The claim
Melbourne's most famous corner pub faces Flinders Street Station and has poured beer since opening as the Princes Bridge Hotel in 1861. Upstairs hangs Chloe, Jules Lefebvre's life-size 1875 nude, bought in 1908 and damaged by a thrown beer in 1943. The heritage building now holds several bars, a dining room and a rooftop.
What the records show
The Victorian Heritage Register has the bluestone corner building of 1853 designed as a three-storey residence with a butcher's shop on the ground floor, and records that it opened as a hotel in July 1861 with John T Toohey as licensee. Henry Figsby Young and Thomas Jackson took over the licence in 1875, extended the house with the architect John Flannigan and the builder Henry Wright, and gave it the name it still carries. Young bought Jules Lefebvre's nude Chloe in 1908 and hung it in the saloon bar, a painting that had caused a public outcry when it came to Melbourne for the International Exhibition of 1880-81, and the publicity did him no harm. He sold his leasehold in 1914 to the brewer Stephen Morell. The five buildings were united behind one facade in 1921 by the hotel architect Richard B Whittaker, who added the red glazed tile dado to fight the grime at street level; the large signs on the outside have been a feature since the 1920s. eMelbourne, the University of Melbourne's encyclopaedia of the city, published in 2008 with an entry by Andrew May drawing on Leslie A Schumer's article in the Royal Historical Society of Victoria's journal of March 1983, gives the opening a day as well as a month: the Princes Bridge Hotel opened on 1 July 1861. It differs from the register on the licensee's middle initial, John P Toohey against John T Toohey, and then carries the licence on where the register jumps to 1875 — transferred to James Hogan in 1862 and to Joshua Roberts Mooney in 1866, so the house was licensed without a break through the 1860s. It names the butcher in the 1853 building, James Graham, puts the block in John Batman's purchase of 1837 for a hundred pounds with part of the allotment bought by Henry Jennings in 1852, gives Young's and Jackson's dates as 1845-1925 and 1834-1901 and has the pair, both born in Dublin, holding the licence of Sparrow's Hotel in St Kilda before this one. It agrees on Chloe in the saloon bar in 1908 and on the sale to Morell in 1914, and takes the ownership on: Marcel Gilbert in 1979, the Bond Corporation's brewing arm in 1986, Australian Leisure and Hospitality in 1998.
| Year | What | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1861 | Claimed founding | The pub |
| c.1853 | Present building | Building fabric |
| 1861 | First record of a drinking house here | Victorian Heritage Database |
What to look for inside
- Home of Jules Lefebvre's painting 'Chloe' since 1908
- Chloe was the mascot of HMAS Melbourne
- Opposite Flinders Street Station
Visiting
Young and Jackson Hotel is in Melbourne, Australia, at 1-7 Swanston Street at Flinders Street, Melbourne VIC 3000. We do not list opening times, because they change; the pub’s own site is the place to check before you set out.
Sources
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_and_Jackson_Hotel
- www.youngandjacksons.com.au/
- drinkinghistorytours.com/melbournes-best-bars/melbourne-best-old-pubs/
- vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/810/download-report
- www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM01672b.htm
Then and now
Photographed about 1950, and today. The corner about 1950, photographed on a box camera by Robert Bolitho.
Photo: Robert Bolitho · public domain
Photo: Rexness from Melbourne, Australia · licenceKnow something we don’t?Suggest a correctionLast checked Sept 2026
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How to use it, and how to change what it says — if you have a document we have not seen, we would like to read it.
