Argus Alley

Argus Alley was classified as a public alley.

Status: Discontinued. Named pre-1856.

Located at or near: 204-206 Flinders Lane.

Probable or possible origin of name: Argus">https://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00085b.htm">Argus newspaper, adjacent, 199-207 Collins Street.

Location is approximate.

For more information, see: Bate, W., Broome, R., Davis, N., May, A. J., & Stitt, H. (2024). The story of Melbourne’s lanes: Essential but unplanned (pp. 23, 112, 32). ISBN 978-1-875173-12-9.

"In the lanes of sector IV (as in the others), among many small factories, were the fledglings of a new technological phase, like the appearance in the twentieth century of Australian Rubber Mills in Coates Lane and a gramophone repairer in Coromandel Place. The ice cream giant, Peter's American Delicacy Company, was born in Meyer Place, and broadcasting began from 3LO and 3AR in Melbourne Place in the 1920s. Hidden away in 1935 were craftsmen in gold, stained glass and copper, a 'sanitary' plumber, and (in Alfred Place) Felton, Grimwade and Duerdin, makers of surgical implements. Otherwise the rag trade was dominant, as it had been from the 1880s. The Lane' spread through dozens of narrow inlets off Flinders Lane, especially between Russell and Exhibition streets. Many were anonymous in 1895 when only La Trobe, Ramsden, Watson, Argus, Oliver and Hosier were named. Finding people was much easier by 1935, although there may have been fewer street signs than names in Sands & McDougall's Directory-for Oliver, Hosier, Freemasons, Ellis, Chester, Hockins, Lush, Moore, Malthouse, Corporation and Higsons lanes, and for Henderson, Ramsden and Watson places, Argus Alley and George Parade. Makers of dresses, shirts, underwear, suits, uniforms, coats, mantles, and furs crowded in behind the large soft goods importers who fronted Flinders Lane itself. There were also allied trades like leather work, pleating, spokestitching, and sewing machine repairs." p 23.

"First, we should be aware of the power of the present (at various times) to obliterate the past. An early unnamed right of way beside 452 Flinders Street, which became Murphys Lane in 1869, was upgraded to Custom House Lane when that important building was completed in 1876. The alley behind Payne's Bon Marché drapery in Bourke Street only became Paynes Place in 1907, after a series of name changes from its first listing in 1865 as Commercial Lane. By the time the Regent Theatre was built the Argus newspaper had deserted its dead-end lane Argus Alley, and the theatre's name was given to the parallel throughway, Regent Place. Early governors' names on La Trobe Parade and Hotham Place were scratched in favour, respectively, of George Parade (1935) and Cocker Alley (1906). Because of their suggestiveness, perhaps, besides doubtful reputations as part of a theatrical demi-monde off Little Bourke and Little Lonsdale streets, Romeo Lane was rubbed out in favour of Crossley Street in 1876 (even before the 1884 clean-up), and Juliet Terrace became Liverpool Street in 1890. Fifty years after the Grand Coffee Palace was renamed Hotel Windsor in 1893, Lang Lane [east] turned into Windsor Place. In more recent times one unnamed lane, off a section of Little Collins Street colloquially known as Chancery Lane, was christened Austral Lane in 1932. Athenaeum Lane replaced Sleights Lane in 1937. " p. 112.