Sunshine is a suburb in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, west of Melbourne's

Central Business District A central business district (CBD) is the Commerce, commercial and business center of a city. It contains commercial space and offices, and in larger cities will often be described as a financial district. Geographically, it often coincides wit ...

, located within the

City of Brimbank The City of Brimbank is a Local government in Australia, local government area located within the metropolitan area of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. It comprises the western suburbs between 10 and 20 km west and nor ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

. Sunshine recorded a population of 9,445 at the . Sunshine, initially a town just outside Melbourne, is today a residential suburb with a mix of

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

and post-War homes, with a

town centre A town centre is the commerce, commercial or geographical centre or core area of a town. Town centres are traditionally associated with shopping or retail. They are also the centre of communications with major public transport hubs such as train ...

that is an important retail centre in Melbourne's west. It is also one of Melbourne's principal places of employment outside the CBD with many industrial companies situated in the area, and is an important public transport hub with both

V/Line V/Line is a statutory authority that operates Regional rail, regional passenger rail and Intercity bus service, coach services in the Australian state of Victoria (state), Victoria. It provides passenger train services on five Commuter rail, ...

and

Metro Metro may refer to: Geography * Metro City (Indonesia), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urban area with high ...

services at Sunshine railway station and its adjacent major bus interchange.

History

19th century

The farms and settlements in the area now known as Sunshine first came under the Sunshine Road District (1860–1871) which later became the Shire of Braybrook (1871–1951). From 1860 to 1885 the only railway which passed through the area was the Bendigo line and the only railway station in the area was Albion & Darlington (opened 5 January 1860) at the site of the current Albion station. When the

Ballarat line The Ballarat line is a regional passenger rail service operated by V/Line in Victoria, Australia. It serves 13 stations towards its terminus in Ballarat's western suburb of Wendouree via Melton and Bacchus Marsh. Services are operated pri ...

was built through the area, a new station was built at the junction of the two lines: this station opened on 7 September 1885 and was called Braybrook Junction as it was in the Shire of Braybrook. The area around the Braybrook Junction railway station then came to be known as Braybrook Junction. The Braybrook Junction Post Office opened on 25 August 1890.

20th century

Pre-war Sunshine

In 1904 H. V. McKay bought a factory in the area called the Braybrook Implement Works. He also secured of land at Braybrook Junction with the aim of establishing housing to allow his future workers to live in the area, along the lines of a

company town A company town is a place where all or most of the stores and housing in the town are owned by the same company that is also the main employer. Company towns are often planned with a suite of amenities such as stores, houses of worship, schoo ...

. The land became the ''Sunshine Estate'' (see below). In 1906 McKay moved his agricultural machinery manufacturing business from

Ballarat Ballarat ( ) () is a city in the Central Highlands of Victoria, Australia. At the 2021 census, Ballarat had a population of 111,973, making it the third-largest urban inland city in Australia and the third-largest city in Victoria. Within mo ...

to his newly acquired factory in Braybrook Junction. The factory was renamed the

Sunshine Harvester Works The Sunshine Harvester Works was an agricultural equipment factory in Melbourne, Australia. It was founded by industrialist H. V. McKay, and engineering development was headed by H. B. Garde. History Early years Having established an agri ...

and it became the largest manufacturing plant in Australia. In July 1907, the train station, the post office, and the shire riding's names were changed from Braybrook Junction to Sunshine after workers and residents had petitioned to do so in honour of McKay's Sunshine Harvester Works. Also in 1907 an industrial dispute between owner H. V. McKay and his workers at the Sunshine Harvester Works led to the

Harvester Judgement ''Ex parte H.V. McKay'',''Ex parte H.V. McKay'(1907) 2 CAR 1 commonly referred to as the ''Harvester case'', is a landmark Australian labour law decision of the Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration. The case arose under the ''Exci ...

, the benchmark industrial decision which led to the creation of a minimum living wage for Australian workers. The Sunshine train disaster on 20 April 1908 killed 44 people at Sunshine station.Sunshine Rail Disaster – 100 years on
Brimbank Leader 15 April 2008. In 1909, the H. V. McKay Sunshine Harvester Works Pipe Band was formed. This is one of Australia's oldest continuously functioning

pipe band A pipe band is a musical ensemble consisting of pipers and drummers. The term pipes and drums, used by military pipe bands is also common. The most common form of pipe band consists of a section of pipers playing the Great Highland bagpipe, ...

s and still exists as the Victoria Scottish Pipes & Drums. Prue McGoldrick's ''My Paddock: An Early Twentieth Century Childhood'' is a memoir of growing up in Sunshine.

The Sunshine Estate and H. V. McKay's civic works

The land that H. V. McKay had earlier purchased to build housing for his workers on was developed by McKay as the Sunshine Estate. This housing estate was developed with superficial similarity to some street plans of cities created by followers of the

Garden city movement The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with Green belt, greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, i ...

, an influential

town planning Urban planning (also called city planning in some contexts) is the process of developing and designing land use and the built environment, including air, water, and the infrastructure passing into and out of urban areas, such as transportatio ...

movement of the early 20th century. Infrastructure and

amenities In property and land use planning, amenity (lat. ''amoenitās'' “pleasantness, delightfulness”) is something considered to benefit a location, contribute to its enjoyment, and thereby increase its value. Tangible amenities can include the ...

established by McKay for the Sunshine Estate and the rest of Sunshine included electric street lighting, parks and sporting grounds, public buildings, schools, and a library. The town of Sunshine (not a suburb of Melbourne at this point) became regarded as a model industry-centred community. Housing for the McKay's employees swelled the local population and the town of Sunshine was touted as the "

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

of Australia".

Post-war Sunshine

After

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Sunshine increasingly became connected to the sprawling city of Melbourne as car-based travel enabled people to leave the inner city suburbs and move into houses on larger blocks in suburbia. In 1951, the old Shire of Braybrook was abolished and the

City of Sunshine The City of Sunshine was a Local government in Australia, local government area about west of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The city covered an area of , and existed from 1860 until 1994. History ...

was established. Sunshine was not immune when many Australian-based manufacturing industries started winding down during and after the 1970s. In 1992, the

Massey Ferguson Massey Ferguson is an agricultural machinery manufacturer, established in 1953 through the merger of farm equipment makers Massey-Harris of Canada and the Ferguson Company of Ireland. It was based in Coventry then moved to Beauvais in 2003 when ...

factory, formerly the Sunshine Harvester Works, was demolished to make way for the development of the Sunshine Marketplace. On 15 December 1994, the City of Sunshine was abolished and Sunshine became part of the newly created

21st century

Sunshine is now both a low-density residential suburb and one of Melbourne's principal places of employment outside the CBD. Many heavy and light industrial companies are situated in and around the area and it is an important retail centre in Melbourne's west. In addition to Sunshine's street shopping strips there are two shopping centres, the Sunshine Plaza and the Sunshine Marketplace. There is a

Village Cinemas Village Cinemas is an Australian-based multinational film exhibition brand that mainly shows blockbusters, mainstream, children and family films and some arthouse, foreign language and documentary films. Since 2003, its Australian sites bec ...

multiplex, the "Village 20 Sunshine Megaplex", at the Sunshine Marketplace. Educational institutions in Sunshine include Victoria Polytechnic (the

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE () is the common name in Australia for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational courses. Colloquially also known ...

division of

Victoria University Victoria University may refer to: * Victoria University (Australia), a public research university in Melbourne, Australia * Victoria University, Toronto, a constituent college of the federal University of Toronto in Canada * Victoria University of ...

). Secondary schools include Sunshine College and Harvester Technical College.

