The Hawthorn Tramways Trust was formed pursuant to the Melbourne to BurwoodTramways Act, 1914 to construct and manage electric tramways within the cities of Melbourne, Richmond, Hawthorn, and Camberwell; and for the acquisition of a horse tramway from the Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company. The Trust operated the Hawthorn tram depot and was also responsible for the acquisition of Wattle Park in the suburb of Burwood in 1916. The HTT was the only early electric tram operator to open a route into the inner city, although the CBD and inner suburbs were well served at that time by the extensive Melbourne cable tramway system. The main route operated was from Princes Bridge to Burwood, with a branch line to Wattle Park. The Trust also took over the MTOC's Hawthorn horse tram, and the electric tramway that replaced it operated as a shuttle service between the Richmond cable tram terminus and Hawthorn Depot. On 6 April 1916 the first section of the Trust's tramways to open was that from the Depot at the corner of Riversdale Road and Power Street in Hawthorn, to the City terminus in Batman Avenue at Princes Bridge. The section to Auburn Road was brought into operation on 7 May, with the line to Bowen Street, Camberwell - just past the Junction, commencing services at the end of that month. The final section to Boundary Road in Burwood was finally reached on 10 June; with the Power Street and Burwood Road tramway to Hawthorn Bridge opening on 21 June 1916, the HTT had reached its maximum mileage. Passenger services were initially provided by 10 small four-wheel and 10 larger Maximum Traction bogie cars, all built by Duncan & Fraser of Adelaide. It was soon realised that these were totally inadequate for the traffic offered, and 4 Maximum Traction bogie trams were purchased from the neighbouring Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust in August 1916; although these had also been built by Duncan & Fraser only four years previously, they were of a different design to the Trust's other tramcars and proved to be not as good. A repeat order of 15 cars to the original designs was placed with the builders: 8 of these were Maximum Traction bogie cars, and the remaining 7 were four-wheel trams. Due to a combination of circumstances, the smaller trams were never used, and the bodies were sold to the Footscray Tramway Trust. Unusually, the Trust's trams were painted in predominantly French Grey - at a time that nearly all other trams in Melbourne were painted in variations of brown liveries. The Trust was dissolved on 20 February 1920, and control passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board. All but five of the trams built for the HTT saw further service after their time in Melbourne, being sold to other operators. A number of these tramcars have been preserved, including Tram 8 at the Melbourne Tram Museum; of the 24 surviving tramcars, 21 are operating at various tram museums across Australia as well as overseas.
