History of Melbourne
Encyclopedia
The history of Melbourne
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
second largest city.
The area around Port Phillip
and the Yarra
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous 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 was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
s from three tribes: 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 and water. 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 Boon warung
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 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
(Tasmania
). 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 Lady Nelson
entered Port Phillip, 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 Cumberland
, 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 (Yarra) 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, 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 river
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
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 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe 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 (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 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 was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 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.
The history of Melbourne
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
second largest city.
The area around Port Phillip
and the Yarra
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians
, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years.Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region, (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. ISBN 0646331507. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago." At the time of European settlement the population of indigenous inhabitants was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
s from three tribes: the Wurundjeri
, Boonwurrung
and Wathaurong.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0-9577004-2-3. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin
, as well as a vital source of food and water. 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.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0957700423. This book describes in some detail the archeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass strait and Port Phillip from about 7-10,000 years ago up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
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 Boon warung
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.Meyer Eidelson, The Melbourne Dreaming. A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne, pp8-9, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997. Reprint 2000. ISBN 0855753064See also Meyer Eidelson, The Footballer, First in the league, in Walks in Port Phillip. A guide to the cultural landscapes of a City, Accessed 1 November 2008
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
(Tasmania
). 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 Lady Nelson
entered Port Phillip, 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 Cumberland
, 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 (Yarra) 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, 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 river
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
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 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe 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 (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 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 was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 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.
The history of Melbourne
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
second largest city.
The area around Port Phillip
and the Yarra
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians
, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years.Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region, (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. ISBN 0646331507. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago." At the time of European settlement the population of indigenous inhabitants was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
s from three tribes: the Wurundjeri
, Boonwurrung
and Wathaurong.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0-9577004-2-3. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin
, as well as a vital source of food and water. 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.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0957700423. This book describes in some detail the archeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass strait and Port Phillip from about 7-10,000 years ago up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
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 Boon warung
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.Meyer Eidelson, The Melbourne Dreaming. A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne, pp8-9, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997. Reprint 2000. ISBN 0855753064See also Meyer Eidelson, The Footballer, First in the league, in Walks in Port Phillip. A guide to the cultural landscapes of a City, Accessed 1 November 2008
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
(Tasmania
). 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 Lady Nelson
entered Port Phillip, 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 Cumberland
, 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 (Yarra) 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, 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 river
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
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 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe 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 (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 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 was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 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.B. R. Penny, 'Lonsdale, William (1799 - 1864)', Australian Dictionary of Biography
, Volume 2, MUP, 1967, pp 124–126
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, after the then British prime minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
, who resided in the village of Melbourne
in Derbyshire. Before being officially named, the town had several interim names — including Batmania, Bearbrass, Bareport, Bareheep, Barehurp and Bareberp (in June 1835).Bill Wannan, Australian folklore: a dictionary of lore, legends and popular allusions, Lansdowne, 1970, p.42Alexander Wyclif Reed, Place names of Australia, Reed, 1973, p.149"Batmania" Melbourne Metblogs by Neil, 13 June 2007. Accessed 7 July 2008 The General Post Office opened under that name on 13 April 1837. 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
.
Until the building boom which followed the gold rushes, most of Melbourne was built of timber, and almost nothing from this period survives. Two exceptions are St James Old Cathedral
(1839) in Collins St (now relocated to the Flagstaff Gardens), and St Francis Catholic Church
(1841) in Elizabeth St. Suburban development had already begun. The first sale of Crown lands in St Kilda
took place on 7 December 1842, and the wealthy began building houses by the seashore, and a port developing at Williamstown
. In 1844, a bridge was built to span the Yarra River
at Swanston Street. The bridge replaced the privately operated punts
. The bridge was a privately-built wooden trestle
toll bridge. In 1850, a government-built sandstone free bridge replaced the wooden bridge.
In 1848, Charles Perry
became the first Anglican bishop for Melbourne
, and James Alipius Goold
became the Catholic Bishop of Melbourne.
With the arrival of Europeans in the area, the local indigenous people were hard hit by introduced diseases, and their decline was hastened by mistreatment, alcohol and venereal disease. There were also frontier conflicts such as the Battle of Yering
in 1840.Kath Gannaway, Important step for reconciliation Star News Group, 24 January 2007. Accessed 1 November 2008Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, pp65-67 People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days, Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001 ISBN 0957772807 Simon Wonga
made moves to reclaim land for Kulin
people to settle on in 1859, but they were not successful until 1863 when the surviving members of the Wurundjeri
and other Woiwurrung
speakers were given 'permissive occupancy' of Coranderrk
Station, near Healesville
and forcibly resettled.
In July 1851 the successful agitation of the Port Phillip settlers led to the establishment of Victoria as a separate colony, and La Trobe became its first Lieutenant-Governor. In 1851 the white population of the whole Port Phillip District was still only 77,000, and only 23,000 people lived in Melbourne. Melbourne had already become a centre of Australia's wool export trade.
