History of Cotham Ward

Cotham was a settlement from the early 1850s, near Wellington Street east of Denmark Street where the two roads from the river crossings met. The roads then diverged and travelled to settlers along the river or along the Main Gippsland Road due east.

It was soon overshadowed by the larger Village of Kew, also established in the 1850s just north along the road to Bulleen, later called High Street.

The Main Gippsland Road was generally known as the White Horse Road after the hotel in the Box Hill district, but on the Kew side of Burke Road it retained its name as the Cotham-road, the road to Cotham.

Cotham Ward contains parts of the suburbs of Kew, Balwyn, Balwyn North