Hadfield

Hadfield is a residential suburb between Glenroy and Fawkner, 12 km north of central Melbourne. When the suburb was named it was in the southern part of Broadmeadows Shire, and it was named after Rupert Hadfield, a former shire president.

Hadfield was 2 km from the Glenroy railway station at its nearest point and now includes the southern part of the Fawkner cemetery.

Until the 1950s parts of Hadfield were used for sheep grazing. First marketed as the Park Estate in the late 1940s, Hadfield was notorious for quagmire roads with rocks that took sumps out of motor vehicles. The water seepage through the area was reduced by a retarding basin built in Box Forest Road. A primary school in Exeter Street (at first named North Park) was opened in 1964. Even by then there were unmade roads in Hadfield, and the last of them was sealed in 1968.

A shopping centre was established on the western edge of Hadfield, including a supermarket, and smaller corner store facilities are on other perimeters. Hadfield also has neighbourhood reserves, a community centre and a Catholic school. By the 1990s the suburb had completed its first life cycle of families, and the State primary and high schools were closed in 1996. Belle Vue Park and Westbreen primary schools are just outside Hadfield's boundaries.

Hadfield was gazetted as a suburb in 1999 and before then it was part of Glenroy. Its census populations have been:

At the 2011 census residents' languages spoken at home and their religious affiliation included: