DID YOU KNOW ?
DID YOU KNOW ?
DID YOU KNOW ?
Plan of the proposed Werribee irrigation Colony and the Town of "Chirnside" 1889. This was one of Chaffey's schemes that began well and ended not so well. Not much was achieved although much had been promised. Courtesy Werribee District Historical Society. The original map is on the display in the museum.
GREETINGS FROM MELBOURNE
PEOPLE PLACES AND THE PAST
This project is supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants Program 2019 - Art & Heritage Collection
Culturally Sensitive Material - Condition Of Use
I am providing access to this work to support creativity, innovation and knowledge exchange. I do not endorse or support any derogatory uses of this work.
I advise that the subject of this work may include images and names of deceased people; it may also include words and descriptive terms that may be offensive to Indigenous Australians. This work is presented as part of the record of the past; contemporary users should interpret the work within that context.
Some material that I have used as a reference contains terms that reflect the book authors' views or those of the period in which the item was written or recorded, but may not be considered appropriate today. These views are not necessarily the views of myself or the project partners. While the information may not reflect current understanding, it is provided in an historical context.
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the staff of the Art and Heritage Collection City of Melbourne, the Baillieu Library University of Melbourne, The Melbourne History Workshop Faculty of Arts University of Melbourne, the State Library of Victoria, the National Library of Australia and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria in locating and researching the photographs, books, maps and the postcards in this project. It can be a laborious and time-consuming task and my thanks go to Eddie, Cressida, Kelly, Avril at City of Melbourne, Prof. Andrew May, Nicole, Mitchell and Roland at Melbourne History Workshop Faculty of Arts University of Melbourne. Special thanks is due to Roger and Tara, Lance at the Werribee Historical Society - Royal Historical Society of Victoria for their dedicated support.
One of our richest assets is our heritage and this project is a visual testament to Melbourne’s past. May it be an inspiration to us all for an equally rich future. I hope you will find this project both rewarding and a fitting tribute to our city.
Project Title : Greetings from Melbourne : People, Places and the Past
This interactive artwork has a central theme of exploring the history of Melbourne. In combination with the visual collage that represents important historical elements, there is sound, pictures, animation and augmented reality (AR) inspired by some of the City of Melbourne Art & Heritage Collections.
Summary of Project:
I have created a project that connects ART and LOCAL HISTORY. Using augmented reality there are SOUNDS, PICTURES and ANIMATIONS that are activated with an augmented reality application named ARTIVIVE. This creates a bridge between the virtual and physical world. It does this using a website and any mobile device. It allows people to hold their smartphone over the artwork and explore Block V Melbourne History through animation, pictures and video, all contained on an active website linked to the artwork https://www.xmauboy.com/cityofmelbourne
The artwork is a portal for the community to learn more about Melbourne’s long history; the people and the places. Once connected, people can continue to come back to the website and learn history in a fun and easy way.
NB: The ARTIVIVE application is free for viewers to download
When you point your phone (ANDROID or iphone/iPad) at A trigger (THE ARTWORK), then magic happens – an ‘Augmented Reality’ appears on your screen. AUGMENTED REALITY (AR) ANIMATIONs ARE INSPIRED BY SOME OF THE CITY OF MELBOURNE ART & HERITAGE COLLECTIONS.
Tap the icon " i " for further information on the right side and you will see the artwork information. Then tap the "globe" icon and it will connect you to the Melbourne Block V Elizabeth- Collins Street or Flinders - Swanston Street history site. Created by Christine Mauboy
The Artwork is the Trigger for an Augmented Reality. Indigenous People, John Batman, Melbourne City Skycrapers Silhouette, Topology and Yarra River, Victorian Native Plants Epacris - Eucalyptus - etc, Postcards of Elizabeth Street - Collins Street - Flinders Street Lane - Swanston Street dated 1900s. QR code is linked to www.xmauboy.com/cityofmelbourne main website. Created by Christine Mauboy
Augmented Reality Animations from the postcards Created by Christine Mauboy
PROLOGUE
Melbourne began as a conglomeration of tents, huts and shanties on the banks of the Yarra River. It was June 1835, that John Batman claimed the land and made his famous declaration “this will be the place for a village”. But it was a party sent by John Pascoe Fawkner, that in August, 1835, stepped ashore at the same spot and erected the first crude dwellings. Neither Batman nor Fawkner was present when the first sod was turned. More than 30 years before Batman and Fawkner arrived other attempts had been made at permanent settlement in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. In 1803 the British Government established a settlement near Sorrento, but the site proved unsuitable and was abandoned 3 months later.
The second attempt at a permanent official settlement was in 1826 on the shores of Westernport Bay, but this was also abandoned. The Hentys settled in Portland in 1834 and around the same time whalers and seamen began building rough huts at Port Fairy. Batman had asked for a land grant to pasture stock in Port Philip as early as 1827 but the British Government refused. So in May, 1835, he led his own expedition into Port Philip Bay and wrote in his diary on June 8: “the boat went up the larger river I have spoken of, which comes from the east, and I am glad to state, about 6 miles up found the river all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village”. Batman “bought” 600,000 acres of land from the Aboriginals, and returned to Launceston with his treaty, leaving eight men at Indented Head on the western shore of the Bay. Before Batman returned Fawkner sent a party with instructions to find a suitable site for settlement. His men sailed up the Yarra River and on August 20, 1835, stepped ashore at the same site Batman had chosen. They cleared some land, built a hut for stores and tools and another for themselves. Faced with what they regarded as trespassers Batman’s men moved from Indented Head and entered into joint occupation of the site. They pitched their tents to the west of Fawkner’s group near a spot that is now the south west corner of William and Collins Streets. Fawkner arrived in early October; Batman a month later. After some argument Batman persuaded Fawkner to move his group to the south side of the river. Christmas, 1835, saw Batman’s group well established on the north side of the Yarra, with Fawkner’s group on the south side.
PLACE AND MEMORY
Social memory relies on storytelling, place memory can be used to help trigger social memory through the urban landscape. Place memory is philosopher Edward S. Casey's formulation: "It is the stabilizing persistence of place as a container experiences that contributes so powerfully to its intrinsic memorability. An alert and alive memory connects spontaneously with place, finding in it features that favor and parallel its own activities. We might even say that memory is naturally place-oriented or at least place-supported".
Place memory encapsulates the human ability to connect with both the built and natural environments that are entwined in the cultural landscape. It is the key to the power of historic places to help citizens define their public pasts: places trigger memories for insiders, who have shared pasts to outsiders who might be interested in knowing about them in the present.
Place memory is so strong that many different cultures have used "memory palaces"- sequences of imaginary spaces within an imaginary landscape or buiding or series of buildings as mnemonic devices. Many cultures have also attempted to embed public memory in narrative elements of buildings, from imperial monuments in Augustan Rome to doctrinal sculptural programs for Gothic cathedrals. The importance of ordinary buildings for public memory has largely been ignored, although, like monumental architecture, common urban places like union hall, schools, and residences have the power to evoke visual, social memory.
People make attachments to places that are critical to their well-being or distress. An individual's sense of place is both a biological response to the surrounding physical environment and a cultural creation, as geographer Yi-Fu Tuan has argued. Yi- Fu Tuan sees both biology and culture forming the human connection to place, in Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis, Minn.:University of Minnesota Press,1977). He also notes that these terms may be elusive: "Architects talk about the spatial qualities of place; they can equally well talk about the locational (place) qualities of space." Tuan describes place as a pause in the flow of time: "If we see the world as a process, constantly changing, we should not be able to develop any sense of place." He argues that the experience of place engages all five senses in seeing, smelling, feeling, hearing and tasting the essence of places.
From childhood, humans come to know places through engaging all five senses, sight as well as sound, smell, taste and touch. Extensive research on perception shows the simultaneous engagement of several senses in orientation and wayfinding. Children show an interest in landmarks at three or earlier and by age five or six can read aerial maps with great accuracy and confidence, illustrating the human ability to perceive and remember the landscape.
As social relationship are intertwined with spatial perception, human attachment to place attracts researchers from many fields. Environmental pyschologist Setha Low and Irwin Altman define "place attachment" as a physchological procss similar to an infant's attachment to parental figures. They also suggest that place attachment can develop social, material, and ideological dimensions, as individuals develop ties to kin and community, own or rent land, and participate in public life as residents of a particular community.*Irwin Altman and Setha M.Low, eds., Place Attachment (New York: Plenum Publishing, 1992)
THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE
Henri Lefebvre, the French sociologist who began writing about the "production of space" over two decades ago, provides framework that can be used to relate the sense of place encountered in cultural landscape studies to the political economy. Lefebvre argues that every society in history has shaped a distinctive social space that meets its intertwined requirements for economic production and social reproductions.* Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, tr. Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, England, and Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1991). Most original is his analysis of the space of social reproduction, which ranges over different scales, including the space in and around the body (biological reproduction), the space of housing (the reproduction of the labor force), and the public space of the city (the reproduction of social relations).
Lefevbre suggests that the production of space is essential to the inner workings of the political economy. A small factory on a stream near a waterfall, with a boarding house and a couple of workers cottages, announces Melbourne in the earliest stages of production; a vast housing complex next to a suburban tract of some identical houses exemplifies some industries and their work force one hundred and fifty years later. But Lefevbre also sees commonalities between the tract houses, the identical suites in corporate skyscrapers, and the identical shops in malls, suggesting that a quality of late capitalist space is the creation of many identical units- similar but not "placeless" places- by the large commercial real estate market that has become, in itself, a distinguishing feature of the economy. And just as analysts begin to count the environmental costs that this production of endless units of salable space may entail, so the cultural costs in term of identity, history, and meaning can be weighed.
Lefevbre approach to the production of space can provide a framework for constructing some specific social histories of urban places. Depending on the kinds of arguments historians want to make and the resources available in oral histories, social histories, and buildings.
