Bennettswood

Bennettswood was a small residential locality in Burwood, 14 km south-east of central Melbourne. It was named after George and William Bennett who purchased a farm there in 1845, immediately east of Gardiners Creek where it is crossed by Burwood Highway. (Bennetts' farm site became a drive-in theatre in 1954, the first in Australia.)

The opening of the drive-in came one year after the name Bennettswood was given to the locality. It was the time when areas east of Warrigal Road were unmade roads, residues of farms and on the frontier of urban expansion. There was a tram terminus at Warrigal Road, however, which put new residents in touch with city commuting. The tram brought students to the Burwood Teachers' College (1955).

The Bennettswood shops and post office (1954), the Bennettswood bowling club (1958) and the Bennettswood primary school (also 1954) near the Burwood Teachers' College firmly established the place name. The boundaries of the locality were Gardiners Creek, Station Street and Highbury Road. Burwood Highway runs through the middle of Bennettswood.

In 1977 the tram service was extended past Bennettswood, by when housing filled all the spaces between there and Kmart at Burwood East. By the 1990s the first cycle of families at Bennettswood had grown up, and the school was closed in 1993. The adjoining Burwood high school (1955) closed six years before. In 1996 the heritage-listed Burwood primary school, just west of Gardiners Creek in the Ballyshanassy village reserve, 500 metres away, was also closed.

The tertiary education sector grew in a different direction, as the Deakin University campus absorbed the teachers' college in 1991. The University's neighbour, Mount Scopus Memorial College (1953), continues to produce above average academic results.