Arthurs Creek
Postcode: 3099
Arthurs Creek is a small town in Victoria, Australia. It is located on Arthurs Creek Road in the Shire of Nillumbik, 33 kilometers north-east of Melbourne. The town is named after Henry Arthur, a member of John Batman’s Port Phillip Association and nephew of George Arthur, a governor of Tasmania.
Arthurs Creek began as a horticultural settlement, with numerous orchards. After the First World War, cattle and sheep farms replaced orchards as the principal industry. Today, the land-holdings of Arthurs Creek are a mixture of smaller farm properties including vineyards, orchards, and life-style properties.
The township of Arthurs Creek consists of a primary school, Mechanic’s Institute Hall, CFA station and a Uniting church. There are also a cricket oval known as Ryder’s Flat and the Arthurs Creek Cemetery Dating back to the 1870’s.
The creek, which is a tributary of the Diamond Creek, was the border between the former Whittlesea and Eltham shires. The creek was named after Henry Arthur, a member of Batman’s Port Phillip Association and nephew of Tasmania’s Governor George Arthur, who settled at Arthur’s Creek.
Land selection began in 1863. An early settler was John Ryder whose name was given to Ryder’s Swamp, the original name for the Yan Yean reservoir. Arthurs Creek was suited to horticulture as well as grazing. By the 1880s there were several orchards, the biggest being “Charnwood”, exhibiting 200 varieties of fruit at the Melbourne International Exhibition. Although the population warranted a primary school in 1870, it took until 1876 for one to be provided on land donated by Ryder. By the turn of the century Arthurs Creek had a Methodist church, mechanics’ institute and a free library, and the Arthurs Creek Fruit Grower’s Association had been going for ten years. On the eve of the first world war seventy orchardists had 1,886 acres under trees, and the Association had links with orchardists at Humevale and Eden Park. After the war tomatoes began to replace orchards, and continued until and beyond the second world war when irrigated farms in northern Victoria took over production.