Historical information

This photograph taken between 1883-1888, shows the Steam Packet Inn, which was at the end of Stanley Street in Warrnambool, close to the Breakwater and Port of Warrnambool. It was renamed later as the Lady Bay Hotel.

THE STEAM PACKET INN

The Steam Packet Inn was originally located at the end of the first jetty that ran out into Lady Bay.

It was purchased by Manifold and Bostock in 1854 with the first building being a private BOND STORE. An old horse-drawn tramway went past the Bond Store and out onto the Jetty, providing a method of transporting goods.

The Bond Store was converted in 1863 into a hotel named the Western Steam Packet and then called the STEAM PACKET HOTEL or INN, a stone building.

The Steam Packet Inn building was owned by E.D. Evans of the firm of Evans and Gleeson, livery stables.

The Steam Packet Inn’s licensee between 1883-1888 was B.C. Jewell.

In 1889 the building was reconstructed and a second storey added. At this time (1889-1890) the name was changed to the BAY VIEW HOTEL. The hotel was extensively damaged by the first of the two earthquakes in Warrnambool in 1903.

The hotel was renamed LADY BAY in 1954 and altered and enlarged. It then occupied the site of two former hotels, the Bayview and the Prince of Wales.

When the Lady Bay Hotel was demolished a few years ago to make way for the Lady Bay Apartments the original walls of the old Steam Packet Hotel were still clearly visible inside the main bar area.

STEAM PACKET INN and BOND STORE at FLAGSTAFF HILL MARITIME VILLAGE

(Note that there are two buildings at Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village, a Manifold and Bostock Bond Store and a Steam Packet Inn with a licensee, B. Jewell (1883-1888), both remembering the one building that incorporated these two institutions in Warrnambool’s past. The current Steam Packet Inn in the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village has an image of one the licensee's B.C. Jewell. Today The Steam Packet Inn, provides Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village with a great venue to host some of our events through the year and can be used for functions upon request.)

[References; Fact Sheet - Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village; local historian Glenys Phi8lpot]

Significance

The subject of this photograph, the Steam Packet Inn, is of local historical significance for its role in the port of Warrnambool shipping trade in the mid to late 1800's.

Physical description

Photograph of B C Jewell's Steam Packet Inn, Warrnambool, 1883-1888.