Mulgrave

Mulgrave is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 21 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district.

Mulgrave is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 21 km south-east of Melbourne's central business district. Its local government area is the City of Monash. At the 2016 Census, Mulgrave had a population of 19,368.The suburb takes its name from Mulgrave Castle in the County of York. Sir George Phipps, the Earl of Mulgrave in the Peerage of Great Britain would serve as the Governor of Victoria between 1879 and 1884.

Most notably, the suburb gave its name to the Mulgrave Freeway, which was later renamed to the Monash Freeway.

Mulgrave Parish, as it was then known, was first settled in 1839 by Thomas Napier, a Scottish Builder who first reached the Colony of Victoria in the mid-1830s. Napier settled on the banks of the Dandenong Creek and built his homestead in Bushy Park Wetlands, and what is now Jells Park. None of the original homesteads remain, though some were demolished as late as the latter part of the 20th century. Remains of some homesteads have been uncovered during the construction of the EastLink Tollway, temporarily halting work while they were archaeologically examined.

Mulgrave remained a Parish until 19 January 1857 when it, and the neighbouring Parish of Oakleigh were gazetted as the Road District of Mulgrave and Oakleigh respectively. A Mulgrave Post Office opened on 1 January 1869 but was renamed Wheelers Hill in 1888.On 1 December 1871 further changes saw the two Road Districts merged to become the Shire of Oakleigh. For twenty years Mulgrave effectively ceased to exist until 1891 when, on 13 March, the Shire of Oakleigh was divided to form the Borough of Oakleigh and the Shire of Mulgrave. In 1904 Mulgrave Post Office reopened and closed again in 1956.

Throughout its history, Mulgrave has been plagued by the shifting of its borders and the reduction of its total size. Its borders remained relatively unchanged until 1949 when land was transferred from the Shire to Oakleigh. This occurred again a decade later with the Shire of Mulgrave now reduced to 23 square miles (60 km2). As a part of the changes, offices for the Shire were opened in present-day Notting Hill.

Despite such reductions, it was in April 1961 that the Shire saw the biggest reduction in land, when it was gazetted as the City of Waverley. Having been a parish and a shire, Mulgrave was now reduced to a suburb. The third Mulgrave Post Office opened in 1967 and closed in 1978. Meanwhile, a Mulgrave North (later Brandon Park) office opened in 1971, and a Mulgrave East (later Waverley Gardens) office opened in 1978.