Brunswick Town Hall

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Brunswick Town Hall on Sydney Road, Brunswick
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Brunswick Town Hall on Sydney Road, Brunswick

Brunswick Town Hall stands on the corner of Dawson Street and Sydney Road in the inner northern Melbourne, suburb of Brunswick, Victoria, Australia.

Brunswick was declared a municipality in 1857, after residents petitioned for municipal government. The first municipal chambers were established in 1859 on Sydney Road at Lobb's Hill, between Stewart and Albion Streets. The present town hall is an imposing Victorian edifice in the Second Empire style, built in 1876 nearer the centre of Brunswick on the corner of Dawson Street and Sydney Road.

In 1908 Brunswick became a city.

Diagonally opposite from the Town Hall stands the Mechanics' Institute, built in 1868, and used for worker education and social activities. A monument to the Free Speech fights of the 1930s stands near the corner. The building was adopted by Brunswick City Council in 1927 and for many years served as the Brunswick Municipal Library.

During 1973 the Brunswick City Council embarked on a plan to pull down the town hall and build a modern five story building to house all of the council services. The Brunswick Progress Association led a successful public campaign in 1974 against council to stop the destruction of the Town Hall.

After the amalgamatian of the City of Brunswick with the City of Coburg and the southern portion of the City of Broadmeadows in 1994 to form the City of Moreland, the Town Hall now functions as secondary offices for the new Moreland City Council (City of Moreland).

Brunswick Town Hall and Atrium is available for hire, as well as being a venue for the Brunswick Music Festival. The Town Hall building also contains the Counihan Gallery and the Brunswick branch of the Moreland City Library.

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Town Halls of Melbourne
Town Halls Box Hill | Brighton | Brunswick | Camberwell | Coburg | Collingwood | Dandenong | Fitzroy | Hawthorn | Footscray | Glen Eira | Heidelberg | Kensington | Kew | Malvern | Melbourne | Moonee Ponds | Moorabin | Northcote | North Melbourne | Oakleigh | Port Melbourne | Prahran | Preston | Richmond | South Melbourne | St Kilda | Williamstown