[1] Traditionally a working class area noted for its large Italian and Greek communities, Brunswick is currently known for its bohemian culture and strong arts and live music scenes.

It also encompasses the northern section of Lygon Street, synonymous with the Italian community of Melbourne, which forms its border with Brunswick East.

In 1849, one of the original land purchasers, Michael Dawson, completed work on an ivy-covered mansion on his property called Phoenix Park.

Dawson cited his address not as Brunswick but as Philiptown, after a town in Ireland which has since reverted to its original name of Daingean.

Henry Search opened a butcher's shop in 1850, on the south-west corner of Albert Street and Sydney Road.

Brunswick provided a convenient place for lunch, before the diggers reached the beginnings of the roads to the goldfields, near present-day Essendon.

A small village sprang up to meet the needs of the travellers, near the present day Cumberland Arms Hotel.

In the 1850s, quarries and a large brickworks established in Brunswick, using the local clay and bluestone, quickly became the largest industry in the area.

The line ran directly into the Hoffmans Brickworks, reflecting the importance of the brick-making industry to the local community.

Remnants of the brickyards are still visible in some parts of Brunswick but most of the yards have long been converted to residential housing or parks.

Textiles became a large industry in the area in the early decades of the 20th century, while quarrying declined with the depletion of reserves.

[citation needed] In the latter half of the 1920s, thousands of Brunswick residents worked in the textile and rope manufacturing industries.

[6] "Free Speech" campaigns occurred in Brunswick during 1933, as protestors countered the actions of police who sought to prevent "street meetings" of communists.

[9] By June 1933, Brunswick residents and local council members were criticising the police action, and Councillor Wylie stated: "Without any discretion, mounted troopers drove men, women, and children off the footpaths in Sydney road into the path of traffic on Friday nights.

"[8] In the post-World War II era, Brunswick became the home of a large number of migrants from southern Europe, particularly from Italy, Greece and Malta.

In 2004, Brunswick and nearby Carlton were the location of several murders in what has been widely reported in Melbourne's media as an "underworld war".

Commercial activity is mainly centred on Sydney Road and Lygon Street in neighbouring Brunswick East.

During the Great Depression in 1933, Brunswick was the site of free speech meetings by members of the Unemployed Workers Movement, who were harassed and suppressed by the police.

Brunswick has long been a stronghold of left-wing politics in Melbourne, with the federal and state parliamentary seats held by the Australian Labor Party with very comfortable margins.

[10] However, as well as the "mainstream" left, Brunswick and nearby suburbs have for many years been a holdout of other left-wing parties, radical socialists, and anarchists.

In 2018 the Victorian state electoral district of Brunswick elected a Greens member, Tim Read, for the first time.

[11] The Brunswick Progress Association, formed in 1905, has had an active role in representing residents, particularly on local issues to Merri-bek Council, but also at the state and federal levels.

In the 1980s, Brunswick's major nightspot was the Bombay Rock, a notoriously dangerous venue that saw considerable violence between ethnic groups.

[citation needed] The Sarah Sands Hotel has hosted tours from a number of local and international acts, mostly punk, skinhead, goth or alternative in nature.

Certain municipal administrative functions still operate from the Brunswick Town Hall, while the former council offices are now used by community organisations.

Brunswick East High School, which had been located on Albert Street, was closed permanently due to low student enrolments in 1992 and demolished and replaced by Rendazzo Park and townhouses.

At their base, one of the brick kilns has been preserved, though the remainder of this site has been redeveloped as medium-density attached housing and low-rise apartment blocks.

The Brunswick Community Health Centre, on Glenlyon Road, completed in the late 1980s, presents a collection of eclectic, differently coloured forms juxtaposed on a small site.

Being one of Melbourne's oldest suburbs, Brunswick has a large number of places of heritage significance, in the form of individual buildings as well as urban conservation precincts covering entire streets or substantial parts of them.

Note: Moreland Council demographic data – look for the page numbers in the text of the document (centre, bottom etc.)