How did Steen Avenue get its name?

As any armchair detective knows, chance plays a pivotal role in solving the toughest of mysteries. And the question mark surrounding how the short street that runs between Cliff Road and Prout Webb Road in the original part of Shoreham called Steen Avenue got its name is a case in point.

When two local amateur historians noticed a skip outside Number 11 in early 2022, they did a double take. Next to the tennis courts, Number 11 was one of the original houses in Steen Avenue and had been in the same family since it was built. But the Horsfall family had decided to sell. Among the abandoned household goods, the fossickers noticed some old school books that had the name Steen written in them, as well as a family Bible with names and dates that seemed to relate to Sunday school attendances long ago.

“Mr. Steen was a Salvation Army member. And he is reported to have spent Sundays on the corner of the tennis courts singing hymns.”

There was also a book about cricket with an inscription to a “Mr Horsfall” on the occasion of his retirement from Cranbourne Primary School in 1974. It got them thinking... who were the Steens and did they have anything to do with anyone called Horsfall? David and Susie Utting belong to the Flinders District Historical Society (FDHS) and share its interest in understanding the past. They were determined to do all they could to find some answers.

After scouring official records, they discovered that Leopold James Victor Laurenson Steen was the head teacher at Shoreham School between 1935 and 1942. They then looked back over oral histories that the FDHS had gathered and found a few references to Steen and his family.

“Mr. Steen was a Salvation Army member,” David Utting, the society’s data base organiser notes. “And he is reported to have spent Sundays on the corner of the tennis courts singing hymns. Mrs Steen taught music. The family lived in the school house, having renovated the old building at the back.”

But that was all. Steen was an enigma.  That is, until another chance finding. In 2022, cleaners at Red Hill Consolidated School unearthed detailed records for many local schools including the one that used to be in Shoreham. Among the papers were the Inspector’s reports from 1937-1950 and the school rolls.

Steen’s administration of the little school clearly impressed him.

“Grounds are kept in excellent order and improvements in surroundings are constantly being made,” he noted.

Of Steen’s teaching prowess he wrote: “The Head Teacher’s examinations were carefully conducted. Questions set were varied and searching and the marking was satisfactory”.

The Victorian Education Department transferred Steen to Moorooduc in 1942 and from there his career kept he and his wife, Catherine Rhoda, in Melbourne. But that wasn’t the end of the teacher’s interest in Shoreham. Four years after leaving the area, Steen bought 10 acres of land that took in what is now called Steen Avenue. Between 1950 and 1955 he subdivided the property into 39 allotments. Some of the sales facilitated what are now key features of the village.

William and Mary Wainwright bought the first lots which included the site of the old Shoreham General Store. They rebuilt the shop and ran it on the site where it still exists.

Syd Hitchcock, Ted Horne and John Wright bought Lot 29 in Cliff Road, presumably on behalf of the tennis club which soon set up courts at the site. Then in a second tranche of allotments in 1955, Steen sold or transferred what is now 11 Steen Ave to Henry Graham Horsfall. But it seemed that once he’d sold off all his land, Steen had nothing more to do with Shoreham.

So why would he bother giving the street his name?

Steen’s wife had died suddenly in 1951. Steen died in 1987, perhaps taking many of the secrets of Steen Avenue with him. But Victoria Clarissa, Steen’s sister, was married to a Horsfall. Steen might well have visited her in Shoreham Steen was listed among the attendees of the precursor of the Shoreham Community Association, the Shoreham Progress Association. He continued playing a role right through the late 1940s.

“Historical research gives an overview of facts, who owned what, who lived where, when people were born, married and died”, David Utting explains. “We have only scant knowledge of him or his family even though he held the important role of Head Teacher at the school for seven years and significantly shaped the physical outline of the village we live in today.”

David and Susie Utting are editors of the historical society’s newsletter. The society, based at the Community Hall, is open every second Monday of the month.  They encourage anyone with further information about the Steen family to drop by or to email the society on flindersdhs@gmail.com.

The society is also keen to recruit new members and volunteers. More information can be

found at flindersvillage.com.au.

Photo credits:

Steen Avenue with kookaburra:  David Utting

The original house on 11 Steen (below): David Utting

This is a first of a series on Shoreham’s history, in collaboration with the Flinders District Historical Society.

If you visit Flinders Cemetery on Stokes Street, you will come across the gravesite of a remarkable woman who made a significant contribution to Shoreham and the Peninsula in the late 19th and early 20th century.

The story of Honora Riley (above) features in HERstory: Women of the Mornington Peninsula, a public art initiative that runs from Saturday 8 March to Sunday 8 June.

Born in Ireland, Honora travelled by ship to Melbourne in 1859, with her widowed mother Ellen Byrne, two sisters and four brothers. This was a period of mass migration from Ireland due to famine and economic hardship.

Three of her brothers went searching for gold near Ballarat, but soon bought land in Shoreham, where blocks of 100 to 200 acres were being offered to settlers. Edmund Riley arrived in Victoria in 1858 and, after working the goldfields, bought two blocks on Stony Creek near the Byrnes brothers. Edmund married Honora in June 1861.

It was hard work for everyone - clearing blocks, cutting sleepers for the new railway to Frankston and establishing mixed farming properties. A row of cypress trees on the Riley’s driveway led to the house where visiting priests would traditionally stay.

These were hard-working Catholic families. Honora had 10 children, only three of whom married. She wanted her children to have a good education and her sister Johanna sold two acres to the government for a school, which opened in 1875. Her children were among the first students at Stony Creek school, renamed to Shoreham School in 1880.

Beck Davis, from the Mornington Peninsula Shire Arts and Culture, said that although Honora wasn’t a public figure, “she navigated a male dominated world with resilience”.

'The Shire is bringing historic photographs to a mainstream audience who might never otherwise see them and learn the stories they tell.”

The exhibition acknowledges that the art project focuses on the story of non-Indigenous women, as one piece of the history of the Mornington Peninsula. 

Thanks to the Shire and Susie Utting, of the Flinders District Historical Society, for the information about Honora Riley.