URBAN PUBLIC HISTORY
A strategy to foster urban public history should certainly exploit place memory as well as social memory. For example place memory might include personal memory of one's arrival in the city and emotional attachments there, cognitive memory of its street names and street layout, and body memory of routine journeys to home and work. Cognitive memory is understood to be "encoded" according to semantic, verbal, and visual codes, and seems especially place-oriented because images are "much better retained than abstract items such concrete items undergo a double encoding in terms of visual coding as well as verbal expression.
Because the urban landscape stimulates visual memory, it is an important but underutilized resource for public history. Stories about place could convey all these themes, and memories of places would probably trigger more stories. More sense of possibilities of place memory is conveyed by turning our attention to photographic collections and postcards, as a way to document vanishings buildings/neighborhoods developed in the era 1800s - 1900s. This could be the beginning of documenting a three-dimentional urban landscape history with a strong social component.
Melbourne from the falls, 30 June 1837. A rocky barrier that blocked access to the Yarra River was used as a crossing place by local Aborigines. This view was painted in 1837 by surveyor Robert Russell from the south bank of the river. The house directly opposite on the north bank may have belonged to John Fawkner. Link
MELBOURNE - THE RIVER
The aboriginal name of the Yarra River was Birr-arrung, but it was inaccurately named by J.H. Wedge, one of the members of Batman’s Port Phillip Association. When he noticed his aboriginal boys pointing at the river and using the words ‘yarra-yarra’. It was only later, when he was again travelling with Aborigines, that he realized that they were using the same words for a different stream. After questioning, he discovered that yarra yarra meant ‘flowing-flowing’. In the early days of the settlement it was spelled ‘Yarre Yarre’, ‘Yarrow Yarrow’ and ‘Yarro Yarro’; and although Wedge’s mistake was common knowledge, the name was never changed except to be shortened to Yarra.
Today the Yarra is a quite, well ordered stream; but when named it was a twisted, cantankerous river, which was described by Wedge as ‘so choked with the trunks and branches of trees and other obstructions that it renders its navigation a matter of difficulty and delay to even the smallest of coasters’. Moreover, the river flooded the city regularly, and attracted trades which needed water but transformed it into a municipal sewer.
For years most shipping anchored in Port Phillip Bay off Port Melbourne or Williamstown, and passengers for the city were taken ashore in flat-bottomed boats and barges. From Williamstown it was an uncomfortable 9 mile journey by horse or bullock dray, or about the same distance up the river in some kind of small boat. Port Melbourne was only 3 miles overland from the city; but at the end of that journey the traveler arrived at the Yarra, which had no bridge to the main settlement on the other bank. (1 mile is equal to 1.609344 kilometers)
As a result, ferries had to be used from the first days of the settlement. The first regular ferry was a small row-boat worked by Paddy Byrne and his daughter, Polly. No animals could be carried, so horses and cattle were swum or walked across the Yarra at a reef or series of rapids close to Princes Bridge.
It was just above this point, that in 1838 William Watts established the first punt. His conveyance was not unlike 2 huge bullock drays lashed together, but it was christened with due ceremony the Melbourne. The splash of champagne was accompanied by the opening of many other bottles by more orthodox methods, and the celebrations were continued in nearby taverns.
A little later a larger punt was introduced by John Hodgson, a future mayor of Melbourne; but a diarist wrote that it was ‘still very unpleasant when the bullocks and passengers got mixed up’. Hodgson’s punt was pulled backwards and forwards by a rope, and passengers were expected to lend a hand. One evening a merry brickmaker, returning to his camp across the river, gave a demonstration of tight rope walking, which provided much amusement until he fell into the river and spoiled his act by drowning.
Some of the punts were dangerous and carried far too many passengers. The settlers recognized the need for a bridge, but no definite action was taken until 1840 when the Melbourne Bridge Company was formed with the intention of building an ‘elegant and substantial suspension bridge at a cost of £ 4500. Nothing came of the plan; but the company took over the river punts and Aborigines were carried free.
By 1845 the company had built the first bridge across the Yarra. It was only 17 feet wide, cost £ 530, and was erected just below Princes Bridge. By the time it was completed the bridge was quite inadequate, so in the following year the foundations of a much larger structure were laid beside it. The toll gate on the small bridge was kept by Patrick Doherty, who was credited with saving 9 lives in 4 years. Patrick was presented with £ 25 when the new and more splendid bridge was officially opened in November 1850 as part of the Separation celebrations in Melbourne. (1 feet is equal to 30.48 centimeters)
This bluestone and granite bridge had a span of 150 feet and was one of the longest bridges of its kind in the world at that time, being only 2 feet shorter than London Bridge. Massive 2.5 ton granite blocks were used extensively in the construction, and each one took 8 bullocks 2 days of hard work to drag to the river. The bridge was named Prince of Wales, later Edward VII, and cost considerably more than the estimated £10.000. However, it helped enormously to develop the area south of the Yarra.
The celebrations of the opening day began very early for the unfortunate Governor La Trobe, who was serenaded by a saxhorn band at 6 o’clock in the morning. This was followed by the singing of their performance with a number of stirring polkas.
This preview of the days celebrations so terrified poor Mrs. La Trobe, who was already suffering from headache, that she asked Georgiana McCrae to take her place. Georgiana, one of Melbourne’s liveliest chroniclers, tells how she took her place ‘equipped in Madame’s black satin polonaise jacket, trimmed with Australian swansdown and my own silk bonnet’.
After the salute of guns La Trobe declared the bridge open, and a colourful procession marched off through the city. The Governor drank the Queen’s health in ale drawn from a barrel left to keep cool under a cart, and afterwards strolled to the Botanic Gardens to watch sticky buns being enjoyed by thousands of children.
Princes Bridge was replaced in 1886 by the present one which is 99 feet wide and 400 feet long and very similar in appearance to Blackfriars Bridge in London. The spandrels are ornamented with the coats of arms of the various institutions which contributed to its cost. (1 feet is equal to 0.3048 meters)
Queen’s bridge should have been the first permanent crossing over the Yarra, because from the earliest days a dam was suggested on the river at this point. A reef ran almost across the river and was covered by only one foot of water at low tide. More than 100 migrants were working on the dam wall and Aborigines were preparing the necessary mortar when successive floods tore down the structure, and it was finally abandoned. The first bridge was erected there in the 60s but became so shaky after 20 years that a new one was built.
While bridges were being added to the river, ferries and punts continued to operate, for the river crossings could not keep pace with the increasing traffic in the city. As late as 1886 David Newell paid £ 2,222 annually as lessee of the Spencer Street ferry and the King Street ferry was not closed until 1890.
The earliest settlers drew their own water from the Yarra but in 1830 pumps were erected on the river banks by a group of monopolists, who hired them out to water carriers. These men sold their loads at prices ranging from 3/ to 10/ a barrel of 120 gallons. The water cart drawn by a horse was simply a barrel laid horizontally on 2 shafts, with a trap door in the top to take the water and at the bottom a leather hose which was pushed through a square hole in the back fence close to the water barrel.
It was strange that the city fathers had to be forced into providing a public water supply, when a good stream of fresh water ran through the town. In 1840 public protest meeting were held about the quality of the water being supplied by the carriers, and many contended that this was responsible for the high death rate in the settlement. At one period 20 people a week were dying of a mysterious disease called ‘colonial fever’. Nothing came of it until 1842 when Melbourne was incorporated a town and the Council asked New South Wales for a loan to finance the project, the proposal was refused and the water carriers continued to supply the town.
It was then suggested that reservoirs be erected at the eastern and western hills of the town and that water be pumped to them from the Yarra, preferably from above Dight’s Falls, because the lower reaches of the river were being contaminated by refuse from slaughter yards and other noxious factories. Many citizens alleged that the river water was not being improved by garrison troops using it as a regimental bath. Several people were fined 5/ with 7/6 costs for bathing in the river above the fresh water mark at Queen’s Bridge.
A report dated 1851 showed that the impurities of the stream were caused by fellmongeries, tanneries, a starch and a glue factory, boiling down works, and the carcases of animals.
In 1849 James Blackburn, an engineer from Tasmania, received permission to pump water to a large overhead tank at the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets and sell it to the public at much reduced rates.
Two years later Blackburn reported on several schemes by which the city could be supplied with water. He suggested a dam at Yan Yean on the Plenty River, a tributary of the Yarra, where the water was clear and pure. The City Council was not enthusiastic, but eventually Blackburn’s suggestion was adopted and his plan for supplying the city with water by a system of gravitation was for many years the basis of Melbourne’s supply.
On the last day of 1857 the Yan Yean water scheme became operative when the Lieutenant Governor of Victoria, Lieutenant General Macarthur, turned on a tap in the valve house at the Exhibition Garden.
A procession led by Temperance Societies, plumbers and firemen all carrying bright banners and accompanied by brass bands marched to the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Street where 2 hydrants spouted water high into the air and left none of the spectators in doubt that Melbourne had water laid on.
For half a century the city was menaced by disastrous floods. In 1842 Michael Cashmore, later one of Melbourne’s most influential citizens, rowed ‘overland’ for 4 miles from Footscray to the Royal Highlander in Flinders Street, where he tied up at the bar for refreshements. At other times the river burst its banks, and in 1863 a cab and horse were swept down Swanston Street into the Yarra. The horse was drowned but the cabby was rescued by sailors of Victoria’s first warship, H.M.V.S. Cerberus, who were stationed as a rescue squad with a boat at Princes Bridge.
There are hundreds of stories like these about the early floods of Melbourne. There are many accounts, too, about suggested authorities which should have been made responsible for the improvement of the Yarra watercourse. But it was not until 1877 that the Melbourne Harbour Trust was formed. Almost immediately, it engaged John Coode, later Sir John, an eminent English engineer, to inspect the river and prepare a layout for the port of Melbourne. Several members criticized the size of the fee, 5000 guineas, but the objections were over ruled. Sir John wasted no time on the proposal that the river be straightened by cutting a canal from Queen’s Bridge to Port Melbourne. Instead, he suggested widening and deepening the river, building fine docks and a canal to cut off a tortuous bend in the river that often held back floodwaters. His plans were adopted. By 1887 a new canal 2000 feet long, 300 feet wide and 25 feet deep had been opened; the river was being widened and deepened and in the early 1890s the first docks were open.
The reefs at Queen’s Bridge and Spencer Street were blasted out and the rock was used for lining the canal, which shortened the river by more than a mile. Millions of tons of earth were scooped out to form the Victoria Docks and reclaim swampy land.
Today the Yarra is busy with interstate and overseas vessels, but the river was probably never livelier than in the 1850s when hundreds of people were ferried up every week from ships anchored in the Bay. The traffic of these times was so heavy that it was impossible for a diver to recover a box of gold that had been dropped overboard from a small steamer.
By 1890, when the river was navigable for larger ships, steam was beginning to take over from sail; yet it was still exciting to look down Williams Street at the river filled with ships whose tall masts reached into the sky.
Close to the docks is Spencer Street Bridge, or to give it its correct name, Batman Bridge, which was opened in 1930 and marked the farthermost point of the river that could be used by steamers. The earliest wharf on the Yarra was built just above this point by Captain George Ward Cole, who carved out an open space on the banks from thick tea tree.
James Dobson also built his private wharf close by and for 20 years these two piers were landmarks. In 1853 a space for a wharf was granted to ships of the P. and O. Line, which had the Government contract for carrying mail between England and Victoria. This was the last private wharf in the city, as the Council decided that the banks of the river should be used for common good. The most important wharf was Queen’s, just opposite the Customs House. For some years the term ‘wharf’ was a courtesy one for although wharfage was charged ships tied up to posts driven into deep mud a few yards from the bank.
The Colonial Secretary agreed that £ 2500 should be made available for improvements, and by 1842, the first stages of the plan had been completed. Cole’s and Dobson’s wharves were taken over and eventually the new waterfront stretched from Queen’s Bridge to Spencer Street. When Spencer Street Bridge was opened in 1930 it cut off this section of the river from large river traffic. The old piers of the numerous wharves have now completely disappeared, and the swinging basin was partly filled in to provide parking space for hundreds of cars, but is now open park land and Melbourne aquarium.
In the 1840s this part of the river boasted a floating pontoon, which attracted many swimmers. However, no mixed bathing was allowed, and the 2 hours before noon were reserved for the ladies. Today this part of the river is almost as quite and sleepy as it was in the earliest days of the settlement.
It was different a century ago. Then residents complained that too many river cruisers were using the river. One of the most popular trips was from the bridge to Cremorne Gardens between Punt Road and Church Street. The Upper Yarra Steam Gondola Company did a roaring trade with the thousands of passengers flocking to the gardens to enjoy the lovers walks, opera, fortune tellers, sideshows, and all the fun of the fair. Private house boats also crowded the Yarra and Aborigines dived for pennies thrown in by people enjoying champagne suppers.
Many of these house boats went up as far as the next natural barrier on the river: Dight’s Falls just beyond Johnston Street Bridge. This was the farthermost point reached by Grimes and his party when he discovered the Yarra in 1803. John Dight, a miller, gave his name to the falls in 1839.
At that time supplies of flour were imported from Tasmania, but occasional grave shortages reminded the residents that local mills were needed. John Dight saw the possibilities and had a mill erected at the falls with water power to grind the grain. When the level of the Yarra dropped, he decided to supplement water power with steam. He ordered a stream mill from England, but it was lost at sea. The order was repeated, but by the time the mill arrived Dight had been hit by the depression. So the machinery was transferred to a new company. Soon afterwards the mill was badly damaged by fire, rebuilt, then finally burned to the ground. Today the only reminder of the early flour mill is the name of the falls.
Just above the falls the Yarra passes under a pedestrian swing bridge and winds around one of the finest public golf courses in Australia at Yarra Bend. From the Yarra boulevard high up on the cliff some of the finest views of the city can be obtained, though few visitors would imagine that this part of the river was once the home of hundreds of bandicoots and wild cats which provided trappers with a fine living.
The lovely sweep of the river known as Rudder Grange is further upstream, and after passing its swimming pool, rapids and graceful weeping willows, the traveler comes to the old Outer Circle Bridge. On the central brick pier of the bridge is a mark 40 feet (1 feet is equal to 0.3048 meters) above normal water lever, indicating the point reached by the tragic floods of 1890.
This old bridge was used by a railway connecting suburbs on either side of the Yarra, but it never paid its way and the line was eventually closed. For years travellers had to travel miles downstream to cross the river. Eventually the rails were torn up and replaced with a road.
Modern forms of transport and beaches close to the city have led to the neglect of the Yarra as a playground for holidaymakers, so much of its natural beauty has been preserved. Within half a mile of the centre of the city the view of Alexandra Avenue across the river to graceful spires and tall buildings is one of the loveliest in Melbourne. A few sensible people still walk to work along the footpath between Punt Road and Princes Bridge to enjoy the silver and misty grey of the river set between hundreds of acres of parkland.
In the past few years extensive beautification of the Yarra River banks around the city has been undertaken by the City of Melbourne Council and the Metropolitan Board of Works responsible down to the Spencer Street Bridge while the Port of Melbourne Authority improved the appearance of the Yarra from the Spencer Street Bridge down to the river’s mouth.
Along the river banks to Spencer Street Bridge we now have Docklands Southwharf and Southbank.
Away in the hills at its source, the Yarra River provides Melbourne with some of the purest and softest water in the world. The member of Batman’s Party who named this stream Yarra Yarra (flowing flowing) couldn’t have know how apt it would become.
Yarra Turning Basin 1906. This elevated view, looking west along the Yarra River and Flinders Street, taken from the Commercial Travellers' Club (now the Rendezvous Hotel), shows (left to right): Banana Alley (beneath the railway yards), the railway viaduct (connecting Flinders Street and Spencer Street Stations), Queens Bridge with the Yarra Turning Basin beyond. The Turning Basin (also known as the Swinging Basin) was the furthest point that ships could navigate up the river. It was a natural river washout as the tides slapped againts a natural bluestone barrier across the Yarra at Market Street, which maintained fresh water on the upstream side. The washout was progressively widened and deepened so that boats could turn around or moor at the wharves in the vicinity. Source: Elisabeth Jackson RSHV.
MELBOURNE EARLY DAYS
M.L. Hutchinson. 1838 - 1888 Melbourne Then & Now : Together with the First Land Sale and Present Value. M.L. Hutchinson, 1888. Link
Melbourne is built around the Yarra River which flows into Hobson's Bay at the northern extremity of Port Philip Bay on the south coast of Victoria. Although New South Wales was founded as a colony in 1788 and what is known now as Victoria was part of it, no white man entered Port Philip Bay until 1802. In that year Captain John Murray, who discovered it, and Captain Matthew Flinders, the world famous navigator, arrived within 2 months of each other; but neither discovered the river at the northern end.
One year later Governor Philip King of the Colony of New South Wales, instructed his Surveyor-General, Charles Grimes, to walk around Port Philip Bay and report on any suitable sites for settlement. The Governor also wished to forestall any attempt by French to claim this part of Australia. In February 1803 Grimes and his party arrived in Port Philip Bay. On the 2nd of that month they disembarked on the sandy beach between St Kilda and Port Melbourne and, in walking overland, discovered the mouth of the river. Next day they rowed up this estuary to the junction of 2 rivers, decided to take the left hand branch - the Saltwater (Maribyrnong) River, and travelled as far as Solomon's Ford Keilor.
The following day they travelled up to the other branch the Freshwater (Yarra) River as far as Dight's Falls. On their return to Sydney, James Flemming, the young gardener called by courtesy 'an agriculturalist', anticipated Batman's famous remark about a suitable place for settlement but Grimes reported unenthusiastically. Thus ended the only official attempt to found Melbourne.
However, there was a likelihood that Melbourne would be settled 6 months later when Captain David Collins arrived in Port Philip Bay from London with a complement of officers and convicts. He chose what is now the popular seaside resort of Sorrento about 40 miles down the bay from Melbourne but by the following January 1804 had decided that it was unsuitable. He crossed Bass Strait to Van Diemen's Land and on 21st February stepped ashore at a perfect location (Hobart) as the Governor of a new colony. One of the members of Collins company was an 11 year old boy John Pascoe Fawkner who returned to Port Philip Bay 32 years later to take a leading part in founding a new settlement at Melbourne. But he was not the only man with a similar idea.
As early as 1825 John Batman was planning to open up the unexplored country in southern Victoria around Port Philip Bay. He had been granted quite extensive tracts of land in Tasmania for his vigilance against outlaws and suggestions about the better treatment of Aborigines. But the soil was poor and the country was rough, so in 1827 the young bushman wrote to Sir Ralph Darling, the Governor at Sydney, applying for a grant of land in Victoria, known as the Port Philip District of New South Wales. He promised sheep and cattle in proportion to the amount of land he received. Governor Darling replied that he had no power to grant such a request.
But by 1835 Batman had carried his plan a step further, he had organized a fairly wealthy syndicate of 15 men called the Port Philip Association who were willing to back his plan for opening up the rich grazing lands of Victoria. On 10th May he sailed for Port Philip Bay to inspect its possibilities, taking with him 3 white men and half of dozen Aborigines.
The mouth of Yarra was rediscovered and Batman's party, like Grimes, took the left hand branch, the Maribyrnong River. They then walked overland to the Merri Creek where Batman negotiated with the chiefs of several aboriginal tribes for the purchase of 600,000 acres of land. He insisted on his Sydney Aborigines acting as interpreters to explain the conditions of sale to the tribal leaders, but it is doubtful whether they understood. However they made their marks on carefully prepared legal documents and in return received about £ 200 worth of knives, tomahawks, blankets, mirrors, scissors, handkerchiefs, red shirts, flannel jackets, suits and flour. The aggrement stipulated an annual payment of approximately £150 of similar articles.
Batman had intended sailing for Tasmania the day following his successful deal, but an unfavourable wind blew up and the time was spent in rowing up the less promising stream at the junction. This was the River Yarra. On that day 8th June 1835 Batman wrote, 'The boat went up the large river I have spoken of, which comes from the east and I'm glad to state about 6 miles up the river all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village.'
