Whelan the Wrecker

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Whelan the Wrecker is a demolition company based in Melbourne which became infamous in the 1960s and later in the 1980s for its role in the destruction of much of the grand Victorian buildings of Marvellous Melbourne that the city had become famous for, many of them along Collins Street's "golden mile".

The ‘Whelan the Wrecker Is Here’ sign became a powerful symbol of the desire for urban renewal and social change in Victoria, Australia, which was commonly labelled as "progress". Among the few demolition companies in Melbourne during the era of the 1960s to 1980s, when most of Melbourne's Victorian buildings were demolished, Whelan the Wrecker was the biggest. The movement inspired the formation of the National Trust of Victoria.

The wreckers were primarily responsible for executing a City of Melbourne by-law in 1951 which called for the demolition of all CBD buildings which cast iron verandahs, supposedly aimed at removing the risk of pedestrians accidentally colliding with a pole. The act in fact resulted in the demolition by Whelan the Wrecker of many of Melbourne's much loved buildings well before heritage legislation took effect in the late 1980s, and the city which could claim more decorative cast iron than any city in the world^[1] had suddenly found cast iron in the CBD to be extremely rare.

The company itself is a four generation family business which has operated since 1896, briefly ceasing operations in 1991/2, but continues to this day.^[2]

Despite the Whelan's unsavoury reputation, unlike many of the planners and businesses of various eras whose agenda was achieved by the demolitions, the owners have expressed always having an appreciation for heritage. This is evidenced in a biography A City Lost & Found" Whelan the Wrecker's Melbourne by Robyn Annear published in 2006, which claims that many of the parts from the buildings were actually salvaged and preserved by the wreckers.^[3]

Some of the more famous buildings which were demolished by Whelan the Wrecker include:

Colonial Mutual Life (Equitable Life Assurance Society) Building (corner of Collins and Elizabeth Street) in 1960
Federal Hotel (former Federal Coffee Palace) (corner of Collins and King Streets)
Eastern Markets (bounded by Collins Street, Market Street and William Street)
Western Markets (bounded by Bourke, Exhibition and Little Collins Streets)

[edit] In popular culture

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds wrote and released a song called "Whelan the Wrecker" in 1989 on The Road Goes to Nowhere album which was inspired by the urban myths of Whelan the Wrecker.