Derrimut

Derrimut is a suburb of the 2000s, immediately south of Deer Park and 17 km west of central Melbourne. It was named after a Port Phillip Aborigine, Darrimart or Derrimut c1810-65, of the Boonwurrung clan. His people occupied coastal land from the Werribee district to Western Port.

Derrimut is remembered for having on two occasions warned early white settlers, Fawkner and Aitken, of impending Aboriginal attacks. He was taken up by Fawkner and his portrait was painted in Hobart. His name was given to the Parish of Derrimut, south and west of Kororoit Creek and north of Werribee. He has a burial headstone in the Melbourne general cemetery.

Derrimut Parish is part of the Werribee plains, but a minor rise was given the name Mount Derrimut. It was in that vicinity that a shorthorn cattle property was developed, beginning with a bluestone house (1854) and later the Mount Derrimut homestead. The homestead complex was acquired by I.C.I. in the 1950s and later used by the University of Melbourne for an agricultural field station. It is now in the Sunshine Golf Club’s area (2007).

A Derrimut primary school opened in neighbouring Truganina in 1857, and a more permanent Derrimut school opened in 1874 at the corner of Ballarat and Station Roads. It was named Deer Park in 1890, soon after Deer Park’s subdivision estate opposite the school was put on sale. The subdivision was named Derrimut Estate. Early Derrimut received a brief mention in the 1903 Australian handbook:

In 1926 the Metropolitan Town Planning Commission recommended that the Newmarket livestock saleyards be moved to Derrimut and parts of today’s Laverton North and Sunshine West. The move did not happen, but large livestock sellers took Derrimut land for holding paddocks.

East of the former Gilbertson’s paddock there is a remnant grassland (154 hectares), neither ploughed nor cropped since 1912, rarely burnt and untouched by superphosphate. It includes wetland vegetation, four rare or vulnerable native plants and has revealed Aboriginal artefacts. There are also linear grasslands in the former Gilbertson and Angliss paddocks, threaded among industrial landholdings.

The suburb of Derrimut was detached from Deer Park in 1998. There is a drive in shopping centre on Mount Derrimut Road, a nature conservation reserve, linear reserves, sports ovals and State (719 pupils, 2014) and Catholic primary schools. Derrimut’s residential area is separated from its industrial lands by the Western Freeway and the Sunshine Golf Club’s course (2007) is on its eastern boundary.

German Pharmaceutical company Fresenius Kabi Australia announced the construction of new manufacturing plant at Derrimut for medical products to be operating by 2016.

Derrimut’s census populations have been:

Derrimut has significant Philipino and Vietnamese populations.