When Batman eventually settled in Melbourne, he brought with him '500 good and improved breeding ewes and sheep', the minimum contribution promised by all members of the Port Philip Association whose aim was the pastoral development of the district.
Shortly after Batman returned to Launceston, Fawkner set out from the same seaport in his 55 ton schooner Enterprise which was laden with agricultural implements, 2500 fruit trees, horses, dogs, ploughs, stores and material for a house as well as tomahawks and blankets for the Aborigines.
Fawkner's company included two carpenters, William Jackson and Robert Hay Marr, a plasterer, George Evans, and his servant Evan Evans; a master mariner, John Lancey, and Fawkner's 3 servants, Charles Wise, ploughman, Thomas Morgan, general servant and James Gilbert, a blacksmith, his wife and her favourite cat.
After first unsuccessfully searching for good land at Western Port Bay they sailed into Port Philip Bay and on 20th August 1835 the shore party came upon the east bank of the Yarra where they found a good stream of fresh water and beautiful hills and plains of good soil and excelent grass . Captain Lancey in his diary says 'Here we made up our minds to settle and share the land in the most satisfactory manner to all parties' .
The Enterprise was unloaded near the present site of the Custom House and Evans and Jackson began building a store for the pork, sugar and other provisions which included three and half gallons of gin.
Collins Street in about 1839 looking south west from a spot somewhere between Swanston and Elizabeth Street. Artist William Knight seems to have exaggerated the height of the hill he is standing on. Link
Three days later Mr J.H Wedge, John Batman's representative tramped into Melbourne from Geelong having completed a journey of 50 miles through completely unknown country. He warned the new arrivals that they were trespassers on land bought by Batman for the Port Philip Association. The settlers were determined to force the Government to recognize them. That is the difference between the foundation of Melbourne and other capital cities of Australia, Melbourne was the only founded unofficially by freemen.
Fawkner arrived in the settlement on 16th October 1835 with his wife on the following trip by the Enterprise, being prevented from joining the first by the creditors. By this time the city's first vegetables were ready for the table and 5 acres of wheat had been sown near the corner of what was to become Flinders and Spencer Streets.
On the following Sunday, Fawkner read prayers and preached a sermon to his servants and a rather motley collection of braves, lubras and piccaninnies.
Three weeks later, on the 6th November, Melbourne first lay preacher became its first hotelkeeper .
The city founder John Batman arrived on 9th November.
Melbourne's Early Taverns. Source Link
Naturally Sir Richard Bourke, The Governor of New South Wales had been informed of the development of the unauthorized settlement but, accepting the inevitable he recommended in a despatch to London that the settlement be surveyed and a police magistrate and customs officer appointed.
In December 1835 the blacksmith James Gilbert and his wife became the parents of the first white child born in the little village. He was later christened John Melbourne Gilbert, but at his birth the settlement will had no official name.
By that time a number of pioneers had brought in many sheep and cattle and they were becoming increasingly worried about the lack of any title to the land they occupied.
The Port Philip Association had asked the Secretary of State to confirm its title to the 600,000 acres of land bought from the Aborigines. He refused but later granted £ 7000 to the association for out of pocket expenses in establishing and stocking the Port Phillip District.
The first reassuring sign to the settlers was the arrival on 1st June 1836 of George Stewart, police superintendent at Goulburn New South Wales. He had been ordered to prepare a report on the settlement. He found a population of 177 ( 142 males and 35 female ) of whom only 33 claimed to be settlers or proprietors. The rest were members of their families or servants. Their accommodation seems incredibly small, only 3 weatherboard and 2 slate houses and 8 turf huts. However, their assets 26.500 sheep, 57 horses, 100 cattle and agricultural implements were estimated to be worth £ 80,000 or an average holding of £ 2,400. This was an illuminating comment on the type of pioneer who founded Melbourne.
The police superintendent also reported that the setllers were anxious for New South Wales to extend its protection to the new settlement. If that was so the pioneers soon decided that they much preffered to become the nucleus of a new colony.
4 months after Stewart's visit, Captain William Lonsdale arrived in Melbourne as the first Administrator of the Port Philip District. He was accompanied by his wife, children and 3 constables, and they were followed 4 days later, on the 5th October by several government officials, 30 privates of the 4th King's Own Regiment (to which Londsdale belonged) and an equal number of convict labourers.
Londsdale immediately ordered that Sir Richard Bourke's proclamation be nailed to gum trees and handed around to the settlers. The residents were notiffied that His Majesty's Government had authorized the settlement at Port Philip, that a survey of the land would be made and that land would made available at public auctions.
Lonsdale was also instructed to protect the Aborigines and to improve relations with them by treating them kindly and offering them presents. He was to establish them in a village where they would work for their food and clothing. The official cargo sent for the Aborigines included canvas trousers, 25 brass plates and chains, blankets, shirts and red night caps.
Sir Richard Bourke visited the settlement around 1836. In his diary he wrote that 'I found on my arrival at the site assembled population of 60 to 70 families. I directed that the town be immediately laid out which has received the name of Melbourne, after the British Prime Minister of the day. On 11th March 1837 Lonsdale addressed his official correspondence from Melbourne for the first time.
With Governor Bourke came Melbourne's first town planner Robert Hoddle, then assistant Surveyor General of New South Wales. He took over the duties of Robert Russell, the settlement's first surveyor, and on Russell's plan of the town laid out the city in 10 acre squares with streets 99 feet wide. (1 feet is equal to 0.3048 meters)
Plan of town of Melbourne, 1837 A.D : first land sales held in Melbourne on 1st June & 1st November 1837
Sir Richard Bourke was a highly intelligent Governor determined to see conditions personally. While officially in Melbourne, he travelled hundreds of miles over little known bush country and went as far afield as Geelong and Mount Macedon, about 40 miles from the city. He took a great interest in education and suggested that provision should be made for schools in which children of persons of different religious tenets may be instructed without distinction on the plan now adopted in Ireland. He was also sincerely interested in bettering conditions for the Aborigines. He attended a gathering of 120 natives, gave them food and clothing, talked to them through an interpreter and inspected the proposed site for their missionary station.
In fact, the first school opened in Melbourne was for Aboriginal children. It was attached to the mission station that stood on the present site of the Botanic Gardens near Anderson Street Bridge/Morell Bridge.
Governor Bourke also directed that public auction sales of Crown Land be held as soon as possible. The first of these took place on 1st June 1837, at the south west corner of Colllins and William Streets. There Robert Hoddle, standing on a fallen log, faced a crowd of 200 keen bidders who quickly bought 100 city lots of approximately half an acre each at an average price £35.
Hoddle had a very profitable day. His commision was £57/12/7, a little more than the price of 2 blocks he bought in Elizabeth Street. When he died in 1881, his £54 investment was reckoned to be worth £250,000.
Later on that historic day Hoddle sold 7 allotments at Williamstown at an average £46 which reflected some of the early pioneers assessment of the relative importance of the 2 settlements.
Quite a few Aborigines attended those early sales. They were often seen in the settlement and though they occasionally frightened visitors with their corroborees and tribal wars, they were a quite, friendly easy going people.
However, quite a number of young Aborigines were persuaded to join the newly formed corps of native police. There were allegations of cattle stealing by the natives and countercharges about ill treatment by the whites. These natives police, all superb horsemen were enlisted to protect the rights of both parties. The Government orders were clear and unbiased and reminded the whites that anyone accused of outrages against natives would be charged before the Supreme Court in Sydney.
By the end of 1837 the population of Melbourne was 1300 people and many of them were already dissatisfied with government from Sydney. They contended that much of the money from the sale of Melbourne land was being diverted into the consolidated revenue accounts of New South Wales and in return Melbourne was receiving a pittance.
It was certainly true that several later sales of Melbourne land were held in Sydney and that Sydney speculators made large profits by subdividing their purchases and selling them to local residents anxious to buy land at any price. Moreover, only wealthy citizens could travel to Sydney by ship for the sales there.
Melbourne’s first newspaper, the Melbourne Advertiser, came out on New Year’s Day 1838. The first 9 issues were handwritten by Fawkner on a double sheet of foolscap but with the arrival or discovery of some old type, it blossomed into an edition of eight quarto pages. Fawkner had printed another 7 issues only when he was informed that if he wished to continue he would have to travel to Sydney to personally procure a licence. As it was a 7 to 14 day’s trip by sea, he surrendered to bureaucracy and the paper died. Its place was taken later that year by the Port Philip Gazette published by George Arden and Thomas Strode, who arrived from Sydney complete with licence.
The second event of importance in 1838 was the introduction of an overland mail to Sydney. Till then all mail had gone by sea and the usual time for a reply was 5 weeks. Early on the morning of 2nd January a young bushman, John Conway Burke, strapped 2 leather bags containing 30 pounds of letters across the bow of his saddle, stuck a pair of dueling pistols in his belt and rode up to the Lamb Inn in Collins Street. There he was greeted with popping champagne corks and the cheers of a large crowd. He was to carry the mail through hundreds of miles of unexplored country to Yass, New South Wales, where it was to be taken overland by coach to Sydney. On his trip he was accompanied by his employer, Joseph Hawdon, who had received the mail contract for £1,200 a year. But on subsequent journeys Burke rode alone through wild and dangerous country sometimes swollen streams and evading hostile tribes of Aborigines.
With overland communications, a newspaper, a bank and several shops. Melbourne was taking on the appearance of a small town. The rising price of land also indicated the first land boom and by 1839 the days of free champagne lunches, elaborate marquees and silver tongued auctioneers had arrived.
In May 1839 the whole town put on somber clothes to attend the funeral of one of its best loved citizens John Batman. He was diagnosed with syphilis in 1833 after which his health deteriorated. He had repeatedly attempted to buy his farm at Batman’s Hill but the Government refused all offers and simply gave him the right of tenancy.
The year 1839 also added another name which was to become famous in the city Charles Joseph La Trobe. He arrived on 2nd October as the first Superintendent of the Port Philip District and remained to become its first Governor when it was created the Colony of Victoria in 1851.
Unlike the majority of Australian colonial Governors who were military or naval officers, La Trobe had been intended for the Moravian ministry. Instead he became a great traveller and writer of travel books.
