Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant is a southern suburb of Ballarat, between the Yarrowee Creek and the Sovereign Hill historical park.

Mount Pleasant was a township for Cornish miners and their families in 1853, somewhat removed from the rowdy Ballarat gold diggings. The area is on rising land, which was the origin of its name.

The Cornish community established a Wesleyan school and a church by 1855, and these remain the nineteenth century centrepieces of the Mount Pleasant district. In 1856 Mount Pleasant became a goldfield itself and a hastily run-up town centre developed. The gold mining receded by 1860, but a permanent population remained. A new bluestone Wesleyan church was built, taking pressure off the previous structure which had served as a church and school. A government school building was opened in 1874.

The Mount Pleasant school (193 pupils, 2014) taught numerous children who became important public figures. They include three judges, an artist, David Davies, poet, Bernard O'Dowd, surgeon and Burma POW, Sir Albert Coates and Major-General Sir Leslie Morshead.

Mount Pleasant has a public reserve, local shopping, a Uniting (former Methodist) church and a municipal observatory (1918) which is on the Victorian Heritage Register.

Mount Pleasant's census populations have been: