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EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA
EARLY MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA
(PLATE: EDWARD HENTY. Died August 14th 1878. George Robertson & Co. Lith.) (PLATE: JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER. Died September 4th 1869. George Robertson & Co. Lith.) "Oh, call back yesterday, bid time return." —Richard II. "A story of the mount and plain, The lake, the river, and the sea; A voice that wakes to life again An age-long slumbering melody." —GEORGE GORDON McCRAE. "Ah! who has ever journeyed, on a glorious summer night, Through the weird Australian bushland, without feelings
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AN INTRODUCTORY MEDLEY.
AN INTRODUCTORY MEDLEY.
"Pleasure and action make the hours seem short."—Othello. I had long looked forward to one more visit to Victoria, perhaps the last I should expect to make, and the opportunity of the opening of the great Centenary Exhibition at Melbourne on 1st August of this year was too good to be lost. Accordingly, having been able to arrange business matters for so long a holiday, I took passage, with my wife and daughter, by the good steamship "Coptic" of the "Shaw, Savill New Zealand Line," as it is curtl
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MR. FROUDE'S "OCEANA."
MR. FROUDE'S "OCEANA."
I feel that my introductory medley would still be incomplete if I did not allude, somewhat more than I have already done, to Mr. Froude's recently published "Oceana," a work which, in its vigour and high literary style, marks quite an era in its Australian field. I had regretted before embarking that, from the pressure of other things, my acquaintance with it had been limited to the reading of many reviews and the hearing of much criticism. But I have been well compensated by a perusal during th
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NEW ZEALAND.
NEW ZEALAND.
I am not inclined to repeat the scolding which, it is understood, my zealous friend, Sir Francis Bell, Agent-General for New Zealand, under his high sense of duty, administered to the brilliant author of "Oceana" for this sole dark spot of his book. I see no sufficient cause. On the contrary, he has given us such a charming account of the aspects and prospects of this, the most magnificent of our colonies—for I agree with him in believing that it is to be "the future home of the greatest nation
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UNITY OF THE EMPIRE.
UNITY OF THE EMPIRE.
This question has been in a course of rapid clearing during the last few years, and the successful establishment of the Imperial Federation League has given an orderly procedure in every way promising. The object aimed at is, that the empire shall have that political binding which will give to it the maximum of power and influence possible under all its circumstances. Above fifteen years ago some few of us—very few they then were—first seriously raised this question at Home in the Royal Colonial
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EARLY PORT PHILLIP.
EARLY PORT PHILLIP.
"Should auld acquaintance be forgot And the days o' lang syne." —Burns. "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." —Haynes Bayly. Entering Port Phillip on the morning of the 13th December, 1840, we were wafted quickly up to the anchorage of Hobson's Bay on the wings of a strong southerly breeze, whose cool, and even cold, temperature was to most of us an unexpected enjoyment in the middle of an Australian summer. A small boat came to us at the anchorage containing Mr. and Mrs. D.C. McArthur and othe
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MY FIRST NIGHT ASHORE.
MY FIRST NIGHT ASHORE.
"The Hut on the Flat." —James Henry. "How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude." —Cowper. The rain did follow at night to the full as predicted. I had engaged to accompany a young friend that evening to spend the next day, Sunday, at his "country seat" on Richmond Flat, where he had constructed, mostly with his own hands, a sort of hut or wigwam, under an unchallenged squattage. Being engaged in a store for long hours on Saturday night, it was past eleven ere we started. The rain had begun to p
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INDIGENOUS FEATURES AROUND MELBOURNE.
INDIGENOUS FEATURES AROUND MELBOURNE.
"There are more things in heaven and earth Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." —Hamlet These features form an interesting retrospect of early Melbourne. They have nearly all disappeared since with the growth of town and population. Some who preceded me saw the kangaroo sporting over the site of Melbourne—a pleasure I never enjoyed, as the timid creatures fled almost at once with the first colonizing inroad. I have spoken of the little bell bird, which, piping its pretty monotone, flitted in t
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THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES IN AND ABOUT TOWN.
THE ABORIGINAL NATIVES IN AND ABOUT TOWN.