La Trobe had been sent in 1837 to the West Indies to report on the education of the recently emancipated slaves. The Colonial Office in London was greatly impressed with his work and probably as a result he was appointed to Melbourne 2 years later.
When La Trobe arrived, Melbourne had a population of about 3500 but the main streets were still bush tracks. It was raining heavily when he first stepped ashore near the Customs House, and a sea of mud stretched away uphill to the corner of William and Collins Streets where he was to read his commission. He trudged up boldly, accompanied by a crowd of men in high boots, jumpers and oilskins.
At the 2 storeyed building built earlier by Batman, an auction sale was interrupted for the reading of his commission and the inevitable address of welcome was presented at Fawkner’s Hotel. La Trobe then retired to Lonsdale’s house in Spencer Street.
At the end of the day La Trobe signaled the beginning of festivities for the settlers. The sun broke through the clouds and champagne for the rich and rum for the poor flowed as generously as the earlier rain. At night, huge bonfires lit up the town and a tribe of Aborigines staged a corroboree around a great pile of logs which had been dragged into the centre of Elizabeth Street, near the present site of St Francis Church. The oldest pioneers gathered to drink to the future success of the town, and Fawkner stumped back to his office to write an editorial for his new paper, the Port Philip Patriot.
No official offices were provided for either Lonsdale or La Trobe, so John Batman’s old home was rented for their governmental duties. One of the first reports made there showed that about 1000 migrants had arrived in Melbourne in the last 3 months of 1839. Most of these new settlers came out under a bounty system whereby the London Commissioners paid the passage money of approved immigrants who had to be agriculturalists, labourers, smiths, wheelwrights, carpenters, masons, female domestics or farm servants.
In 12 months 262 ships landed 4080 migrants of all kinds, and the sale of Crown lands alone produce £230,000 in 1840. It was a common sight to see groups on horseback or in expensive carriages making their way to the city sales. Business was booming. More than 200 merchants and commercial establishment carried on the trade of the town, ships arrived regularly from Launceston, Geelong and Sydney, and annual imports had risen to half a million pounds.
In 1841 a branch of the Supreme Court of the Colony of New South Wales was established near the old site of the Bourke Street West police station. Till then, an enormous amount of time and money had been wasted in transporting witnesses, prisoners and counsel to the Supreme Court in Sydney 600 miles away.
The character of the wooded hills and plains near the centre of the city was also changing rapidly. The first suburbs were becoming settled and merchants and professional men were moving out from the city to larger and grander homes. The years receipts for sales of Crown land brought the total to half a million pounds in 5 years, a large amount for a town with a population of only 5000 people.
Map of Melbourne in 1841 from Williamstown to Prahran showing parishes, suburban sections and roads John Pascoe Fawkner, printer and publisher 1841 . Link
Panoramic Sketch of Melbourne Port Phillip from the walls of Scots Church on the Eastern Hill July 30th 1841 Author / Creator Jackson, Samuel 1807-1876 artist. Date July 30, 1841 . Link
On Friday 31st July 1841 architect Samuel Jackson clambered up through scaffolding to the top of the still unfinished Scots Church, on the corner of Collins and Russell Streets in Melbourne. Once there he began the mammoth task of drawing the scene spread out around him. Although the church was being built on what were then the outskirts of town, Jackson's view took in most of the 6 year old settlement with its unmade roads some little more than bush tracks and mostly single storey timber buildings set among gum trees. Rough and ready Melbourne may have been, but already it could boast 8000 residents, 4 banks and 3 newspapers. The 1500 who arrived during June and July 1841 were the tip of the iceberg. During the course of 1841 an average of one ship a week arrived in Port Philip landing altogether over 9000 looking to start a new life. At the time of the census held on 2 March 1841 the population of the entire Port Philip District (including Western Port and Portland Bay) was reckoned to be 11738. By the end of the year that figure had almost doubled.
Bushrangers were part of the local scene and in 1842 the whole town turned out to see three of them publicly hanged. The condemned men sat on their own rough coffins in an open cart driven through the streets to a scaffold on a small green hill, now site of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. Later that year another highwayman, with a bullet through his head, laid on the billiard table of Melbourne's most famous hostelry, the Lamb Inn. It was here that one of the city's most famous duels began. One evening in 1840 after a very good dinner, a Mr. Snodgrass and a Mr. Ryrie began arguing so furiously that soon they were threatening to shoot it out at Batman's Hill (now Spencer Street railway station). No pistols were available so Ryrie's second, who appears to have been more enthusiastic than his principal, grabbed the nearest horse and set out for Heidelberg, 9 miles away in the bush, to borrow a duelling set belonging to Joseph Hawdon. 2 hours later he galloped up Collins Street flourishing a pistol in either hand, very much inclined to shout his success, but that he was partially tongue tied through gripping the bridle with his teeth. The welcoming cheers died when he admitted that he had forgotten ammunition. He immediately took to his horse again and sped to the home of Captain Smith, whose wife was so opposed to the duel that she ripped the second's coat from the shoulder to the tails before he could escape with the shot and powder.
Front view of Lamb Inn, Collins Street. Includes business of W. Wood, licensed retailer of wine and spiritis and a separate adjacent building for billiards. Shows man led away from the inn, horse team and cart, many pedestrians, all men. Drawing by W. F. E Liardet (Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn). Link
Dawn revealed the two now gloomy duellist surrounded by a few friends and a surgeon. First blood was drawn by Peter Snodgrass who, suffering badly from nerves, despacthed one of his toes as he faced his opponent. Ryrie chivalrously, and no doubt fired into the air.
Duels, shootings and horsewhipping were not unsual in early Melbourne, but despite the primitive conditions there was little serious crime. Many minor offences were punished summarily. Drunken men and women were left to sober up in the stocks on the site of the Western Market (it was also known as the National Mutual Centre (447 Collins Street). Over enthusiastic drinkers at race meetings were frequently chained to trees and pickpockets were occasionally thrown into the nearby river.
Race meetings were always popular in Melbourne. The first one, held in 1838, was a primitive affair in which an old clothes prop served as the winning post and 2 drays lashed together formed the grand stand. The races were run over a course marked out between the present North Melbourne and Spencer Street railway stations. The excited racegoers, dressed in their best, urged on jockeys wearing red or blue flannel trousers, moleskin leggings and cabbage-tree hats. The day's sport ended with a grinning match won by an anonymous person called "Big Mick"- probably a successful backer. The second day's racing was a fiasco. As the fences were rickety and the horses poor, the punters adjourned to a nearby hotel where it was easier to pick one's fancy.
The Aborigines were fine horsemen and several writers enthusiastically comment on the smart appearance of the native mounted police. They were issued with green jackets faced with possum skin, black or green trousers with red stripes and green caps with a red band. They wore no boots but used spurs, and when mounted, carried shining silver swords.
This image, Aboriginal Troopers, Melbourne Police with English Corporal (1851), is accompanied by the following text by Strutt: ‘Troopers drilling. This valuable force, so useful as bush trackers, were disbanded at the discovery of gold. These men … were splendid horsemen’. It is clear from his depictions and additional notes that Strutt had great respect for the troopers and their capabilities. From Victorian Parliamentary Library : Victoria The Golden by William Strutt. Link
When gold was discovered in the 1850s many white officers left for the diggings, taking their aboriginal troops with them. Thus disapearing the colourful and smart native troopers.
In the roaring days of the gold rush hold-ups were frequent in the city. One day in 1852 bushrangers took complete control of St Kilda Road. As travellers came abreast of the hiding place they were pounced upon, robbed and bound to trees. Before long, 50 victims were cursing and struggling to free themselves, and the total might have been greater had not one man escaped and given the alarm. Though a large reward was offered, the bushrangers were never caught nor their booty found. (Source Melbourne Biography of a City by WH Newnham)
MELBOURNE DAILY LIFE
Among the 9000 immigrants who arrived in Melbourne 1841 were Georgiana McCrae and her four sons. Georgiana had sailed aboard the Argyle to join her husband lawyer Andrew McCrae who had emigrated 2 years earlier. Melbourne must have come as quite a shock to someone used to the broad avenues, fashionable shops and smart drawing rooms of early Victorian London. We can imagine her dismay on catching sight of Melbourne's shacks and muddy streets for the first time on a gloomy wet morning in March after a trip up the River Yarra from where the Argyle was berthed at Williamstown.
'4th (March 1841) Jane Shanks (the maid), the boys and I went aboard the Governor Arthur, a scrubbishly grinding little steamer without any cabin. Half way up the river the rain began to fall, whereupon I extended the folds of my plaid so as to take in the children and keep them out of the wet. The boat landed us opposite the Yarra Hotel, Flinders Street and we had to wade through mud and clay, up the hill to Dr McCrae's (Georgiana's brother in law) in Great Bourke Street West, my London boots ruined'
A few days later, Georgiana explored Collins Street finding it without any sign of a pavement, only a rough road, with crooked gutters, the shops, built of wood, and raised on stumps. She also paid a visit to what was to be her temporary home while a grander house was being built to her own design near Studley Park on the Yarra.
'8th (March 1841) went to see our new home, "Argyle Cottage", in Little Lonsdale Street West, consisting of one tolerably large room, with 4 closets, called bedrooms, opening out of it. The walls of wood about half of an inch (13mm) thick and the ceiling the same. The building raised on stumps to about 2 feet (600mm) above the ground and 3 wooden steps, like those of a bathing machine, lead up into a French window, which is the front door of the dwelling. At a little distance from the back door is a kitchen hut' (From Georgiana's Journal)
Georgiana should have considered herself lucky to escape with only spoiled boots after her trudge up the hill to Bourke Street. Some of Melbourne's streets were notoriously dangerous after heavy rain, prompting one wag to to advertise in the Port Phillip Patriot for 1000 pairs of stils for the use of Melbourne's distressed inhabitants in winter. 4 months after Georgiana's arrival the Colonial Times reported an incident in Flinders Street, where a water cart, horse and man were invisible for a short time having slipped into an immense cavity in the middle of the street, filled with sludge, the lives of the man and horse were saved with great difficulty.
