a four bedroom house.
context_section_description: In 1841 Frederic Unwin, a Sydney solicitor, bought 5,120 acres (20.7 km²) of land, including most of the present suburb of Doncaster, from the Crown for one pound an acre under the terms of the short-lived Special Survey regulations. The area was sometimes known as Unwin's Special Survey.
  The Doncaster region was settled in the 1860s and 1870s, predominantly by German settler orchardists. The German community was named Waldau, but the name Doncaster gradually became commonly accepted. A Lutheran church was the first one in Doncaster in 1858. A Lutheran school opened in 1860 and a denominational school in 1861. Doncaster Post Office opened on 17 May 1860.
  Schramm's Cottage, an historic stone cottage originally located in Doncaster Road (at the site of the fountain next to the Municipal Offices), was relocated to the site of the original Lutheran Church building in Victoria Street in the 1970s. The remains of the Waldau Cemetery, where approximately 150 burials took place between 1853 and 1888, are located in the grounds of Schramm's Cottage.
  In the 1880s an observation tower (285 ft high) was constructed on Doncaster Hill, which attracted day-trippers to (what was then) the countryside.
  Doncaster was the location of the first electric tram to run in Melbourne in 1889. The tram started in Doncaster and ended in Box Hill (about 3.5 km away). Consequently, this was named "Tram Road". However, the service did not earn any profit, so it ended in 1896 due to feuds with land holders and financial problems. The main road through the suburb, Doncaster Road, was formally named Main Street.
  Doncaster remained an orchard area until the 1970s, with the majority of houses built from the 1950s to the 1980s.
  In the 1960s and 1970s the suburb was very sought after and many famous builders chose the area along with other similar suburbs like Glen and Mt Waverley to build their project homes with some very modern designs of which several still remain but sadly due to the current redevelopment, some are disappearing. 
  One good example of modern design and also being of a "cluster housing" project is the Winter Park estate on High St.  
  In the 1960s and 1970s Doncaster had a very high Australian born population but now has a big Chinese born population and after several years of being a sleepy or rather stagnant in progress, has become a boom suburb for developers as described below.
  The Doncaster Hill Recycled Water project is an ambitious project transforming Central Doncaster (Doncaster Hill) into a sustainability hub. The project, being spearheaded by Yarra Valley Water is currently in the process of stakeholder engagement as Yarra Valley Water seeks to understand the needs and values of nearby residents.
caption: Holy Trinity Anglican Church
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