A few months after separation, gold was discovered at several locations around the colony, most notably at Ballarat
and Bendigo
. The ensuing gold rush
radically transformed Victoria, and particularly Melbourne. During land speculation of the 1850s many stone and brick public and financial buildings were built.
The discovery of gold led to a huge influx of people to Victoria, most of them arriving by sea at Melbourne. The town's population doubled within a year. In 1852 75,000 people arrived in the colony and this, combined with a very high birthrate, led to rapid population growth (as well as the equally rapid dispossession of the Aboriginal populations in those areas of inland Victoria which had not already been cleared for sheep runs).
In 1853 work began on the Yan Yean Reservoir
to provide water for Melbourne. Piped water started to flow in 1857. Victoria's population reached 400,000 in 1857 and 500,000 in 1860. As the easy gold ran out many of these people flooded into Melbourne or became a pool of unemployed in cities around Ballarat and Bendigo. There arose a huge wave of social unrest urging the opening of the lands in rural Victoria for small yeoman farming. In 1857 a Land Convention was held in Melbourne. Later a provisional government was formed by land hungry miners demanding land reform.
The accelerated population growth and the enormous wealth of the goldfields fuelled a boom
which lasted for forty years, and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne." The city spread eastwards and northwards over the surrounding flat grasslands, and southwards down the eastern shore of Port Phillip. Wealthy new suburbs like South Yarra
, Toorak
, Kew
and Malvern
grew up, while the working classes settled in Richmond
, Collingwood
and Fitzroy
.
The influx of educated gold seekers from England led to rapid growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries and art galleries. The first railway in Australia was built in Melbourne in 1854. Also in 1854, the government offered four religious groups land on which to build schools.A Great Australian School: Wesley College Examined, Andrew Lemon (2004) Helicon Press ISBN 0-9586785-8-8, p. 27 These included the Wesleyan Methodist Church,Wesley College - The First Hundred Years, Geoffrey Blainey, James Morrisey and S.E.K. Hulme (1967) Robertson & Mullens, p. 21 and the Anglican Church
. These resulted in Wesley College
and Melbourne Grammar School
being built in St Kilda Road
a few years later. The University of Melbourne
was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria
in 1856. The foundation stone of St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral
was laid in 1858 and that of St Paul's Anglican Cathedral
in 1880. The Philosophical Institute of Victoria received a Royal Charter in 1859 and became the Royal Society of Victoria
. In 1860 this Society assembled Victoria's only attempt at inland exploration, the Burke and Wills expedition
.
A Melbourne Town Council had been created in 1847, and one by one other suburbs also gained town status, complete with town councils and mayors. In 1851 a party-elected Legislative Council
, dominated by squatter interests, opposed the notion of universal suffrage and the role of the Legislative Assembly. In December 1854 discontent with the licensing system on the goldfields led to the rising at the Eureka Stockade
, one of only two armed rebellions in Australian history (the other being the Castle Hill convict rebellion
of 1804).
In November 1856, Victoria was given a constitution and in the following year full responsible government
with a two house Parliament
. For Melbourne, the major consequence was the magnificent edifice of Parliament House, Melbourne
, which was started in December 1855 and completed in stages between 1856 and 1929.
The boom fuelled by gold and wool lasted through the 1860s and '70s. Victoria suffered from an acute labour shortage despite its steady influx of migrants, and this pushed up wages until they were the highest in the world. Victoria was known as "the working man's paradise" in these years. The Stonemasons Union won the eight-hour day
in 1856 and celebrated by building the enormous Melbourne Trades Hall in Carlton
.
Melbourne's population reached 280,000 in 1880 and 490,000 in 1890. For a time it was the second-largest city in the British Empire
, after London
. In terms of area, Melbourne was already one of the largest cities in the world. Rather than building high-density apartment blocks like European cities, Melbourne expanded in all directions in the characteristic Australian suburban sprawl.
The middle classeshttp://gallery.slv.vic.gov.au/image.php?id=784 Doing the Block, Collins St, 1880. State Library of Victoria collection. lived in detached villas on large blocks of land, while the working class lived in reasonably comfortable cottages in the northern and western suburbs, and older areas like Fitzroy and Collingwood became slum
s. Most of the new heavy industry was concentrated in the western suburbs. The wealthy built huge mansions beside the sea or in the picturesque Yarra Valley.
The new suburbs were serviced by networks of trains and trams which were among the largest and most modern in the world. Melbourne's civic pride was demonstrated by the huge edifice of the Royal Exhibition Building
, built in 1880 to house the Melbourne International Exhibition
.
In the 1880s the long boom culminated in a frenzy of speculation and rapid inflation of land prices known as the Land Boom. Governments shared in the wealth and ploughed money into urban infrastructure, particularly railways. Huge fortunes were built on speculation, and Victorian business and politics became notorious for corruption. English banks lent freely to colonial speculators, adding to the mountain of debt on which the boom was built.
