History of Melbourne
The history of Melbourne details the city's growth from a fledgling settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, in the state of Victoria.
Pre-European settlement
The area around Port Phillip and the Yarra valley, on which the city of Melbourne now stands, was the home of the Kulin nation, an alliance of several language groups of Aboriginal Australians, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement the population of Indigenous inhabitants of what is now Victoria was estimated to be under 20,000, drawn from three peoples: the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong.The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin, as well as a vital source of food, water and a sheltered Bay Area for clan meetings and annual events. The Kulin lived by fishing, hunting and gathering, and made a good living from the rich food sources of Port Phillip and the surrounding grasslands.
Many of the Aboriginal people who live in Melbourne today are descended from Aboriginal groups from other parts of Victoria and Australia. However, there are still people who identify as Wurundjeri and Bunurong descendants of the original people who occupied the area of Melbourne prior to European settlement. While there are few overt signs of the Aboriginal past in the Melbourne area, there are a wealth of sites of cultural and spiritual significance.
In June 2021, the boundaries between the land of two of the traditional owner groups, the Wurundjeri and Bunurong, were agreed after being drawn up by the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Council. The borderline runs across the city from west to east, with the CBD, Richmond and Hawthorn included in Wurundjeri land, and Albert Park, St Kilda and Caulfield on Bunurong land.
Arrival of the penal colony
In 1797 George Bass, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, was the first European to enter what came to be called Bass Strait, the passage between the Australian mainland and Van Diemen's Land. He sailed westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland region of Victoria, as far west as Western Port. In 1802, John Murray in the entered Port Phillip to conduct early mappings and exploration of the region, and he was followed shortly after by Matthew Flinders.In 1803, Charles Grimes, the deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales, was sent to Port Phillip to survey the area. Sailing on, under the command of Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins, the party entered Port Phillip on 20 January 1803. On 30 January, Grimes and his party landed at Frankston and met around thirty of the local inhabitants. A plaque at the site marks the event. On 2 February, he entered the mouth of the Yarra River. On the next day, Grimes rowed up the river in a boat and explored what is now the Maribyrnong River for several miles. Returning to the Yarra he explored the river for several miles until he reached Dights Falls on 8 February. The journal of another member of the party, James Flemming, has been preserved, and in it he several times refers to finding good soil.
Although it was evidently a dry season Flemming, who was described by King as "very intelligent", thought from the appearance of the herbage that "there is not often so great a scarcity of water as at present". He suggested that the "most eligible place for a settlement I have seen is on the Freshwater River". Grimes returned to Sydney on 7 March 1803 and, in spite of Flemming's opinions, reported adversely against a settlement at Port Phillip.
Later in 1803 the British Governor of New South Wales, Captain Philip Gidley King, fearful that the French might try to occupy the Bass Strait area, sent Colonel David Collins with a party of 300 convicts to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins arrived at the site of Sorrento, on the Mornington Peninsula, in October 1803, but was put off by the lack of fresh water. In May 1804 Collins moved the settlement to Tasmania, establishing Hobart. The northern shores of Bass Strait were then left to a few whalers and sealers. Among the convicts at Sorrento was a boy called John Pascoe Fawkner, who would later come back to settle in the Melbourne area.
In 1824 Hamilton Hume and William Hovell came overland from New South Wales, failing to find Western Port, their destination, but instead reaching Corio Bay, where they found good grazing land. But it was another ten years before Edward Henty, a Tasmanian grazier, established an illegal sheep-run on crown land at Portland, in what is now western Victoria, in 1834.
John Batman, a successful farmer in northern Tasmania, also desired more grazing land. He entered Port Phillip Bay on 29 May 1835, landing at Indented Head. Over the next week, he explored the area around the Bay, first at Corio Bay, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Foundation of town
On 6 June 1835, Batman, as part of a Tasmanian business syndicate known as the Port Phillip Association, signed a treaty with eight Wurundjeri elders in which he purported to buy of land around Melbourne and another around Geelong on Corio Bay to the south-west. On 8 June he wrote in his journal: "So the boat went up the large river... and... I am glad to state about six miles up found the River all good water and very deep. This will be the place for a village." The last sentence later became famous as the "founding charter" of Melbourne.Batman returned to Launceston in Tasmania and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Fawkner, by now a businessman in Launceston, had the same idea. Fawkner bought a ship, the schooner Enterprize, which sailed on 4 August, with a party of intending settlers. When Batman's party reached the Yarra on 2 September, they were dismayed and angry to find Fawkner's people already in possession.
