Young and Jackson Hotel
Young and Jackson is a historic hotel in Melbourne, located at the corner of Flinders Street and Swanston Street. The site was bought by John Batman in 1837, who built a home for his children there. It later became a school in 1839, and warehouses were built after the school was razed in 1853.
The Princes Bridge Hotel opened on 1 July 1861. It was started by John P. Toohey and his brother. In 1875 it was renamed Young and Jackson after two Irish diggers, Henry Figsby Young and Thomas Joshua Jackson, who took over the hotel.
The building is a union of five smaller buildings. The original 1853 blue-stone building was a three-storey house with a butcher shop on the ground floor. It was extended and, by the 1920s, the exteriors were painted to match. Since the 1920s, large advertising signs have dominated the outside.
Ownership changed over the years. The Koegh family owned the freehold for 123 years until Marcel Gilbert bought it in 1979. Today the hotel is owned by the Endeavour Group.
Young and Jackson is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register as Young and Jackson's Princess Bridge Hotel (designated 31 May 1989).
The hotel is famous for the nude painting Chloé by Jules Joseph Lefebvre, painted in 1875. The life-size work was bought in 1908 for 800 pounds and was hung at the National Gallery of Victoria for a short time in 1883 before being moved to the hotel. It was damaged in 1943 when an American serviceman threw a beer at it.
Facilities include about 5 rooms, 2 restaurants and 4 bars. The hotel is near Flinders Street Station, with tram routes 35, 70 and 75 serving the area.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:34 (CET).