Demographics

Sunshine is a highly multicultural suburb. In the post-WWII period, many immigrants from all over continental Europe settled in Sunshine. Today Sunshine still has significant populations from Italy, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, and Poland. It is also the main centre for Melbourne's

Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Maltese ...

community: indeed, the only branch of

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

Bank of Valletta Bank of Valletta plc (BOV) is a Maltese bank and financial services company headquartered in Santa Venera. It is the oldest established financial services provider in Malta and one of the largest. As of 2014, the bank had 44 branches, 6 regio ...

in the whole of

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

is situated on Watt Street, Sunshine. From the late 1970s, many Vietnamese refugees settled in Sunshine and surrounding areas. The Vietnamese have opened small businesses such as groceries and restaurants throughout the Sunshine town centre. More recently, immigrants moving to Sunshine have come from

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

Burma Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar; and also referred to as Burma (the official English name until 1989), is a country in northwest Southeast Asia. It is the largest country by area in Mainland Southeast Asia and ha ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. In 2016, Sunshine had a population of 9,768. The most common ancestries given in the 2016 census were: Australian 11.4%, English 12.5%, Vietnamese 12.9%, Chinese 5.9% and Irish 5.0%. For country of birth, 42% of people were born in Australia while the other most common countries of birth were Vietnam with 12.6%, India 5.7%, Burma 4.0%, Philippines 2.0%, and Nepal 2.0%.

Transport

Sunshine railway station was completely redeveloped as part of the

Regional Rail Link Regional Rail Link (RRL) is the name of a project to build a length of railway through the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria. The name is also colloquially used to refer to the rail alignment constructed as part of the project. The pro ...

. Works began in 2012 and were complete by mid-2014. It is both a suburban

station and an interchange for

(regional) passenger services. Classed as a

Premium station The Melbourne rail network is a metropolitan Commuter rail, suburban and Rail freight transport, freight rail system serving the city of Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia. The metropolitan rail network is centred around th ...

, it is in the PTV zones 1+2 overlap. Sunshine station is one of Victoria's most important regional rail hubs: all three of the main western region V/Line lines (

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...

and

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung language, Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in Victoria, Australia, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River (Victo ...

) meet at Sunshine. Geelong services have stopped at Sunshine since the opening of the

in 2015. The Sydney to Melbourne XPT passes through Sunshine, as it uses the Albion–Jacana railway line, but it does not stop there. Sunshine also has one of Melbourne's major suburban bus interchanges, which was upgraded as part of the

works in 2014. This is situated directly adjacent to the Sunshine Railway Station. In a 2018 study Sunshine was named one of the 20 most

walkable In urban planning, walkability is the accessibility of amenities within a reasonable walking distance. It is based on the idea that urban spaces should be more than just transport corridors designed for maximum vehicle throughput. Instead, it s ...

suburbs in Melbourne's middle suburbia. Cyclists in Sunshine are represented by BrimBUG, the Brimbank Bicycle User Group.

Community facilities

Hue Quang Temple, a Vietnamese Buddhist temple, is located in the suburb.

Sport and leisure

The heritage-listed H.V. McKay Memorial Gardens on Anderson Road, established in 1909 by H.V. McKay as Sunshine Gardens, is one of two remaining "industrial gardens" in Australia. The

Kororoit Creek The Kororoit Creek is a watercourse of the Port Phillip catchment, rising in the outer north western suburbs of Melbourne, in the Australian state of Victoria. Location and features The Kororoit Creek rises below Mount Kororoit, northeast of ...

runs through Sunshine, along which runs the

Kororoit Creek Trail __NOTOC__ The Kororoit Creek Trail is a shared use path for cyclists and pedestrians, which follows the Kororoit Creek in the inner western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The interrupted upper section is located in Burnside and ...

for walking and cycling. The Sunshine Football Club, the Sunshine Kangaroos, are the local

Australian Rules Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

football team. They compete in the

Western Region Football League The Western Football Netball League (WFNL) is a semi-professional Australian rules football and netball league, based in the western suburbs of Melbourne. History The league was formed in 1931 as the Footscray District Football League (FDFL). ...