The two groups decided that there was plenty of land for everybody, and when Fawkner arrived on 16 October with another party of settlers, they agreed to parcel out land and not dispute who was there first. Both Batman and Fawkner settled in the new town.
Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales government on 26 August 1835, but provided for compensation to the Association. Although this meant the settlers were now trespassing on Crown land, the government reluctantly accepted the settlers' fait accompli and allowed the town to remain.
In September 1836, Governor Richard Bourke established the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, though the borders had still not been determined, with the settlement as its administrative centre. Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson was instructed to accompany Lonsdale, his family and public officers to Port Phillip. The presence of a warship together with the Governor's agent indicated the Governor's intention to re-take control of the situation in Port Phillip. Lonsdale arrived at Port Phillip with his wife Martha, 7-month-old daughter Alice and his one assigned servant, on board, commanded by Hobson. They anchored at the south end of the Bay on 27 September 1836, where Hobson despatched a cutter for survey work, and by the 29th had proceeded north and anchored off Point Gellibrand, Hobsons Bay, near the mouth of the Yarra River. Lonsdale landed unofficially, distributing the official proclamation of the establishment of the new settlement, and did the same the next day. On 1 October 1836 Lonsdale was formally rowed up the Yarra River and was met by John Batman and Dr Thompson and other assembled settlers.
Bourke also commissioned Robert Hoddle to make the first plan for the town, completed on 25 March 1837, which came to be known as the Hoddle Grid. The surveys were intended to prepare for land sales by public auction. Bourke visited Port Phillip in March 1837, confirmed Lonsdale's choice of a site for the new town and named it Melbourne on 10 April 1837 after the then British prime minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who resided in the village of Melbourne in Derbyshire. The General Post Office opened under that name on 13 April 1837.History of Melbourne#cite note-PostOffice-16| Before being officially named, the town had several interim names – including Batmania, Bearbrass, Bareport, Bareheep, Barehurp and Bareberp. Public auctions for land began in June 1837. The compensation of the Port Phillip Association were only recognised to the extent of £7,000, allowed as a reduction on the purchase price of land bought by the association. Most of the members sold their entitlements to Charles Swanston.
George Gipps became Governor of New South Wales in 1838. In October 1839, he appointed Charles La Trobe as Superintendent of the district. He was a gifted man with artistic and scientific interests who did much to lay the foundations of Melbourne as a real city. La Trobe's most lasting contribution to the city was to reserve large areas as public parks: today these are the Treasury Gardens, the Carlton Gardens, the Flagstaff Gardens, Royal Park and the Royal Botanic Gardens.
A Separation Association had been formed in 1840 wanting Port Phillip District to become a separate colony, and the first petition for the separation was drafted by Henry Fyshe Gisborne and presented by him to Governor Gipps. The entire population of Port Philip in 1841 was 11,738.
On 12 August 1842, Melbourne was incorporated as a "town" by Act 6 Victoria No. 7 of the Governor and Legislative Council of New South Wales. On 25 June 1847, the City of Melbourne was declared by letters patent of Queen Victoria.
In December 1842 Charles Dowling arrived in Melbourne and would soon be a merchant concentrating on 'the settlers' trade', providing merchandise for the squatters and buying their produce which he would ship to England. Richard Goldsbrough, a woolstapler, came to Melbourne in 1847. He bought a weatherboard building on the corner of William Street and Flinders Lane, and set up a business as a classer and packer of wool for sale in England. In 1850 he set up the first regular wool auction in Bourke Street.
In 1843 there was a panic which was attributed to an influx of British capital being used for land speculations, with the money being deposited in banks at interest, lent to squatters, and its sudden withdrawal for the purpose of remitting to London in payment for immigration and other demands. The panic was also caused by low wool prices and the cessation of transportation.