Mayor of Melbourne in 1846, he established the first punt to cross the eastern Yarra around the current Bridge Road area in 1842.

The cost was said to be around the equivalent of 45 cents (expensive for the time) but it was very successful and assisted the development and sale of the original Hawthorn allotments.

The house was sold after Palmers death in 1871 and subdivided by entrepreneur George Coppin to create the landmark Saint James Estate.

The homestead block, west of Calvin Street was acquired by pioneer squatter Henry Creswick, whose family remained there for 70 years.

[citation needed] Hawthorn expanded rapidly during the 1880s land boom when grand Victorian houses built in subdivisions like the Grace Park Estate spoke of an upper class suburb.

By the 1880s working-class families lived in single-fronted, wood-blocked cottages on low-lying subdivisions like those forming Melville, Smart, Barton and Connell streets.

Many worked in Hawthorn's clay brickworks found principally in Auburn, east of the village and around the lower parts of Gardiners Creek.

During the depression, residential sections of Hawthorn were equally as run-down as those in determinedly working-class Richmond across the Yarra River.

[6] Grace Park Estate, Hawthorn is located on a gently-sloping site in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and contains a residential subdivision to the north and public gardens and sporting facilities to the south.

Grace Park Estate, Hawthorn, consists of the roadways and public open space within the boundaries of Glenferrie Road, the Melbourne-Lilydale railway reserve, Power Street and the laneway between Mary Street and Kinkora Road; excluding land associated with the Glenferrie Oval Grandstand which is already listed in the Victorian Heritage Register as H0890.

The house originally comprised 8 rooms but had grown to 18 by 1870 and after Lynch's death was occupied by Mrs Robert Colvin Clark's Ladies College in 1874.

Instead areas to the south were unsold and acquired by the Hawthorn City Council and developed for public purposes in the twentieth century.

The residential section to the north of the precinct retains the main pattern of gently curving crescents and perpendicular roads.

The bisecting of the residential estate by the Kew railway line had a large impact on development, necessitating the insertion of a cutting and the construction of bridges to enable the continuation of the crescents.

[9] The Hawthorn Town Hall building was designed by John Beswicke, and opened with a grand ball in October 1889.

Weekly dances (Saturday nights), debutante balls, concerts, wedding receptions, soup kitchens, immunisation programmes and more recently craft markets are just some of the activities which have taken place in the beautiful ballroom of Hawthorn Town Hall.

Operated and owned by John Conran, the hotel was the site for many significant meetings that were instrumental in the development of Hawthorn.

Hawthorn is particularly noted for the number, range and quality of its restaurants, many of which reflect the strong ethnic diversity of the region.

Old Scotch Soccer Club are located at HA Smith Reserve and compete in the Victorian State League Division 2.