. The Sunshine Cricket Club, the Sunshine Crows, is based at Dempster Park in North Sunshine. The Sunshine Park Tennis Club is based at Parsons Reserve Sunshine. Sunshine Cowboys play rugby league in

NRL Victoria NRL Victoria (abbreviated as NRLVic, and formerly the Victorian Rugby League) is responsible for administering the game of rugby league in Victoria, Australia. Victoria is an Affiliated State of the overall Australian governing body the National ...

. The Sunshine George Cross Football Club, the Sunshine Georgies, are the local

Victorian Premier League The Victorian Premier League (VPL) is an Australian soccer league based in Victoria that was founded in 2023 and administered by Football Victoria. It consists of two divisions that were named after the VPL's breakaway of the National Premier L ...

soccer team. Their home ground is Chaplin Reserve on Anderson Road. The Sunshine Baseball Club, the Sunshine Eagles, have their baseball field in Barclay Reserve on Talmage Street, Albion. Golfers play at the course of the Sunshine Golf Club on Mt Derrimut Road,

Derrimut Derrimut ( ) is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Brimbank Local government area. Derrimut recorded a population of 8,651 at the 2021 census. Derrimut is a ...

. It relocated from the Fitzgerald Road course in November 2007.

Notable residents

Leigh Bowery Leigh Bowery (26 March 1961 – 31 December 1994) was an Australian performance artist, club promoter, and fashion designer. Bowery's performances featured striking costumes and make-up and were conceptual, flamboyant, outlandish, and sometime ...

, London-based

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

artist and designer. * Doug Chappel, comedian, actor. *

Lester Ellis Lester Ellis (born 15 March 1965) is a British-born Australian former professional boxer. He is one-time world champion and four-times minor titles winner, having also held the Australian and Commonwealth (twice) titles. At the age of 19, In 1 ...

, former World champion boxer. Grew up in West Sunshine. * Reverend John Flynn, the Presbyterian minister and aviator who founded the

Royal Flying Doctor Service The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), commonly known as the Flying Doctor, is an aeromedical retrieval service in Australia and the largest of its kind in the world. It is a non-profit organisation that provides urgent and emergency medica ...

and who is featured on the current

Australian twenty-dollar note The Australian twenty-dollar note was issued when the currency was changed from the Australian pound to the Australian dollar on 14 February 1966. It replaced the £10 note which had similar orange colouration. There have been only three differ ...

. * Charles Greenwood, pastor who revived the

Assemblies of God The World Assemblies of God Fellowship (WAGF), commonly known as the Assemblies of God (AG), is a global cooperative body or communion of over 170 Pentecostal denominations that was established on August 15, 1989. The WAGF was created to provi ...

church in Australia. * John Kelly, artist who grew up in Sunshine. *

Lydia Lassila Lydia Lassila (née Ierodiaconou) (born 17 January 1982) is an Australian Olympic freestyle skier gold medalist who competed in the 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympic Games. She is the 2010 Olympic champion and the 2014 bronze med ...

freestyle skier Freestyle skiing is a skiing discipline comprising aerials, moguls, cross, half-pipe, slopestyle and big air as part of the Winter Olympics. It can consist of a skier performing aerial flips and spins and can include skiers sliding rails and ...

and 2010 Winter Olympic gold medallist who grew up and went to school in Sunshine. *

Hugh Victor McKay Hugh Victor McKay (21 August 1865 – 21 May 1926) was an Australian industrialist who is known for heading the company that developed the Sunshine Harvester, arguably the first commercially viable combine harvester. He subsequently establishe ...

, leading Australian industrialist of the early 20th century; founder of the

. *

Keith Miller Keith Ross Miller (28 November 1919 – 11 October 2004) was an Australian Test cricketer and a Royal Australian Air Force pilot during World War II. Miller is widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever all-rounder. His ability, irreverent m ...