"Oh I see the monstrousness of man When he looks out in an ungrateful shape." —Timon of Athens. The natives still strolled into Melbourne at the time of my arrival, and for a couple of years or so after; but they were prohibited about the time of the institution of the corporation, as their non-conformity in attire—to speak in a decent way—their temptations from offers of drink by thoughtless colonists, and their inveterate begging, began soon to make them a public nuisance. But aboriginal ways
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EARLY CIVILIZING DIFFICULTIES.
EARLY CIVILIZING DIFFICULTIES.
"He loves his own barn better Than he loves our house." —First Part Henry IV. Up to that time, and for some time longer, the religious conversion of these natives was regarded as hopeless, so deeply "bred in blood and bone" was aboriginal character. Consequently all the earlier missions were abandoned in utter despair, with only one exception, that of the Moravians, which, in faith and duty continuing the work, was at length rewarded with success. Naturally some few, especially amongst the young
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"THE BEACH" (NOW PORT MELBOURNE).
"THE BEACH" (NOW PORT MELBOURNE).
"Thinking of the days that are no more." —Tennyson. At the time of my arrival, all Melbourne-bound passengers were put out by their respective ships' boats upon that part of the northern beach of Port Phillip that was nearest to Melbourne, whence, in straggling lines, as they best could in hot winds, they trod a bush track of their own making, which, about a mile and a half long, brought them to a punt or little boat just above "The Falls," where the owner made a good living at 3 pence a head fo
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EARLY MELBOURNE, ITS UPS AND DOWNS—1840-51.
EARLY MELBOURNE, ITS UPS AND DOWNS—1840-51.
"Will Fortune never come with both hands full?" —Second Part Henry IV. "The weakest go to the wall." —Romeo and Juliet. But "it's better to scheme than to slumber." —J. Brunton Stephens, Queensland. "Sweet are the uses of adversity." —As You Like It. When Fawkner, in August, 1835, following Batman's example of the previous May, organized and sent forth his party from Launceston to explore and colonize Port Phillip, his instruction was that they should squat down for a home only where there was a
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THE MELBOURNE CORPORATION, 1842.
THE MELBOURNE CORPORATION, 1842.
"When forty winters shall besiege thy brow, And dig deep trenches in thy winter's field." —Shakespeare, Sonnet 2. The corporation arose towards the end of 1842, and then the anti-stump warfare began. My friend Henry Condell, like so many other early birds a Tasmanian (a Vandemonian was the ill-omened name at that time), was the first mayor. The times were bad, and the shilling rating caused a growl, but the new body held its way. John Charles King, an Ulster man, and of good abilities, was the f
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EARLY SUBURBAN MELBOURNE.
EARLY SUBURBAN MELBOURNE.
"Oh, for a lodge in some vast wilderness." —Cowper. "Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife." -Gray. In 1844 I lived in a little cottage at South Yarra, on the Dandenong or Gardiner's Creek-road, then only a bush track, although considerably trodden. I had not many neighbours. Mr. Jackson, at the far end, had bought Toorak, but not yet built upon it; and the near end was graced by Mr. R.H. Browne's pretty villa, in its ample grounds, sold shortly before to Major Davidson, and constituting t
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THE EARLY SQUATTING TIMES.
THE EARLY SQUATTING TIMES.
"Our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything." —As You Like It. The title "Victoria" did not come to us until, on 1st July, 1851, we bloomed into an independent colony, having succeeded, after a good deal of struggle and contention, in getting separated from our mother, New South Wales, who complimented us by being very loath, and even angry, that so very promising a child should be detached from her. We had b
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EARLY WESTERN VICTORIA ("AUSTRALIA FELIX").
EARLY WESTERN VICTORIA ("AUSTRALIA FELIX").
"Oh! 'tis the sun that maketh all things shine." —Love's Labour Lost. "He makes a July day short as December." —Winter's Tale. But my chief excursions, which have left a pleasantly vivid recollection of early colonizing life, were made to the far west—the one in 1844, right through to the Glenelg; the other the year after, to the newly-founded township of Warrnambool. The first of these was undertaken partly on business in the interests of the Boyd stations lately formed about Eumerella, a place
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SOME NAMES OF MARK IN THE EARLY YEARS.
SOME NAMES OF MARK IN THE EARLY YEARS.
