Stonnington

Distinguished and Famous people from Stonnington

🏡 Robin Boyd

Architect and writer Robin Boyd made South Yarra a place to test his ideas about Australian housing. He designed his Walsh Street family home in 1957, and the family occupied it in 1959. Two open-plan pavilions arranged around a courtyard offered a different approach to domestic space, while an unusual roof relied on steel cables suspended between large beams. The house connected architectural experiment with the everyday business of family life. Preserved by the Robin Boyd Foundation, it also holds furniture and an archive that reveal the creative world around him. Here a famous architect's local connection can still be explored room by room.

📐 Brian Bannatyne Lewis

Brian Bannatyne Lewis grew up in Kooyong Road, Armadale, after his family moved from Tasmania in 1909. He attended the local state school and Wesley College before studying architecture. Later work ranged from London railway stations to University House in Canberra and leadership of architectural education at the University of Melbourne. He began the university’s new architecture school in a dozen army huts assembled on campus, then helped secure a purpose-built home for it. Retirement brought writing as well as watercolours: his memoir Sunday at Kooyong Road returned to the childhood setting that had preceded the buildings and university battles.

🎨 Murray Griffin

Murray Griffin was born at Malvern in 1903 and attended Adwalton Preparatory School before further schooling and art training. He became known for richly coloured linocuts, particularly images of birds, and later served as an official war artist. Captured after the fall of Singapore, he recorded daily life at Changi in paintings and drawings made with whatever materials he could obtain. He also taught fellow prisoners. After the war he returned to teaching and continued his own art. Malvern is a documented birthplace and early school setting in a life that produced both vivid nature prints and an extraordinary record of captivity.

🎭 Frank Thring

Frank Thring was born at Armadale in 1926, the son of the film and theatre entrepreneur of the same name. Childhood screen appearances preceded a career whose imposing villains reached international audiences in Ben-Hur, El Cid and other historical spectacles. Back in Melbourne he appeared in thirty-five productions for the company that became Melbourne Theatre Company, while television introduced his sardonic humour to a wider public. His appearance as Moomba’s king in 1982 confirmed a popularity extending well beyond theatre audiences. Armadale is his birthplace, before the stage presence, memorable voice and formidable collection of screen tyrants made him instantly recognisable.