Lalor: The Making of a Suburb

Lalor’s remarkable history as a housing co-operative has been brought vividly to life by Australian National University research fellow Moira Scollay in a new book entitled Lalor: The Peter Lalor Home Building Co-operative 1946-2012, published by UNSW Press.

The book is based on an ANU doctoral thesis completed as part of an ARC Linkage grant in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts.

“This was a real labour of love. Lalor is a wonderful community with a marvelous history. There are lessons here for today’s policy-makers,” Dr Scollay said.

Faced with a chronic housing shortage, returned serviceman from the Australian Army Pay Corps set up a building co-operative in 1946 to help young families fulfill their dreams of home ownership.

“Returned serviceman thought: ‘We didn’t come back for this’. So all parties pooled their resources and worked together to bring home ownership for all one step closer,” Dr Scollay said.
The following year swampy land was acquired some 13 miles from Melbourne CBD and over the next few years 200 weatherboard or brick veneer, architect-designed homes were created – establishing what is now known as Lalor.

The Peter Lalor Building Co-operative aimed for much more than housing however – a hospital, school, theatre and community centre were to be built – generating more than 150 jobs.
“They were at the vanguard of modern pre-fabricated building techniques and tile and timber industries were created to support the home building effort.”

Worldwide such initiatives have been deemed so successful in responding to social change, resilient in times of economic uncertainty and a great way to create jobs and build communities, that the United Nations has declared 2012 the International Year of Co-operatives.

In keeping with the ethos of such schemes, the Lalor co-operative didn’t run at a profit. All money made was to be reinvested back into the scheme, Dr Scollay said.  However, post-war material shortages and rising prices eventually forced the co-operative into liquidation.

“I was surprised at the scale of the dream. The building co-operative aspired to a new world order, a new way of life. While this is Lalor’s story, it provides insights into the history of the co-operative and labour movements and urban and housing development in Australia.”
Dr Scollay’s thesis was jointly supported by the ANU, the City of Whittlesea in Melbourne, and a grant from the Australian Research Council. 

The Chief Investigator on the Linkage Grant, Professor Paul Pickering, said that Dr Scollay had produced an outstanding piece of research that represented a significant outcome for the University, the ARC and the local community.

The book will be officially launched at a Council event at 3pm on Thursday 16 February and an exhibition – illustrating the toil and successes, and bringing the co-operative to life – will be held in Council’s Great Hall from 16-29 February before it will tour libraries throughout the municipality.