"Some are born great; some achieve greatness, And some have greatness thrust upon them." —Twelfth Night. Before endeavouring to give a sketch of our early society and its ways and means, I am fain to pick out a few prominent persons as they flitted before me at the time and have stuck to my recollection since. Although they might not all have been in an equal degree interesting, good or great in themselves, they were yet men of mark, closely associated in various ways with our early colonial lif
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THE HENTY FAMILY, AND THE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA.
THE HENTY FAMILY, AND THE FOUNDATION OF VICTORIA.
"Let the end try the man." —2nd Part Henry IV. "Great world! Victoria brings thee meat and corn and wine, With richly veined woods, and glittering gold from mine, Fairy web of silken thread, soft thick snowy fleece; Wide room for smiling homes of industry and peace." —Mrs. H.N. Baker. The founder of to-day's great colony of Victoria was Mr. Edward Henty, who landed at Portland Bay from Launceston, with live stock and stores, for the purpose of settlement, on the 19th November, 1834. But in regar
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SOME INTERJECTA IN RE BATMAN, PIONEER OF THE PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT.
SOME INTERJECTA IN RE BATMAN, PIONEER OF THE PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT.
Mr. Edward Henty, from Launceston, first entered the future Victoria in 1834 by her remote portal, Portland Bay, and thus became the founder of the colony. In the following year, John Batman, of Hobart, sailing from the same stirring little Launceston, entered by the central and grander portal of the Port Phillip Heads, and was thus the pioneer of Port Phillip settlement; for we must really turn blundering Collins, with his abortive doings in 1803-4, out of the running. I never saw Batman, as he
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JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER, FATHER OF MELBOURNE.
JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER, FATHER OF MELBOURNE.
"The force of his own merit makes his way." —Henry VIII. "Well, I am, not fair; and therefore I pray the gods to make me honest." —As You Like It. "He's honest, on mine honour." —Henry VIII. "He hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks." —Much Ado About Nothing. "For now he lives in fame, though not in life." —Richard III. If circumstances won't make a poet, as genius contemptuously asserts, nor make up for blood in a horse, as
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JAMES SIMPSON, FIRST MAGISTRATE OF "THE SETTLEMENT."
JAMES SIMPSON, FIRST MAGISTRATE OF "THE SETTLEMENT."
"He hath an excellent good name." —Much Ado About Nothing. When "The Settlement" began, and when, like the pre-Judges time in Israel, every man did as he pleased, the inevitable inconvenience of that ultra-radical paradise led the small community to seek out a male Deborah, and, with one accord, they made choice of James Simpson, their early fellow-emigrant in the tide from Launceston. Had there been even a much larger society, the choice would probably have been as surely the same, for it would
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CHARLES JOSEPH LA TROBE, C.B., SUPERINTENDENT OF PORT PHILLIP, AND FIRST LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA.
CHARLES JOSEPH LA TROBE, C.B., SUPERINTENDENT OF PORT PHILLIP, AND FIRST LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR OF VICTORIA.
"However God or fortune cast my lot, There lives or dies… A loyal, just, and upright gentleman." —Richard II. The more I saw of the subject of this sketch, over nearly all the fifteen years of his unusually prolonged and varied officiate, the more I explained his case by the excusing consideration that he was where he was without his own consent. He was naturally a quiet, amiable, unambitious man, full of official activity and ability, in a prescribed line, or under the instructions of superiors
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SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY, PREMIER, AND FOREMOST PUBLIC MAN OF VICTORIA.
SIR JOHN O'SHANASSY, PREMIER, AND FOREMOST PUBLIC MAN OF VICTORIA.
"Altogether directed by an Irishman; a very valiant gentleman, i' faith." —Henry V. One of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes, told with the humorous twinkle of his eye, was that "All men are born free and equal, AND MUST REMAIN SO." He was wide as the poles asunder from the radical leveller, as this joke of his might help to show. Indeed, he was decidedly conservative, in a general socio-political sense of the word. While in strong sympathy with the mass of his countrymen, he might have limped at
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WILLIAM KERR, FOUNDER OF "THE ARGUS," AND TOWN CLERK OF MELBOURNE.
WILLIAM KERR, FOUNDER OF "THE ARGUS," AND TOWN CLERK OF MELBOURNE.
"I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth, and therefore the truth I speak, impugn it whoso list." —"The Argus" motto. Another of O'Shanassy's oft-repeated jokes was a good story about Kerr, and always told with that stereotyped good temper which I fear the latter, with his strong Orange antipathies, would, upon opportunity, have but grudgingly reciprocated. Two "brither Scots," happening to meet one day in Melbourne, one of them, presumably not long arrived, "speer
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WILLIAM NICHOLSON, MAYOR OF MELBOURNE, AND PREMIER OF THE COLONY.
WILLIAM NICHOLSON, MAYOR OF MELBOURNE, AND PREMIER OF THE COLONY.
"An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not." —As You Like It. In one of our colonial municipalities, which of them I have forgotten, as I heard my story so long ago, a working furniture-maker, who had secured an order from the Mayor for his official chair, was observed to be at particular pains over its construction, and, on being asked the reason, replied that he intended some day to occupy it himself. If the subject of this sketch had been of that particular trade,
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CHARLES HOTSON EBDEN, ESQUIRE.
CHARLES HOTSON EBDEN, ESQUIRE.
"But I thought there was more in him than I could think." —Coriolanus. "Methinks there is much reason in his sayings." —Julius Caesar. "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." The subject of this sketch might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's dulness, for he had a few odd ways, and a fertile turn for epigrammatics, some of them not bad. He boasted of having Beau Brummell's antipathy to certain vegetables. During the early but brief allotment mania he said that h
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EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS," "THE TIMES" OF THE SOUTH.
EDWARD WILSON, CHIEF PROPRIETOR OF "THE ARGUS," "THE TIMES" OF THE SOUTH.
"The good I stand on is my truth and honesty; I fear nothing What can be said against me. —Henry VIII. I was long and intimately acquainted with Wilson. He was a man of high qualities and noble longings, and scorned meanness of all kinds; and he had, like his predecessor Kerr, some good and pungent literary pretensions, although he could not be placed on a level with Kerr while the latter enjoyed adequate health. But, on the other hand, he greatly marred his influence by what might be called imp
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EARLY SOCIETY: WAYS, MEANS, AND MANNERS.
EARLY SOCIETY: WAYS, MEANS, AND MANNERS.
"When rather from our acts we them derive Than our fore-goers." —All's Well that Ends Well. The salient defect, for more or less interval at first, in all commencing colonial societies, is the disproportion of the female element; and thus, in the sparseness of homes and families, we have that hardness of social feature, which illustrates how much better is the one sex with the "helpmeet" provided in the other. Early Port Phillip was no exception to this rule. Ladies and children were comparative
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"GOVERNMENT HOUSE."
"GOVERNMENT HOUSE."
"Old fashions please me best; I am not so nice To change true rules for odd inventions." —Taming of the Shrew. But perfection is never to be expected in human nature, and accordingly some decided drawbacks were, reasonably I think, chargeable to this "good society" which, as I have just said, had beneficially helped the dawning colony. There was a tendency to separate from, and rather hold in undue depreciation, the trading and toiling masses who mainly made the country. This tendency was foster
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CHEAP LIVING.
CHEAP LIVING.
"All cheering Plenty, with his flowing horn, Led yellow Autumn, wreathed with nodding corn." —Burns. After the first few years of disturbing land speculation, and a too general extravagance of living, we settled down into a frugal folk, of moderate but steady prosperity, which lasted up to the general unsettlement of everything by the gold. The general moderation, and the cheap and plenty time that characterized it, culminated in 1844, when bread was 4 pence the 4-pound loaf, rich fresh butter 3
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RELIGIOUS INTERESTS.
RELIGIOUS INTERESTS.
Our small society, in its upward struggle, received a distinctly great impetus for good by the accession in 1848 of the first Lord Bishop of the colony, Dr. Charles Perry. He exhibited a rare energy in the cause of his Divine Master, and he frankly and genially sought and recognized that Master's Church far beyond the pale of the Bishop's own section of it, so far at least as the rules of that section would permit. But the good Bishop, liberal as he was in one direction, yet failed to reach the
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THE GERMAN IMMIGRATION.
THE GERMAN IMMIGRATION.
