Indigenous groups are urging the Victorian government to halt its plan to name the new metro station in North Melbourne after George Arden, who publicly called First Nations people savages, and advocated for Indigenous children to be taken from their families and put to work as servants.

Arden street, synonymous with the North Melbourne Football Club, is named after the co-founder of the Port Phillip Gazette, one of Melbourne's first newspapers.

First reported in The Age, the new metro station in the area, to be opened next year, is set to be named after Arden, who migrated from England in 1838.

He died on the Ballarat goldfields in 1854 from "suffocation, the result of intemperance, having fallen into a trench full of water".

His 1843 essay, the Civilization of Aborigines, called for Indigenous children to be taken from their families and then put to work under the domain of "moral and sober masters".

"The savage inhabitants of Australia, as a race, are thin and scattered—their physical appearance has little to recommend it, their customs display the utmost barbarity of ideas and actions…" Arden wrote.

"Only systematic separation of the children from their parents can ever promote the chance of a civil and religious education which must in itself be founded upon habits of industry, to bring forth fruit, either in youth or man-hood."

Co-chair of the First Peoples' Assembly, Rueben Berg, was critical of the decision to name the new metro station after Arden.

"We understand these might have be widely held colonial views, but in 2024 we don't have to choose to celebrate and showcase the people that held them," the Gunditjmara man said.

"We have a vibrant and diverse history and living culture to draw from."

Mr Berg added: "With Arden's racist views now coming into light, I'd hope the government will be open to better suggestions."

Arden's criticism of First Nations people also involved the sort of bogus race science later championed by the Nazis.

"The savage of Australia makes, probably, the lowest link in the connection of the human races; he is at once the most pitiable object of legislative charity, and the most difficult subject for the labours of the missionary and the civilizer," he wrote.

He claimed "the natives" were involved in "cannibalism" and "revenge in its most revolting form is their ruling passion".

Indigenous activist Celeste Liddle told The Age the government needed to remedy historical wrongs and choose another name.

"This would provide [the government] with an opportunity not only to engage in truth-telling, but also to rectify an historical injustice," the Arrernte woman and unionist said.

She also told The Age the Arden name had been "sanitised, and indeed celebrated, due to its connection with the North Melbourne Football Club".

"So, this provides an opportunity for change and education," she said.

A Metro Tunnel spokesperson said the stations were named following "extensive consultation with stakeholders and the public, with more than 50,000 submissions received".

"Arden was the most popular nomination during the station naming process, and is consistent with other well-known landmarks in the area – Arden Street and Arden Street Oval."