Despite the drainage problems in Melbourne of 1841, improvements were still rapid. On the "beauteous Eastern Hill" where 18 months ago there was scarcely a single weather boarded skillion is now covered in every direction by neat cottages. Collins street is rapidly "filling up" and there are now many shops in that part of town that would be no discredit to Bond Street London. At the west end of the town in the direction of the flag staff (modern Flagstaff Gardens), where 12 months ago Mr Carrington's elegant mansion was almost the only edifice of any description in existence, the verdant sward is now covered at brief intervals with the mansions of every description from the humble "wattle and daub" skillion to the tasteful cottage ornee (tasteful decorated).
When Governor Sir George Gipps paid a visit to Port Philip in October 1841 to see the rapidly growing settlement for himself, the Port Philip Herald took it upon itself to suggest 'a few of the most important wants which require to be immediately supplied'. First on the list was a police force, the paper pointing out that it was next to impossible for 12 constables to maintain law and order in a town of 10,000 inhabitants. Other items on the lengthy catalogue of wants were a bridge over the Yarra as well as for the river to be made navigable, a road to the beach, a breakwater, a town surveyor, a health officer, a court house and a hospital. Last but not least, the Herald suggested that it is to be hoped that His Excellency will consider it his duty to visit us at least annually.
Litlte wonder that some disgruntled Melbournians were beginning to talk about separation from New South Wales although the rumblings would have to become much louder before Victoria finally won self government in 1851. ( Source: Capturing Time NLA )
Block V (Green). De Gruchy & Leigh, lithographer. Isometrical Plan of Melbourne & Suburbs, 1866 [Picture], 1866. Link
Block V (Green Box). Melbourne Central Business District 1939. Detail from Morgan's official Map of the City of Melbourne, Val Morgan & Sons. RHSV M05-0056 . 1953/5 Map Link
A few hundred years ago Melbourne, now a city of almost 4.9 million people, was a village of primitive huts set in a forest. Beyond that forest of she-oak, gum and wattle stretched a sea of high grass that washed saddle-cloths and stirrups as riders galloped across undulating country, later to become thickly populated suburbs.
Kangaroos and wild dogs roamed the small settlement; swan, duck and geese swarmed on swamps where now large ships lie at anchor in docks. Fish were easier to catch than many of the small boys who raced goats through the city streets.
nov 1897
the great city fire
A BLOCK DEVASTATED.
About two hours after midnight on Saturday on the anniversary of the date of the big fire in Flinders Lane, when Beath, Schiess, and Co.'s factory and other premises were destroyed, began the biggest fire yet seen in Melbourne. It attacked the block bounded by Elizabeth Street, Flinders Street, Swanston Street, and Flinders
Lane. The Elizabeth Street, Flinders Street, and Flinders Lane frontages all suffered; the Swanston Street frontage escaped. The block is one studded with tall buildings, some running through from frontage to frontage. The lofty buildings caught the flames from each other, and the little buildings, which might otherwise have escaped, suffered through their proximity to tall neighbours. One of the tallest buildings Fink's , at the corner of Elizabeth Street and Flinders Street acted as a distributing centre. The wind, which was a little south of west, determined the general course of the fire, which began in Craig, Williamson, and Co.'s , and worked eastwards from Elizabeth Street. When the fire was at its full height an immense updraught of air was caused. This carried fragments of paper and cards high up into the atmosphere, whence they were borne eastwards to Richmond, Burnley, and Hawthorn, distances of three and four miles.
The fire was first seen by Constable Coleman on duty in Elizabeth Street. He saw smoke issuing from Craig, Williamson, and Co.'s windows, and immediately sounded the fire alarm at the street corner.
The story that follows is best told by Chief Officer Stein, of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
FIRST ALARM.
Asked to give a full statement of the fight, Mr. Stein began:—"We received the first call at 20 minutes past 2 a.m. from the fire alarm at the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets, which is connected with our No. 2 station, situated in Little Bourke street. That station gave the head station the alarm and immediately turned out, under the charge of Deputy O'Brien. They took with them a fire-cart and ladder.
The man on the look-out tower at the head station, on the receipt of the news from No. 2 station, was at once asked to say what he saw. His first reply was that he could see nothing. Everything was got ready, however, and the next minute the look out man reported heavy volumes of smoke in the direction of Elizabeth Street. The last words of his report had scarcely been uttered, when one of our hose carts and a steamer dashed out of the station. I was on the steamer, and we arrived at the scene of the fire exactly three minutes after the first alarm was given".
SCENE AT CRAIG'S.
"On reaching the spot I found Deputy O'Brien hard at work with two good streams playing on the flames, which were raging through the premises of Messrs. Craig, Williamson, and Thomas. I saw at a glance that
we were in for a big job, and I sent for all the available assistance of every description without delay.
In answer to my orders the Carlton Brigade, with hose-cart and steamer; the South Melbourne Brigade, with hose-cart; the North Melbourne Brigade, with hose-cart; and the Hoddle Street Brigade, quickly arrived. The last-named brigade was instructed to stand by the head station in readiness, but on their arrival they were told off to attend at the fire. "Deputy O'Brien tells me that his first glimpse of the fire was when he turned the corner of Elizabeth Street from Bourke Street, about a minute and a half after the alarm. At that early stage, he says, the flames were coming out of the lower windows in huge rolling masses, and that before he had galloped to the warehouse, they were coming out of the windows as high up as the fourth floor. The heat was then so intense that his horses refused to pass down the street, in the centre, and it was necessary for him to take them over almost on the footpath on the opposite side.
When I arrived myself the fire was issuing from all the front windows of the establishment on the southern half of the building, and a heavy wind was blowing. As the fire had such a firm hold on this building the chief operations were centred on saving the adjoining premises towards Flinders Street, Wise's furniture warehouse. With this end in view a fire ladder was erected, and a heavy stream of water was poured upon the advancing flames. Just at this point the Carlton Brigade with their apparatus appeared upon the scene, and I directed them to get to work on Fink's building, at the corner of Elizabeth and Flinders Streets. This they did, bringing the water to bear on it from both Flinders Lane and Elizabeth Street. By this time two steamers were throwing a perfect deluge of water, as there was a fine pressure on the mains.
CHANGE OF ATTACK.
"It soon became evident to me that we had no chance whatever of doing anything with Craig, Williamson, and Thomas's building, as the fire had even then eaten the heart out of it, and spread to Wise's. Except for a hose or two to cool it, we left what remained of the place to the flames, and tackled the building adjoining, together with Fink's buildings, which the Carlton Brigade had been playing on.
I had not been on the ground more than ten minutes when I found that the top of Fink's buildings was on fire. The door was immediately burst open, and several men ordered to take possession of the different flats, and use the fire appliances, with which this building is well fitted. The men made a gallant and hasty rush to mount the stairs, when a portion of the roof came crashing through the floors above, Two firemen were injured, and they were all forced to beat a reluctant retreat. As this was taking place I received a message to the effect that the roof of the Mutual Store was burning. A rapid inspection verified the truth of the statement, the fire having got round from the back of Fink's buildings to the premises of the Palmer Tire Company, which was ablaze.
More men were instructed to attend to these two new outbreaks, and I hurried back to the corner pile, only to find it was a roaring furnace. It was hopeless to attempt to stay the course of the fire here, and the men were withdrawn and the place closed up to prevent draughts. News then reached me that the fire had made its way through to Flinders Lane. Fresh batches of men were arriving, and being placed under the charge of competent officers, who directed their efforts.
OPERATIONS IN FLINDERS-STREET.
Only a few seconds elapsed between the intimation that the fire had worked through to the lane, when I noticed that Messrs. Crawford, King, and Company's place was burning. This building was followed in marvellously quick time by the warehouse of Messrs. Sargood, Butler, Nichol, and Ewen. We were then be set on both sides of the Mutual Store by the fiercest flames I have seen in my life. I rushed into the Mutual Store to see how things were going, and left Deputy O'Brien in charge of Sargood's. The men had worked well in the Mutual Store, and the first attack had been repulsed. I was only in the store a few minutes, but when I returned to the open air I found that Sargood's place had been pretty well burned out.
I was astounded at the rapidity with which it had been devoured. I am inclined to the belief that the whole place was cleaned out in less than a quarter of an hour. I then left Deputy O'Brien in full charge of the Flinders Street front, and went round into Flinders Lane to direct the operations being carried on there. I found there that the flames had come through, and were consuming part of Messrs. Sargood, Butler, Nichol, and Ewen's premises, facing the lane. There was a sharp north west wind blowing, and our efforts were turned to blocking the spread to Stevenson's on the one hand and Edgerton and Moore's, printers, on the other. The flames had also got through into the buildings fronting Flinders Lane, and lately occupied by Messrs. Detmold and Co. Despite our struggles the fire gradually extended from Sargood's to Edgerton and Moore's, and then into the building occupied by Messrs. Metcalfe and Barnard, importers.
Next to this building are Monahan's buildings on the corner of Flinders Lane and Swanston Street, and after a long tussle we managed to force back the fire, although several times it got a hold on the corner and windows of Monahan's. The fire never got beyond Metcalfe and Barnard's in the buildings fronting Flinders Lane towards Swanston Street.
IN FLINDERS LANE.
Although the fire had been raging all round Stevenson's and Messrs. Brooks, M'Glashan, and M'Harg's, we had up till then preserved those premises intact, and we were in hopes of being able to save them. The right of ways, however, becoming blocked up with fallen roofs and walls in the early stages, our men were unable to get to work on the back parts of the flaming buildings, with the result that the heat soon ignited the warehouse of Messrs. Brooks, M'Glashan, and M'Harg. It almost instantly made its way into the back rooms of Stevenson's premises. The fearful heat from this burning pile set the window frames in several of the warehouses on the other side of Flinders Lane on fire. I was prepared for this, and an immediate application of water prevented much damage being done in this direction. By this time the fire was under control, and at about 20 minutes past 6—four hours after it was discovered—there was no more danger.
PROBABLE BEGINNINGS.
