br>
Bendigo from its earliest days has been one of the major Cornish Australian settlement areas. In 1881 46.9 percent of fathers and 41.4 percent of mothers in Bendigo were born in Cornwall. This was in addition to those Cornish who were born in Australia or places as far afield as Mexico or Brazil. The Cornish in Bendigo outnumbered the combined strength of their Irish and Scottish counterparts.
The architect William Charles Vahland left a major mark on Bendigo during this period. He is credited as innovating what was the most popular residential design of the period, low cost cottages with verandahs decorated in iron lace which became a popular style right across Victoria. He transformed the Bendigo Town Hall between 1878 to 1886 into a grand building and designed more than eighty more public and private buildings, including the Alexandra Fountain, the Masonic Temple (now the Capital Theatre ) and the Mechanics Institute and School of Mines (now the Bendigo Regional Institute of TAFE), "Fortuna Villa' in Golden Square, (which was the home of "Quartz King" George Lansell), the Law Courts, former Post Office and the expanded Shamrock Hotel in Pall Mall.
A tram network began in 1890 and was used for public transport.
20th century
Pall Mall and Charing Cross in 1909. Bendigo had become a bustling city with a large transport network.
As gold mining operations were reduced, Bendigo from the 1930s consolidated as a manufacturing and regional service centre and continued to grow steadily