Melbourne had 490,000 people in 1890, and this figure scarcely changed for the next 15 years as a result of the crash and subsequent long slump. Immigration dried up, emigration to the goldfields of Western Australia
and South Africa
increased, and the high birthrate of the mid 19th century fell sharply and the city's growth continued, but very slowly.
Melbourne's status as Australia's largest city lasted long enough, however, for it to become the seat of government of the new Commonwealth of Australia when the six colonies federated in 1901. Parliament House in Spring St was lent to the Parliament of Australia
, while Victoria's Parliament found temporary accommodation in the Royal Exhibition Building.
The city's growth stalled, and by 1905 Sydney had resumed its place as Australia's largest city.
Not until about 1910 did economic growth resume, and Melbourne's population reached 670,000 by 1914. But the boom years did not return, and the level of wages remained far lower than it had been in the 1880s. As a result urban poverty became a feature of city life, and the slum areas of the inner industrial suburbs spread.
Due to long delays in establishing permanent capital at Canberra
, Melbourne remained Australia's capital until 1927. This had important long-term consequences. Melbourne became the centre of the Commonwealth Public Service
, the Australian Defence Force
s, the diplomatic corps (very small until World War II
), and also to a large extent of the legal profession, all of which reinforced the supremacy of Melbourne University and exclusive schools such as Scotch College
, Melbourne Grammar School
and Xavier College.
Melbourne's mood was also darkened by the terrible sacrifices of World War I
, in which 112,000 Victorians enlisted and 16,000 were killed. There were bitter political divisions during the war, with Melbourne's Irish-born Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix
leading opposition to conscription
for the war and the Labor Party suffering a traumatic split. Another 4,000 Victorians died in the Spanish flu
epidemic which followed the war. There was a modest revival of prosperity in the 1920s, and the population reached 1 million in 1930, but in 1929 the Wall Street Crash
ushered in another Depression
, which lasted until World War II
.
During these years Melbourne acquired another great landmark, the Shrine of Remembrance
in St Kilda Road, largely built by unemployed workers during the Depression. The population stagnated again, and was still only 1.1 million in 1940.
, and Military history of Australia during World War II
During World War II
, although Canberra was officially the capital, most of the military and civilian administration was centered in Melbourne, and the city's economy benefited from wartime full employment and the influx of American service personnel (including General Douglas MacArthur
, who made his headquarters in Collins St).
Organised crime was rife, with gang fights in the streets of Collingwood and underworld figures like Squizzy Taylor
legendary. The Labor Party
was much less successful in Melbourne than it was in Sydney and other Australian cities. Labor did not form a majority government in Victoria until 1952.
After World War II
, a new era of increasing prosperity arrived, fuelled by high prices for Victoria's wool, increased government spending on transport and education, and the stimulus of renewed high immigration. Unlike prewar immigration, which had been mostly from the British Isles, the postwar program brought an influx of Europeans, at first mostly refugees from eastern and central Europe. A large proportion of these immigrants were Jews
, and the Jewish population of Melbourne became the largest population proportionally of any Australian city, at about 1.4% in 1970. http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/Melbourne.asp They were followed by migrants from Italy
, Greece
and the Netherlands
.
Later, in the 1960s, migrants came from Yugoslavia
, Turkey
and Lebanon
. These inflows rapidly transformed the city's demographic profile and many aspects of its life. This new growth required new spending on infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals, which had been neglected during the long decades of recession and low growth between 1890 and 1940. Henry Bolte
, Premier from 1955 to 1972, was responsible for much of this rapid development of infrastructure. Under Bolte, some of the old inner-city slums were bulldozed and the dislocated tenants were housed in high-rise blocks of state-owned apartments.
Since the 1970s, the pace of change in Melbourne has been increasingly rapid. The end of the White Australia Policy
brought the first significant Asian migration to Melbourne since the gold rushes, with large numbers of people from Vietnam
, Cambodia
and China
arriving. For the first time, Melbourne acquired a large Muslim
population, and the official policy of multiculturalism
encouraged Melbourne's various ethnic and religious minorities to maintain and celebrate their identities. At the same time, the practice of mainstream Christianity
largely declined, leading to a secularisation of public life.
State patronage of the arts led to a boom in festivals, theatre, music and the visual arts. Tourism
became a major industry, bringing still more foreign faces to Melbourne's streets. In 1956, the city became the first in the Southern Hemisphere
to host the Olympic Games
. Two new universities opened, Monash University
in 1961 and La Trobe University
in 1967, followed by others in the 1980s, maintaining Melbourne's place as a leader in tertiary education.
By the end of the 20th century Melbourne had 3.8 million people. The urban sprawl spread from Werribee
in the south-west to Healesville
in the north-east and encompassing the whole of the Mornington Peninsula and Dandenong Ranges
to the south and east. A program of freeway construction was fast tracked in the 1970s and 1980s, while the expansion of rail and tram networks were neglected. These factors led to the rapid growth of the number and use of private cars.
Partly as a result of the increasing difficulty of traveling across the city, the central business centre declined, and satellite suburbs such as Frankston
, Dandenong
and Ringwood
, and further out Melton
, Sunbury
and Werribee, became centres of manufacturing, retailing and administration. As a result, industrial employment in the old working class inner suburbs declined, with these areas rapidly gentrifying in the 1990s and 2000s.
. This was followed by a deep recession. Melbourne's population growth slowed during the early 1990s as employment contracted, with a rise in migration to other states such as Queensland
.
In turn this recession contributed to the fall of Joan Kirner
's Labor government and the election in 1992 of a radical free-market Liberal
government under Jeff Kennett
. Kennett's team restored Victoria's finances by making sweeping cuts to public expenditure, closing many schools, privatising the tramways and electricity production, and reducing the size of the public service. These reforms came at a high social cost, but ultimately restored confidence in Melbourne's economy and led to a resumption of growth. By 1999 Kennett was voted out, but key landmarks that his government commissioned, such as the Crown Casino
, the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre
and the new Melbourne Museum
, remain.
In the early years of the 21st century, Melbourne entered a new period of high economic and population growth under the more cautious Labor
government of Steve Bracks
, which restored public expenditure on health and education. As the city's suburbs continued to sprawl outwards, the Bracks government sought to restrict new suburban growth to designated growth corridors and encourage higher-density apartment living in the city's main transport hubs.
The city's Central Business District experienced a major resurgence in the 2000s, aided by a large increase in inner-city apartment living, the opening of new public spaces such as Federation Square
and the new Southern Cross
railway station, a determined marketing campaign by Lord Mayor John So
's City Council and continuing development of the Southbank
and Docklands
precincts.
Since the late 2000s, population growth in Melbourne has been accelerating. Since the early 20th century, the city has been expanding outwards with low-density suburban urban forms to accommodate population growth. As this urban form is unsustainable, many sustainable
alternatives have been proposed and implemented into policy to limit suburban sprawl
, create transit-oriented urban environments and affordable housing and rent. However, in 2009 the Victorian Government announced plans to extend the city's urban growth boundary, potentially rezoning green wedges and agricultural land for housing development.
Since 1997, Melbourne has maintained significant population and employment growth. There has been substantial international investment in the city's industries and property market
. Major inner-city urban renewal has occurred in areas such as Southbank
, Port Melbourne, Melbourne Docklands
and more recently, South Wharf
. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics
, Melbourne sustained the highest population increase and economic growth rate of any Australian capital city in the three years ended June 2004. The city survived the Global Financial Crisis better than any other Australian city, adding more jobs in 2009 than any other Australian city, almost as much as Brisbane and Perth combined, the 2nd and 3rd fastest growing cities.
These factors combined has led to yet further suburban expansion through the 2000s into Green Wedges and beyond Urban Growth Boundaries, to accommodate the large population growth. Melbourne's property market is currently in a bubble,The Age.com.au with property largely expensive and unaffordable, and widespread rent increases.The Age.com.au The most recent generation of Melburnians are expected to see a sharp decline in housing and property ownership in line with unaffordability.
Despite lack of a progressive economy, general lack of government funding for public services such as public transport, and continued unsustainable urban growth, the city has seen sustained growth in its cultural institutions such as art, music, literature, performance, etc, as many contributors to and patrons of the arts relocate to Melbourne amongst excellent independent community support structures such as press and radio and a thriving cultural community. In 2003, Melbourne was named as a UNESCO City of Literature and the city hosts the majority of Australia's contemporary festivals, events and institutions, new galleries, music venues, museums, of all shapes and sizes are opening across the city.
From 2006, the growth of the city extended into "green wedges" and beyond the city's Urban growth boundary
. Predictions of the city's population reaching 5 million people pushed the state government to review the growth boundary in 2008 as part of its Melbourne @ Five Million strategy. Melbourne survived the financial crisis of 2007-2010 better than any other Australian city. In 2009, more new jobs were created in Melbourne than any other Australian capital - almost as many as the next two fastest growing cities, Brisbane and Perth, combined. and Melbourne's property market remained strong, resulting in historically high property prices and widespread rent increases.
In February 2010, The Transition Decade
, an initiative to transition human society, economics and environment towards sustainability, was launched in Melbourne.Beyond Zero Emissions.org
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
second largest city.
Pre-European settlement
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
and the Yarra
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
, 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 was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s from three tribes: the Wurundjeri
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
, Boonwurrung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
and Wathaurong.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
, as well as a vital source of food and water. 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
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
and Boon warung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
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.
European exploration
George Bass
George Bass was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.-Early years:He was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6...
, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, was the first European to enter what came to be called Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
, the passage between the Australian mainland and Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
). He sailed westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
region of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, as far west as Western Port
Western Port
Western Port, is sometimes called "Western Port Bay", is a large tidal bay in southern Victoria, Australia opening into Bass Strait. It is the second largest bay in Victoria. Geographically, it is dominated by the two large islands; French Island and Phillip Island. Contrary to its name, it lies to...
. In 1802, John Murray
John Murray (Australian explorer)
John Murray was a seaman and explorer of Australia. He was the first European to discover Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated....
in the Lady Nelson
Lady Nelson
The Royal Navy purchased Lady Nelson in 1799. She spent her career exploring the coast of Australia in the early years of the 19th century. She was the first known vessel to sail eastward through Bass Strait, the first to sail along the South coast of Victoria, as well as the first to enter Port...
entered Port Phillip, and he was followed shortly after by Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
.
In 1803, Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes was an English-born surveyor who did some valuable work in colonial Australia. He served as surveyor-general of New South Wales and discovered the Yarra River in what is now the state of Victoria. He is perhaps best known for being the surveyor who mapped the route of the Hobart...
, the deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales, was sent to Port Phillip
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
to survey the area. Sailing on Cumberland
HMS Cumberland (1803)
HMS Cumberland was a 29 ton schooner built in Port Jackson, Australia, by Henry Moore in 1801. Under the command of Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbin, she was used for Charles Grimes survey of King Island and Port Phillip in early 1803. She was purchased in 1803 to convey Matthew Flinders to England...
, 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
Frankston, Victoria
Frankston is a suburb within the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area in Victoria, Australia. It is located 40 km southeast of the state capital Melbourne at the southernmost edge of Greater Melbourne, near the beginnings of the Mornington Peninsula...
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
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. On the next day, Grimes rowed up the river in a boat and explored what is now the Maribyrnong River
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
for several miles. Returning to the Yarra he explored the river for several miles until he reached Dights Falls
Dights Falls
Dights Falls is located in Melbourne, Victoria just downstream of the junction of the Yarra River with Merri Creek. At this point the river narrows and is constricted between 800,000 year old volcanic, basaltic lava flow and a much older steep, silurian, sedimentary spur...
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 (Yarra) 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, fearful that the French might try to occupy the Bass Strait area, sent Colonel David Collins
David Collins (governor)
Colonel David Collins was the first Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Van Diemens Land, founded in 1804, which in 1901 became the state of Tasmania in the Commonwealth of Australia.-Early life and military career:...
with a party of 300 convicts to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins arrived at the site of Sorrento
Sorrento, Victoria
Sorrento is a township in Victoria, Australia, located on the shores of Port Phillip on the Mornington Peninsula, about one and a half hours south of Melbourne...
, on the Mornington Peninsula
Mornington Peninsula
The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geographically, the peninsula begins its protrusion...
, in October 1803, but was put off by the lack of fresh water. In May 1804 Collins moved the settlement to Tasmania, establishing Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
. 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
John Pascoe Fawkner
John Pascoe Fawkner was an early pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land , to sail to the mainland in his ship, Enterprize...
, who would later come back to settle in the Melbourne area.
In 1824 Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume was the first Australian born explorer. Along with Hovell in 1824, Hume was part of an expedition that first took an overland route from Sydney to Port Phillip near the site of present day Melbourne...
and William Hovell
William Hovell
William Hilton Hovell was an English explorer of Australia.-Early life:Hovell was born in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England and went to sea as a boy, becoming a Royal Navy captain before settling in New South Wales, arriving in October 1813 aboard the Earl Spencer with his wife Esther née Arndell...
came overland from New South Wales, failing to find Western Port, their destination, but instead reaching Corio Bay
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, where they found good grazing land. But it was another ten years before Edward Henty
Edward Henty
See also Western District Edward Henty ,was a pioneer and first permanent settler in the Port Phillip district , Australia....
, a Tasmanian grazier, established an illegal sheep-run on crown land
Crown land
In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....
at Portland
Portland, Victoria
The city of Portland is the oldest European settlement in what is now the state of Victoria, Australia. It is the main urban centre of the Shire of Glenelg. It is located on Portland Bay.-History:...
, in what is now western Victoria, in 1834.
John Batman
John Batman
John Batman was an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer who is best known for his role in the founding of a settlement which became Melbourne and the colony of Victoria.-Life:...
, 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
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong river
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Foundation of town
Port Phillip Association
The Port Phillip Association was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as...
signed a treaty
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with eight Wurundjeri elders, in which he purported to buy 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe Fawkner, by now a businessman in Launceston
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
, had the same idea. Fawkner bought a ship, the schooner Enterprize
Enterprize (1829)
The topsail schooner, Enterprize, was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1829 by William Pender. It was used for coastal transport of cargo such as coal, livestock, and supplies....
, 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
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
government (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 Bourke established the Port Phillip District
Port Phillip District
The Port Phillip District was an historical administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales, existing from September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria....
of New South Wales, though the borders had still not been determined, with the settlement as its administrative centre. (Bourke was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
William Lonsdale (colonist)
William Lonsdale supervised the founding of the official settlement at Port Phillip from 1836 and went on to serve under the Superintendent La Trobe from 1839 to 1854.-Early life:...
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
William Hobson
Captain William Hobson RN was the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.-Early life:...
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 29th had proceeded north and anchored off Point Gellibrand, Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay is a bay in Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia....
, near the mouth of the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. 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.
The history of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
second largest city.
Pre-European settlement
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
and the Yarra
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years.Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region, (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. ISBN 0646331507. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago." At the time of European settlement the population of indigenous inhabitants was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s from three tribes: the Wurundjeri
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
, Boonwurrung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
and Wathaurong.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0-9577004-2-3. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
, as well as a vital source of food and water. 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.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0957700423. This book describes in some detail the archeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass strait and Port Phillip from about 7-10,000 years ago up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
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
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
and Boon warung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
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.Meyer Eidelson, The Melbourne Dreaming. A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne, pp8-9, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997. Reprint 2000. ISBN 0855753064See also Meyer Eidelson, The Footballer, First in the league, in Walks in Port Phillip. A guide to the cultural landscapes of a City, Accessed 1 November 2008
European exploration
George Bass
George Bass was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.-Early years:He was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6...
, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, was the first European to enter what came to be called Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
, the passage between the Australian mainland and Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
). He sailed westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
region of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, as far west as Western Port
Western Port
Western Port, is sometimes called "Western Port Bay", is a large tidal bay in southern Victoria, Australia opening into Bass Strait. It is the second largest bay in Victoria. Geographically, it is dominated by the two large islands; French Island and Phillip Island. Contrary to its name, it lies to...
. In 1802, John Murray
John Murray (Australian explorer)
John Murray was a seaman and explorer of Australia. He was the first European to discover Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated....
in the Lady Nelson
Lady Nelson
The Royal Navy purchased Lady Nelson in 1799. She spent her career exploring the coast of Australia in the early years of the 19th century. She was the first known vessel to sail eastward through Bass Strait, the first to sail along the South coast of Victoria, as well as the first to enter Port...
entered Port Phillip, and he was followed shortly after by Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
.
In 1803, Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes was an English-born surveyor who did some valuable work in colonial Australia. He served as surveyor-general of New South Wales and discovered the Yarra River in what is now the state of Victoria. He is perhaps best known for being the surveyor who mapped the route of the Hobart...
, the deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales, was sent to Port Phillip
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
to survey the area. Sailing on Cumberland
HMS Cumberland (1803)
HMS Cumberland was a 29 ton schooner built in Port Jackson, Australia, by Henry Moore in 1801. Under the command of Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbin, she was used for Charles Grimes survey of King Island and Port Phillip in early 1803. She was purchased in 1803 to convey Matthew Flinders to England...
, 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
Frankston, Victoria
Frankston is a suburb within the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area in Victoria, Australia. It is located 40 km southeast of the state capital Melbourne at the southernmost edge of Greater Melbourne, near the beginnings of the Mornington Peninsula...
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
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. On the next day, Grimes rowed up the river in a boat and explored what is now the Maribyrnong River
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
for several miles. Returning to the Yarra he explored the river for several miles until he reached Dights Falls
Dights Falls
Dights Falls is located in Melbourne, Victoria just downstream of the junction of the Yarra River with Merri Creek. At this point the river narrows and is constricted between 800,000 year old volcanic, basaltic lava flow and a much older steep, silurian, sedimentary spur...
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 (Yarra) 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, fearful that the French might try to occupy the Bass Strait area, sent Colonel David Collins
David Collins (governor)
Colonel David Collins was the first Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Van Diemens Land, founded in 1804, which in 1901 became the state of Tasmania in the Commonwealth of Australia.-Early life and military career:...
with a party of 300 convicts to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins arrived at the site of Sorrento
Sorrento, Victoria
Sorrento is a township in Victoria, Australia, located on the shores of Port Phillip on the Mornington Peninsula, about one and a half hours south of Melbourne...
, on the Mornington Peninsula
Mornington Peninsula
The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geographically, the peninsula begins its protrusion...
, in October 1803, but was put off by the lack of fresh water. In May 1804 Collins moved the settlement to Tasmania, establishing Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
. 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
John Pascoe Fawkner
John Pascoe Fawkner was an early pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land , to sail to the mainland in his ship, Enterprize...
, who would later come back to settle in the Melbourne area.
In 1824 Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume was the first Australian born explorer. Along with Hovell in 1824, Hume was part of an expedition that first took an overland route from Sydney to Port Phillip near the site of present day Melbourne...
and William Hovell
William Hovell
William Hilton Hovell was an English explorer of Australia.-Early life:Hovell was born in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England and went to sea as a boy, becoming a Royal Navy captain before settling in New South Wales, arriving in October 1813 aboard the Earl Spencer with his wife Esther née Arndell...
came overland from New South Wales, failing to find Western Port, their destination, but instead reaching Corio Bay
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, where they found good grazing land. But it was another ten years before Edward Henty
Edward Henty
See also Western District Edward Henty ,was a pioneer and first permanent settler in the Port Phillip district , Australia....
, a Tasmanian grazier, established an illegal sheep-run on crown land
Crown land
In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....
at Portland
Portland, Victoria
The city of Portland is the oldest European settlement in what is now the state of Victoria, Australia. It is the main urban centre of the Shire of Glenelg. It is located on Portland Bay.-History:...
, in what is now western Victoria, in 1834.
John Batman
John Batman
John Batman was an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer who is best known for his role in the founding of a settlement which became Melbourne and the colony of Victoria.-Life:...
, 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
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong river
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Foundation of town
Port Phillip Association
The Port Phillip Association was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as...
signed a treaty
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with eight Wurundjeri elders, in which he purported to buy 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe Fawkner, by now a businessman in Launceston
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
, had the same idea. Fawkner bought a ship, the schooner Enterprize
Enterprize (1829)
The topsail schooner, Enterprize, was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1829 by William Pender. It was used for coastal transport of cargo such as coal, livestock, and supplies....
, 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
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
government (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 Bourke established the Port Phillip District
Port Phillip District
The Port Phillip District was an historical administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales, existing from September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria....
of New South Wales, though the borders had still not been determined, with the settlement as its administrative centre. (Bourke was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
William Lonsdale (colonist)
William Lonsdale supervised the founding of the official settlement at Port Phillip from 1836 and went on to serve under the Superintendent La Trobe from 1839 to 1854.-Early life:...
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
William Hobson
Captain William Hobson RN was the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.-Early life:...
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 29th had proceeded north and anchored off Point Gellibrand, Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay is a bay in Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia....
, near the mouth of the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. 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.
The history of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
details the city's growth from a fledging settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
second largest city.
Pre-European settlement
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
and the Yarra
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
valley, on which the city of Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
now stands, was the home of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....
, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years.Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region, (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. ISBN 0646331507. Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago." At the time of European settlement the population of indigenous inhabitants was estimated to under 20,000. who were hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s from three tribes: the Wurundjeri
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
, Boonwurrung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
and Wathaurong.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0-9577004-2-3. This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass Strait and Port Phillip from about 7–10,000 years ago, up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
, as well as a vital source of food and water. 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.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, ISBN 0957700423. This book describes in some detail the archeological evidence regarding aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management, particularly the period from the flooding of Bass strait and Port Phillip from about 7-10,000 years ago up to the European colonisation in the nineteenth century.
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
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
and Boon warung
Bunurong
The Bunurong are Indigenous Australians of the Kulin nation, who occupy South-Central Victoria, Australia. Prior to European settlement, they lived as all people of the Kulin nation lived, sustainably on the land, predominantly as hunters and gatherers, for tens of thousands of years...
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.Meyer Eidelson, The Melbourne Dreaming. A Guide to the Aboriginal Places of Melbourne, pp8-9, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra, 1997. Reprint 2000. ISBN 0855753064See also Meyer Eidelson, The Footballer, First in the league, in Walks in Port Phillip. A guide to the cultural landscapes of a City, Accessed 1 November 2008
European exploration
George Bass
George Bass was a British naval surgeon and explorer of Australia.-Early years:He was born on 30 January 1771 at Aswarby, a hamlet near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, the son of a tenant farmer, George Bass, and a local beauty named Sarah Nee Newman. His father died in 1777 when Bass was 6...
, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, was the first European to enter what came to be called Bass Strait
Bass Strait
Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the south of the Australian mainland, specifically the state of Victoria.-Extent:The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Bass Strait as follows:...
, the passage between the Australian mainland and Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
(Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
). He sailed westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland
Gippsland
Gippsland is a large rural region in Victoria, Australia. It begins immediately east of the suburbs of Melbourne and stretches to the New South Wales border, lying between the Great Dividing Range to the north and Bass Strait to the south...
region of Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
, as far west as Western Port
Western Port
Western Port, is sometimes called "Western Port Bay", is a large tidal bay in southern Victoria, Australia opening into Bass Strait. It is the second largest bay in Victoria. Geographically, it is dominated by the two large islands; French Island and Phillip Island. Contrary to its name, it lies to...
. In 1802, John Murray
John Murray (Australian explorer)
John Murray was a seaman and explorer of Australia. He was the first European to discover Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated....
in the Lady Nelson
Lady Nelson
The Royal Navy purchased Lady Nelson in 1799. She spent her career exploring the coast of Australia in the early years of the 19th century. She was the first known vessel to sail eastward through Bass Strait, the first to sail along the South coast of Victoria, as well as the first to enter Port...
entered Port Phillip, and he was followed shortly after by Matthew Flinders
Matthew Flinders
Captain Matthew Flinders RN was one of the most successful navigators and cartographers of his age. In a career that spanned just over twenty years, he sailed with Captain William Bligh, circumnavigated Australia and encouraged the use of that name for the continent, which had previously been...