"Go then forth, and fortune play upon Thy prosperous helm." —2nd part Henry IV. When I made my first Home trip, in 1847, I resolved to open, if I possibly could, German emigration to Port Phillip. Quite a number had already been settled, some from the earliest years, in South Australia, where their industry, frugality, sobriety, and general good conduct had made them excellent colonists. This favourable testimony was confirmed to me by correspondence on the subject with my late much-lamented fri
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THE GERMAN PRINCE.
THE GERMAN PRINCE.
"Come of a gentle, kind, and noble stock." —Pericles. One of the pleasant incidents to vary our social life was the arrival in 1850 of the young Prince of Schleswig-Holstein, to whom there occurred, during the German dynastic confusion that followed the revolutionary year 1848, an opportunity to see the world. Accompanied by his guardian, Captain Stanley Carr, he arrived by one of the Messrs. Godeffroy's ships from Hamburg, having been swayed to some extent in selection of travel route by the fa
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BLACK THURSDAY.
BLACK THURSDAY.
"Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire." —Milton. The year 1851 had for us three memorable events: first, "Black Thursday," on 6th February; second, the elevation of Port Phillip district into the colony of Victoria, on 1st July; third, the discovery of gold, which was practically and substantially that of Ballarat, during the third week of September. Black Thursday has been so much written about by others that I had best confine myself to my own experiences. I rode in to business, as usual, from my Me
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EARLY VICTORIA, FROM 1851.
EARLY VICTORIA, FROM 1851.
"Gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold." —Hood. I am drawing near the end of what may be fairly considered as "Early Melbourne and Victoria." Indeed, I might be challenged in going beyond the memorable 1851, a year which ushers such momentous new features into the colony. But considerably more than a generation has since passed; and, writing as I do for those who occupy to-day the old scene, I may plead as my excuse their own view of the subject; for already they regard the time I h
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EARLY BALLARAT.
EARLY BALLARAT.
"All that glisters is not gold." —Merchant of Venice. Let me begin upon early Ballarat by stating, what many may now have forgotten, namely, that the original and native name was Balaarat, or Ballaarat, which was the pronunciation then, and for some years after. But our English way is to put the emphasis on the first part of a polysyllabic word. I have long remarked this practice, comparing it with that of races of inferior, or more or less barbarous condition, who, as in countless other example
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MOUNT ALEXANDER AND BENDIGO.
MOUNT ALEXANDER AND BENDIGO.
"Our fortune lies upon this jump." —Antony and Cleopatra. The following year, about the same pleasant spring season, I made out a second goldfields visit, in company with my late friend, Mr. W.M. Bell, senior partner of the early firm of Bells and Buchanan. This time I went further inland, and in the more northerly direction of Mount Alexander and Bendigo, as considerable regions around were then loosely called, and which are now represented respectively by the large municipalities of Castlemain
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EARLY VICTORIAN LEGISLATION.
EARLY VICTORIAN LEGISLATION.
"They that stand high have many blasts to shake them." —Richard III. "Hear ye not the hum of mighty workings." —Keats. "Stay, you imperfect speakers." —Macbeth. We commenced with an unpretending budget, although memorable 1853, with all its gold and its progress, in what Wentworth happily called the precipitation into a nation, had dawned upon us. The Speaker of our then single Chamber system—one-third nominees—had but 400 pounds a year, which is guide sufficient to indicate the scale and style
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POSTSCRIPT.
POSTSCRIPT.
"Here, fifty winters since, by Yarra's stream, A scattered hamlet found its modest place: What mind would venture then in wildest dream Its wondrous growth and eminence to trace? What seer predict a stripling in the race Would, swift as Atalanta, win the prize Of progress, 'neath the world's astonished eyes?" —J. F. DANIELL, "The Jubilee of Melbourne." "And, behold, one half of the greatness was not told me." —2 Chronicles 9:6. My intended postscript on Melbourne as I found it in 1888 has been d
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POST POSTSCRIPT.
POST POSTSCRIPT.
My publisher affords me just time to record my arrival yesterday, at the capital of the youthful but already great Queensland, and to give some opinions of the place after a glance, which is, however, of necessity so cursory. Brisbane is to me not less astonishing than either Sydney or Melbourne. From the adjacent heights of Mount Coot-tha, I looked over several square miles, mostly of thickly compacted streets and dwellings, comprising a town and connected suburbs of 75,000 busy people. While t
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