Australian Cricket Hall of Fame The Australian Cricket Hall of Fame is a part of the National Sports Museum#Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum, Australian Gallery of Sport and Olympic Museum in the National Sports Museum, Australian Sports Museum at the Melbourne C ...

r of the 1940s and 50s. Born in Sunshine. *

Craig Parry Craig David Parry (born 12 January 1966) is an Australian professional golfer. He has been one of Australia's premier golfers since turning professional in 1985, and has 23 career victories, two of those wins being events on the PGA Tour; the 2 ...

, one of Australia's premier golfers. Born in Sunshine. * Walter "Wally" Peeler, WWI soldier,

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious decoration of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British decorations system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British ...

and

British Empire Medal The British Empire Medal (BEM; formerly British Empire Medal for Meritorious Service) is a British and Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth award for meritorious civil or military service worthy of recognition by the Monarchy of the United Ki ...

winner and first custodian of the

Shrine of Remembrance The Shrine of Remembrance (commonly referred to as The Shrine) is a war memorial in Melbourne, Victoria (state), Victoria, Australia, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road. It was built to honour the men and women of Victoria who served in ...

. *

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 19219 April 2021), was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he was the consort of the British monarch from h ...

, who had an extended stay at the Derrimut Hotel in 1945. *

Bon Scott Ronald Belford "Bon" Scott (9 July 1946 – 19 February 1980) was an Australian singer who was the second lead vocalist and lyricist of the hard rock band AC/DC from 1974 until his death in 1980. In the July 2004 issue of ''Classic Rock (m ...

, lead singer of

AC/DC AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973. Their music has been variously described as hard rock, blues rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal, although the band calls it simply "rock and roll". They are cited as a formativ ...

who lived in Sunshine as a child. *

Stelarc Stelarc (born Στέλιος Αρκαδίου ''Stelios Arcadiou'' in 1946; legally changed his name in 1972) is a Cyprus-born Australians, Australian performance artist raised in the Melbourne suburb of Sunshine, Victoria, Sunshine, whose works ...

, Cypriot-born, Sunshine-raised performance artist. * Richard Tyler, born 1947, fashion designer in New York and Hollywood. *

Cal Wilson Cal Wilson (5 October 1970 – 11 October 2023) was a New Zealand stand-up comedian, author, radio and television presenter based in Australia. Wilson wrote the New Zealand sitcom ''Willy Nilly'' from 2001 until 2003. She then appeared in numer ...

, stand-up comedian and radio and television personality.

In popular culture

* The disused former Albion Quarrying Company site, accessed from Hulett Street, Sunshine was the location for

's 1976

Jailbreak A prison escape (also referred to as a bust out, breakout, jailbreak, jail escape or prison break) is the act of an inmate leaving prison through unofficial or illegal ways. Normally, when this occurs, an effort is made on the part of authorit ...

music video.Evans, Mark, ''Dirty Deeds: My Life Inside/Outside AC/DC'', Bazillion Points, 2011 * In the 1997 film '' The Castle'', the Kerrigans' daughter Tracey obtained her hairdressing qualification from Sunshine

. * In the television series ''

Kath & Kim ''Kath & Kim'' (also written as ''Kath and Kim'') is an Australian sitcom originally airing in the prime-time slot on ABC Television from 2002 to 2005 and subsequently on the Seven Network in 2007 and 2022. The show was produced by Riley and T ...

'', Kath Day-Knight has obtained numerous qualifications from Sunshine TAFE. * Sunshine is the setting of the 2007 film ''

Noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

''. * Sunshine and surrounding suburbs are the principal settings of the 2017 SBS drama series ''

Sunshine Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrared (typically per ...

''.

References

External links

Sunshine & District Historical SocietyFriends of the H V McKay Memorial GardensHerald-Sun: In defence of Sunshine: Surprising facts you may not know about Melbourne’s sunny suburb
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sunshine, Victoria Suburbs of Melbourne Suburbs of the City of Brimbank