Monahan's Road is in Cranbourne; it runs from Sladen Street up to Breens Road. There is a park on Monahan's Road called Minihan's Reserve. However, Monahan's Road was originally called Minihan's Road after the Minihan family. So, the mystery is why is it now known as Monahan's Road and what happened to Minihan's Road?
1963 aerial of Cranbourne (photograph taken December 14, 1963).
Monahan's Road is on the left hand side of the photograph, and ends at what appears to be a ploughed area, but is now, I think, part of SP Ausnet Cranbourne Terminal Station. You can see the beginnings of a new housing estate, centered either side of Camms Road, to the left of the Railway Line. This includes streets such as Evelyne Avenue, Virginia Avenue, Rosalie Avenue etc. Also off Camms Road and between the railway line and the South Gippsland Highway, you can see the development of Circle Drive, to the north of this is Clairmont Avenue and Fenfield Street . What looks like a quarry is now Donnelly Reserve.
Detail of page 128 of the 1973 Edition 6 of the Melway Street Directory.
Monahans Road is just to the left of blue Cranbourne heading.
The Minihan family were listed in the Shire of Cranbourne Rate Books from 1863 (the first year we have access to these records), when William Minihan is shown as owning 54 acres in Section 5, Lot 9 in the Parish of Lyndhurst. The general location is shown on the Parish Plan, below.
Detail of Lyndhust Parish Plan - the star marks Section 9, the location of the Minihan property.
Lyndhurst, County of Mornington / drawn and reproduced at the Department of Lands and Survey, Melbourne.
State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/288705
Cranbourne residents, 1930s and 1940s
This is a sketch map produced for the publication of the book Cranbourne: a town with a history, published by the City of Casey in 1996. (You can access an on-line copy of this book here). A long term Cranbourne resident, Mrs Joan Kelsall, identified the location of Cranbourne residents in the 1930s and 1940s and shows John Minihan's house on Monahan's Road.
William Minihan married Mary Coffee in 1854 in Limerick in Ireland and they very soon after migrated to Victoria. The had nine children, I can't find the registration records for them all, so some dates are a educated guess -
Mary Ann - died aged four months old in 1855 in Collingwood.
Patrick - born c.1856 and died in 1926 in Cranbourne, aged 70.
Mary Ann - born c.1858 and died aged 5 years old in Cranbourne in 1863.
John - born c.1860 and died aged 3 years old in Cranbourne in 1863.
Catherine - born 1862, birth registered at Lyndhurst and died in 1947 at Northcote, aged 84.
Mary Ann - born c. 1864 and died aged 32 in Cranbourne in 1896.
John - born 1866, birth registered at Lyndhurst and died in 1936 in Dandenong, aged 69.
Ellen Francis - born 1868, birth registered at Cranbourne and died in 1898 in Cranbourne, aged 31. Johanna - born 1870, birth registered at Cranbourne; married Patrick McGrath in 1896 and died 1964 in Murrumbeena aged 94.
William died on January 25, 1911 and Mary died March 10, 1905 and they are both buried at Cranbourne Cemetery, along with some of their children. William's Probate papers showed he owned various parcels of land in the area - in the Parish of Langwarrin - Crown Allotment (CA) 7A of 100 acres, CA 7B of 20 acres and CA 7C of 16 acres, all with no improvements other than fencing. I believe this land is off Brown's Road, east of Smith's Road in Cranbourne South.
Detail of Langwarrin Plan, showing William Minihan's property.
Langwarrin, State Library of Victoria http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/160492
William's land in the Parish of Lyndhurst consisted of - 27 acres part of Crown portions 9 and 10, lot B, with a four roomed weather-board house, hay shed, barn and stable; 26 acres, Lot 4 of Crown Portion 9 with a wattle and daub house and 2 acres of orchards; 26 acres Lot 5 of Crown Portion 9 with a cow shed and fencing; 26 acres Lot 8, Crown Portion 7 with fencing. All up the land was valued at just over £1474 and he also had furniture and tools valued at £17.
We know from William's Will and from the Shire of Cranbourne Rate books that William, John, Patrick and later Catherine Minihan owned land in Crown Allotments 7, 9 and 10 from at least 1863 until 1936 and we know that this is exactly the same area where Monahan's Road is today
Minihan entry, Shire of Cranbourne Rate books 1925-1926.
Minihan entry, Shire of Cranbourne Rate books 1935-1966.
There are newspaper references to show that there was once a road called Minihans's Road in Cranbourne, as we can see below.
Cranbourne Shire contract to form and gravel Minihan's Road
South Bourke and Mornington Journal, November 7 1900 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70046498
Cranbourne Shire Engineer's report. The name has been spelt incorrectly, bit still clearly referring to the road where the Minihan family lived.
Dandenong Advertiser September 6 1917 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88818645
Death notice of John Minihan in 1936, of Minihan's Road, Cranbourne
The Age February 17, 1936, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article205239716
There is clear evidence that Monahan's Road was originally called Minihan's Road. We know that there used to be a Minihan's Road in Cranbourne; we know that the Minihan family lived on what is now called Monahan's Road and that they owned land on either side of Monahan's Road for seventy years. The mystery is, why was it changed? I do not know, but I suspect it was just slackness in regard to the spelling and the wrong spelling was eventually accepted.
And what is even more ironic, is that the road near their Cranbourne South property, Crown Allotments 7A, 7B and 7C, Parish of Langwarrin, referred to above, seems also to have been known locally Minahan's Road or South Lyndhurst Road. There is no possibility that the reference below would refer to what is now Monahan's Road.
A reference to Minahan's Road in South Lyndhurst (now Cranbourne South_.
Dandenong Advertiser, August 9 1917 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88818493
What are the chances that an early land owning family in the Cranbourne area could, over 100 years ago have had two roads named for them and now there are none? In sporting parlance, if I was a Minihan, I would say 'we was robbed'.
Sources - Shire of Cranbourne Rate books; Indexes to the Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages; Minihan family trees on Ancestry.com; Willian Minihan's Probate papers at the Public Records Office of Victoria, see here.
A version of this post, which I wrote and researched, appears on my work blog, Casey Cardinia Links to Our Past