"I have not the slightest theory as to the origin of the fire, but I firmly believe that it must have been burning in Messrs. Craig, Williamson, and Thomas's place from the time the place was closed up on Saturday at 1 o'clock, which would account for its sudden appearance at all the windows at once.
In my opinion the cause of the rapid spread of the fire was the construction of the buildings. They could scarcely be better constructed for the spread of fire, put up as they are without a fire-break wall. Only very narrow rights-of-way run down to the rears, and it is almost impossible to get appliances to work effectually in these.
Windows, unprotected with iron shutters or fire-proof apparatus of any kind, overlook these rights-of-way from adjoining buildings, and afford the best possible means for the fire to get from one place to another.
The rights-of-way, act too, as immense flues, through which the flames are continually fanned. Yesterday the falling walls and roofs so completely blocked up the rights-of-way that work in them was most dangerous. Several of the firemen had most narrow escapes from being crushed to death in this way."
PROPHECY FULFILLED.
"I might mention that when the Mutual Stores were burned down in Flinders Street on New Year's Day, 1891, I made the following statement in 'The Argus' in regard to this very block of buildings. I then said, 'Indeed, I might say that the whole of this block is one which the insurance companies are very careful about. The stocks are so enormous and valuable and the risk of fire so great. There is scarcely what we call a proper firebreak in the whole block—that is, a wall built up and finished in a parapet, without any windows or openings in it. A fire breaking out in Craig, Williamson, and Thomas's, in Elizabeth Street, might, if a strong wind were blowing, sweep the whole block right through to Swanston Street. There are one or two narrow rights-of-way and there are some high walls; but there is not one wall without some breaks in it through which the flames could easily make their way."
HOW SARGOOD'S IGNITED.
Much interest has been felt concerning the burning of the warehouse of Messrs. Sargood, Butler, Nichol, and Ewen, because of a reported remark of the chief officer of the Metropolitan Brigade, Mr. Stein, that it went suddenly, while he was attending to the Mutual Store.
On this subject Mr.Stein says:-"The fire jumped round the back of the Mutual Store, and ignited Crawford's establishment. Despite all we could do Crawford's burnt rapidly. I was standing between Crawford's and the Mutual Store, directing the operations on both sides of me, and looking anxiously at Sargood's, wondering whether that would hold or not. Crawford's had almost burned, but Sargood's was still standing, apparently intact, when, becoming still more anxious, I had the door of Sargood's broken in, so that we might see whether the roof was right. Captain Lilley, who was assisting me, and a fireman ran up the staircase, and returned immediately, saying the fire had already got a hold of the top. I sent O'Brien and a detachment of men to deal with the fresh outbreak, and saw they were doing all they could. When it was apparent that the front of the warehouse would go, I arranged for the rear of it to be protected if possible, and then getting a call from the Mutual Store of another outbreak there I went in to see what could be done. All that could possibly be done for Sargood's was done, and my expression of astonishment was simply at the terrible rapidity at which the flames travelled. I was staggered when I came out from the Mutual Store, after having crushed the fresh outbreak, to find that Sargood's was reduced to ruins.
As to the manner in which the building ignited, I can simply say that it must have caught on the roof from flying cinders. These were filling the air with a fiery shower, and some of them were as large as your hand. They found a weak spot somewhere in the roof or in an upper window of the warehouse, and that is the way the fire commenced there."
THE LESSONS TO BE LEARNED.
"Many lessons are to be learned from this fire. The first is that no fire brigade that ever existed could overcome a fire when it had assumed such proportions as this one before great damage had been done. This was shown in the case of the Chicago fire, when the entire city was swept off the earth. There they had equipped themselves with a brigade costing something like £300,000 a year, and now felt tolerably safe, It was not to be expected that our brigade, costing only £27,000 a year, could cope with fires with the same effectiveness. Our appliances are excellent as far as they go, but we are somewhat undermanned when we have to deal with fire in the top of such buildings as those of Messrs. Craig, Williamson, and Thomas, and Fink's. The other lessons people will learn are ones I have tried to inculcate ever since I had charge of the fire brigade in this colony. They are briefly these, that such warehouses will have to be built to a limited height, that firebreaks will have to be erected, and that where windows overlook one another over rights of way they should be shuttered with iron shutters and fireproof frames.
HOW THE MUTUAL ESCAPED.
"The Mutual Store was saved simply be cause, being a modern building, it was constructed as far as possible on fireproof principles. The rooms are made so that little or no draft can take place from the main building through the stairways and lift channels. The windows on the outer walls for the most part are shuttered with an iron gauzework, on the principle of the Davy lamp. These answered exceedingly well in preventing the flames making their way through the windows into the building yesterday.
There are several weak points in the building, however, and these the fire found out. Once the fire broke out in the lift doors on the first floor, besides a number of times on the roof. These outbreaks we were able to conquer before they spread to any dangerous extent. Two packing rooms at the side of the main building and a large signboard along the front endangered the premises. These buildings are fitted up with most elaborate fire appliances, but unfortunately when we got to them we found that there was no water in their pipes.
Several officials of the store were present, and rendered us great assistance in getting to the windows. The fact that the Mutual Store,surrounded as it was for hours at a stretch with the fiercest flames, still stands proves to my mind that if the other warehouses in this block had been constructed on the same lines we should have been able to extinguish the fire before it had done one-tenth of the present damage.
STAFF EMPLOYED.
"We had in all at the fire 10 hose-carts, seven steamers, two ladder carriages, and about 191 men. Within half an hour after the alarm was rung we had about 130 men on the scene. The full length of the hoses we had in use was four and a half miles. The men had been collected from all parts of Melbourne and the suburbs, in response to my call for all available assistance. They were under the charge, in addition to myself, of Superintendents Catt and Haydon, Deputy O'Brien, and Messrs. Mason and Loughridge. I was greatly assisted by Lieutenant Lilley. "At first the pressure on the mains was first-class, but after we had tapped the supply at so many places the pressure naturally became weaker, and at times we could scarcely get sufficient to keep our steamers going."
STATEMENT BY MR. CRAIG.
"I can throw no light on the origin of the fire," said Mr. W. J. Craig. "I left the Warehouse on Saturday about half-past 1 p.m., and the last of the employes to go would be the porters. They lock up about 3 o'clock. Since that time, so far as I know, there was no one in the building. From the time of the construction of the warehouse until two years ago two watchmen were engaged to look after it, and in order that they should be compelled to make their rounds regularly, tell-tale clocks were provided in various parts of the building. We were induced to part with the services of these men through the advice of some of the insurance companies that instead of watchmen, as a rule, being any means of safety they really formed an element of danger. The matter came to be discussed in consequence of an application for a reduction of our insurance rates, for we had taken every precaution, as we thought, to reduce the risk of fire in our warehouse to a minimum. The notion that our watchmen were of any use was completely tabooed, it being suggested that they might indulge in smoking, and so set fire to the building, and that it would be much safer without them. In the face of such advice from men with knowledge and experience in fire risks, we thought it would be foolish to longer retain the watchmen. As the result proves, we would have done much better in keeping them, for they were thoroughly reliable men, and neither smoked nor drank. In all probability they would have discovered the fire at an early stage, and this most disastrous conflagration would have been avoided.
The building was supplied with the latest fire appliances, there being plugs throughout the building, with 16 fire hoses. With such means at hand two men might have done all that was necessary to stop the progress of the fire."Our warehouse was a substantial one, built about seven years ago. It had a frontage of 80 feet., and a depth of 120 feet (1 feet is equal to 0.3048 meters). The ground floor front was of polished granite from Harcourt, and the rest of the building was in brick. Besides the basement and ground floor there were six stories. The basement contained glass and earthenware goods, and was also used for packing operations. On the ground floor were the Manchester, clothing, and boot departments; on the first floor, dresses, silks, and fancy goods; on the second, mantles, millinery, and underclothing; on the third and fourth, furniture and carpets; and on the fifth, bed steads and opened reserve stock. The sixth floor was set apart for the workrooms. "The fire has occurred at a very awkward time for us, as large stocks of Christmas goods have been destroyed, and all our arrangements will be upset, with a busy season close on us. Of course, we intend to obtain temporary premises without delay, and we have our furniture factory in Little Collins Street still available, but the almost total destruction of our stocks at such a period must mean a considerable sacrifice of our trade for the time being. We will, however, make the best of the situation. We have shipments of goods continually arriving, and must get the most suitable premises we can to carry on. About 300 hands were engaged in the warehouse. Besides our city warehouse, we have branches at Ballarat and Bendigo. "Roughly speaking, I estimate our loss at £100,000, and I believe it will be fairly covered by our insurances."
Thurling & Hamilton, Melbourne:
Walter Ernest Thurling ( 1898-1933) and William Herdam Hamilton (1864-1917) traded at 45 Elizabeth Street from around 1895-1912. After that, Walter worked for Southwell Coultas, another Melbourne tailoring establishment, whilst William changed career and worked as a traveling salesman.
Craig, Williamson Propriety Ltd:
In 1874 William Craig entered into partnership with the retail drapers ‘William Weaver & Co’ to make the firm becoming ‘Weaver, Craig and Orrock’ in Elizabeth Street. It later became ‘Craig, Williams and Thomas’ when Caleb Williams and Thomas William Thomas were admitted as partners in 1879 and traded under that name until 1897. There were branches in Ballarat and Bendigo. (The Bendigo branch was later bought by Sidney Myer.) In the 1897 a disastrous fire destroyed nearly the whole city block from Flinders Street to Flinders Lane, and from Swanston Street down to Elizabeth Street with an estimated 1,500,000 pounds loss, including their store.
SOUND SLEEPERS.
The fire had been roaring through Craig, Williamson, and Thomas's immense building for some time, and the great high walls had already begun to shake and show signs of toppling over, when it occurred to some of the firemen that it might be as well to see if the occupants of the 24 Elizabeth Street Duke of Rothsay Hotel, immediately adjoining, were alive to their danger. The whole establishment looked wrapped in slumber, and this impression was confirmed on one of the firemen knocking loudly at the door, for there was no response. The knocking was renewed, louder and louder," and if it were heard at all, which is doubtful, the inmates must have been under the impression that some thirsty soul was wasting his energy in a bad cause, for the landlord did not rise to let him in, and so the noise went on. Finally, it became necessary for the firemen to burst open the front door, and to this task five of them devoted themselves in one united effort. On reaching the foot of the stairs a voice was heard in protest from the top declaring that the "bar was closed." and would they "please go away." The magic word "fire,' however, soon brought the sleepers to their senses, and in a few seconds an avalanche of drowsy mortals swept down the stairway towards the street, carrying with it anything in the shape of clothing it could lay its hands on. A few minutes later there was a loud roaring noise, and a hurried scattering of those who stood watching the progress of the conflagration. Part of Craig, Williamson, and Thomas's north wall had fallen outwards, and coming down with a crash that nothing could resist buried the whole of the back portion of the Duke of Rothsay Hotel beneath a weight, of hundreds of tons of bricks and burning debris. The escape which the occupants had had was a narrow one, for, according to some of the firemen on duty in the vicinity at the time, they had not a minute to waste after the alarm was first given. Later in the morning, when the fire had spent itself and the occupants of the hotel were able to venture back into the front of the building, which had escaped unhurt, the spot their beds had been was as completely buried as any sleeping chamber in Pompeii.
A LANE INCIDENT.
The fire in Messrs. Metcalfe and Barnard's place was left to itself for a few minutes, and speedily took advantage of the opportunity to flare up into a small volcano. But the firemen were on the alert and a Shand Mason ladder was quickly run up outside the building to the level of the network of telegraph wires that passed in front of the first story. Up the ladder went one of the brigade,and seen from far above, he looked something like a large insect,for his length was foreshortened, and little could be seen of but a shiny black helmet. He grasped his copper nozzle, and aimed it through the telegraph wires into one of the windows of the building. One could hardly help smiling at the insignificance of the attack as the mighty forces or the fire deployed in action in front of the firemen perched on his insecure foothold. But when he opened upon the enemy the result was surprising. The stream of water, spouting with the incredible velocity from nozzle, and coloured to the hue of blood by the reflection of the fire, produced dense clouds of steam wherever it touched, and quickly the flames died down into sullen smouldering again. The watchers on the roof could look over the parapet once more without the slightest inconvenience.
PORT PHILLIP CLUB HOTEL.
For the most part the damage sustained by the Port Phillip Club Hotel was throughthe collapse of the east wall of Sargood, Butler, and Nichol's. When this came over the occupants of the hotel had luckily removed themselves to a place of safety, other wise the consequences must have been fatal, as one side of the premises is completely crushed in, and the bar is partly filled with bricks and other debris. The first to notice the fire in the hotel were Mr. and Mrs. Crowley, who, with their little boy, occupied a room overlooking the back. They were awakened by the cracking noise outside, and so great was the volume of flame then, and so strong the glare thrown directly into their room that they lost no time in alarming the house and getting out side, their first impression being that the hotel was in flames, and that they them selves were enveloped.
SCATTERED FRAGMENTS.
Several of the sufferers by the fire, who live in the eastern suburbs, were unaware of the outbreak until late in the morning, when they found scorched cards upon the lawn in front of their houses. The cards were plentiful, and were puzzling to most of those who found them, until the addresses on some of them were read. Then
came the revelation of the conflagration. One gentleman was confronted with a burned portion of one of his own bill heads, while another, whose loss figures out to a considerable sum, found in his garden a scorched card of Raphael Tuck's designing, which bore the greeting some what ironical in the circumstances "Hearty wishes for a happy Christmas." In Kew many pieces of paper and bits of card were picked up, and fragments of rags and calico reached as far out as Camberwell. The strength of the wind which prevailed at the beginning of the trouble and again about daybreak is thus made apparent.
ROBERT HODDLE BIOGRAPHY
Arrival in Australia
In December 1822 Robert Hoddle embarked on a voyage to Australia on the William Penn. The William Penn departed Cork on 18th December 1822, touched at the Cape of Good Hope and arrived in Hobart in July 1823.
There were several cabin passengers including Henry Perrior, W.C. Parker and Mr. V. Griffiths as well as a full cargo of salt provisions. The William Penn departed Hobart for Sydney on 19th July 1823. Passengers on the voyage to Sydney included Henry Perrier, Mr. S. Parker, Robert Hoddle, C. Seal and P. Casper.
Appointed Assistant Surveyor
Robert Hoddle brought with him testimonies of his abilities, zeal and gentlemanly like qualities - one signed by Lieut-Col H. Anderson Morshead, Plymouth and the other from B.C. Williams of the Royal Engineer's Office at the Cape of Good Hope.
Hoddle was appointed Assistant Surveyor in September 1823 and his first instructions from Surveyor-General John Oxley were to survey Bell's track from Richmond to Cox's River and to particularly observe the country side estimating the quantity of good cultivatable land.
He was to mark the streams and fords and ascend every eminence on the route. He was to take bearings to every remarkable mountain in view particularly such as were situated the counties of Cumberland, Windsor, Prospect Hill and Castle Hill. He was to observe and mark on the map the lands which from their fertility seem best adapted for cultivation by small settlers, the size and description of the timber growing and difficulties that might exist in the formation of a good carriage road. On returning by the same route from Cox's River and when on the range above the source of the Grose River, proceed a few miles to the northward in order to observe the nature of the country in that direction that some opinion may be formed of the probability of finding a better road to the settlements on the Hunters River than the one in present used. He was to go through the small farms in the Kurrajong Brush and take an account of the settlers residing on lands which had not been measured or granted but which they had been permitted to occupy. Afterwards he was to produce maps of his findings.
This seems to have been an arduous undertaking for someone who had been in the colony only a few months. It was calculated by John Oxley that it would take Hoddle approximately three weeks to complete the excursion. As it was intended that he would set out from Richmond on Monday 6th October he was to dispatch pack horses and provision and tent to Mr. Bell at Richmond on the preceding Thursday. William Cox was to furnish men to mark the road. Three men were considered sufficient, one to take care of the horses and provision and two with the chain and instruments.
In September 1824 Robert Hoddle accompanied the expedition to Moreton Bay to establish a new settlement there. The expedition was led by Lieutenant Henry Miller of the 40th regiment (arrived per Isabella in 1823) and included botanist Allan Cunningham, 14 soldiers, 29 convicts and surgeon/storekeeper Dr. Walter Scott. In December 1824 he received a grant of 1000 acres of land at Warkworth by order Sir Thomas Brisbane.
Hoddle arrived at Port Phillip with Governor Sir Richard Bourke in March 1837, and was appointed senior surveyor over Robert Russell and his assistants, D'Arcy and Darke. Whether Hoddle planned Melbourne or used Russell's ideas has been a subject of controversy. Russell himself claimed to have laid out the township before Hoddle's arrival, and Hoddle severely criticized Russell for neglect of duty. In a detailed study H. S. McComb concludes that Hoddle designed both Melbourne and Williamstown and gave the first sketch of them in his field book, but that Darke assisted him with the lay-out, while Hoddle drew the first plan of Melbourne on Russell's feature plan of the settlement.
Hoddle conferred with the governor on the limits of Melbourne and the direction of streets, and they set aside areas for reserves and public buildings. They disagreed on the width of streets, Hoddle insisting that the major streets should be at least 99 feet (30 m) wide. The governor agreed to this, but was adamant that the 'little' streets should be only 33 feet (10 m) wide.
William Lonsdale appointed Hoddle auctioneer at the first sale of crown land on 1 June 1837, at which he sold half-acre (0.2 ha) allotments averaging just over £35 an acre. His commission was £57 12s. 7d., and he bought two allotments for himself costing £54.
By 1838 Hoddle had surveyed and planned Geelong, and later he surveyed many country areas of Victoria. Next year he clashed with Governor Sir George Gipps and, threatened with ill health, planned to retire, but he recovered and was reinstated some months later. In 1842 he became alderman for Bourke ward in the first City Council of Melbourne. With remarkable foresight he provided for wide boulevards from the city to the suburbs, but the subdivisions of early speculators in inner suburbs created the bottle-necks of today. After the separation of the colony in 1851 he became Victoria's first surveyor-general. To a select committee on roads and bridges he advocated the provision of three-chain (60 m) roads and the widening of all existing main roads from one (20 m) to three chains (60 m). His outspoken criticism of the manner in which streets and highways had been allowed to develop was not well received, and in 1853 Governor Charles La Trobe queried his suitability for a job in which 'younger and firmer hands, more fitted to perform … the various duties of the office' might be preferred; 'the office had outgrown him … functions beyond his physical power, and trying to his age and temper'. In effect he was eased out to make room for Andrew Clarke. However, La Trobe did recommend that he should be granted an annuity of £1000, and this he received for his remaining years.
In Surrey in November 1818 Hoddle married Mary Staton, by whom he had one daughter. After Mary's death in 1862 he married, in July 1863, Fanny Agnes, the 18-year-old daughter of Captain Benjamin Baxter; they had three daughters and one son. After Hoddle's death on 24 October 1881, his widow married Richard Buckhurst Buxton.
The Hoddle family lived in a fine house that he built in 1842 on the corner of Bourke and Spencer Streets. Here he spent his long years of retirement, tending the trees and garden he loved and enjoying the books and pictures he had collected. He played the organ and flute, and made translations from the Spanish. He was actively interested in the Old Colonists' Association of Victoria, and sometimes attended the Anglican Cathedral. His energy and resourcefulness, technical accuracy and imagination had been invaluable attributes in the pioneer conditions which he had to face, and the difficulties of his personal relationships perhaps arose because he was more able and far-sighted than his colleagues. Losses as a shareholder in the Bank of Australia when it failed, and litigation brought against him by two grandsons, made him very cautious, but commissions from his land auctions, acquisition of valuable land, and his handsome pension enabled him to leave about £500,000 when he died.
Hoddle's portrait in oils by an unknown artist, in the State Library of Victoria, is in poor condition, but a portrait by his daughter Agnes (later Mrs Grant McDonald), also held in the State Library of Victoria, is better preserved.
Robert Hoddle died in October 1881 age 88 (Obituary)
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