.
In 1803, Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes
Charles Grimes was an English-born surveyor who did some valuable work in colonial Australia. He served as surveyor-general of New South Wales and discovered the Yarra River in what is now the state of Victoria. He is perhaps best known for being the surveyor who mapped the route of the Hobart...
, the deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales, was sent to Port Phillip
Port Phillip
Port Phillip Port Phillip Port Phillip (also commonly referred to as Port Phillip Bay or (locally) just The Bay, is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia; it is the location of Melbourne. Geographically, the bay covers and the shore stretches roughly . Although it is extremely shallow for...
to survey the area. Sailing on Cumberland
HMS Cumberland (1803)
HMS Cumberland was a 29 ton schooner built in Port Jackson, Australia, by Henry Moore in 1801. Under the command of Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbin, she was used for Charles Grimes survey of King Island and Port Phillip in early 1803. She was purchased in 1803 to convey Matthew Flinders to England...
, 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
Frankston, Victoria
Frankston is a suburb within the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area in Victoria, Australia. It is located 40 km southeast of the state capital Melbourne at the southernmost edge of Greater Melbourne, near the beginnings of the Mornington Peninsula...
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
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. On the next day, Grimes rowed up the river in a boat and explored what is now the Maribyrnong River
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
for several miles. Returning to the Yarra he explored the river for several miles until he reached Dights Falls
Dights Falls
Dights Falls is located in Melbourne, Victoria just downstream of the junction of the Yarra River with Merri Creek. At this point the river narrows and is constricted between 800,000 year old volcanic, basaltic lava flow and a much older steep, silurian, sedimentary spur...
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 (Yarra) 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, fearful that the French might try to occupy the Bass Strait area, sent Colonel David Collins
David Collins (governor)
Colonel David Collins was the first Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Van Diemens Land, founded in 1804, which in 1901 became the state of Tasmania in the Commonwealth of Australia.-Early life and military career:...
with a party of 300 convicts to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins arrived at the site of Sorrento
Sorrento, Victoria
Sorrento is a township in Victoria, Australia, located on the shores of Port Phillip on the Mornington Peninsula, about one and a half hours south of Melbourne...
, on the Mornington Peninsula
Mornington Peninsula
The Mornington Peninsula is a peninsula located south-east of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is surrounded by Port Phillip to the west, Western Port to the east and Bass Strait to the south, and is connected to the mainland in the north. Geographically, the peninsula begins its protrusion...
, in October 1803, but was put off by the lack of fresh water. In May 1804 Collins moved the settlement to Tasmania, establishing Hobart
Hobart
Hobart is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian island state of Tasmania. Founded in 1804 as a penal colony,Hobart is Australia's second oldest capital city after Sydney. In 2009, the city had a greater area population of approximately 212,019. A resident of Hobart is known as...
. 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
John Pascoe Fawkner
John Pascoe Fawkner was an early pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land , to sail to the mainland in his ship, Enterprize...
, who would later come back to settle in the Melbourne area.
In 1824 Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume
Hamilton Hume was the first Australian born explorer. Along with Hovell in 1824, Hume was part of an expedition that first took an overland route from Sydney to Port Phillip near the site of present day Melbourne...
and William Hovell
William Hovell
William Hilton Hovell was an English explorer of Australia.-Early life:Hovell was born in Yarmouth, Norfolk, England and went to sea as a boy, becoming a Royal Navy captain before settling in New South Wales, arriving in October 1813 aboard the Earl Spencer with his wife Esther née Arndell...
came overland from New South Wales, failing to find Western Port, their destination, but instead reaching Corio Bay
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, where they found good grazing land. But it was another ten years before Edward Henty
Edward Henty
See also Western District Edward Henty ,was a pioneer and first permanent settler in the Port Phillip district , Australia....
, a Tasmanian grazier, established an illegal sheep-run on crown land
Crown land
In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....
at Portland
Portland, Victoria
The city of Portland is the oldest European settlement in what is now the state of Victoria, Australia. It is the main urban centre of the Shire of Glenelg. It is located on Portland Bay.-History:...
, in what is now western Victoria, in 1834.
John Batman
John Batman
John Batman was an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer who is best known for his role in the founding of a settlement which became Melbourne and the colony of Victoria.-Life:...
, 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
Corio Bay
Corio Bay is one of numerous bays in the southwest corner of Australia's Port Phillip, and is the bay on which abuts the City of Geelong. The nearby suburb of Corio takes its name from Corio Bay.-Name:...
, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong river
Maribyrnong river
The Maribyrnong River rises about 50 km north of Melbourne, Victoria , near Mount Macedon. It flows generally southward and combines with the Yarra River to flow into Port Phillip....
s at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.
Foundation of town
Port Phillip Association
The Port Phillip Association was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as...
signed a treaty
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with eight Wurundjeri elders, in which he purported to buy 600000 acres (2,428.1 km²) of land around Melbourne and another 100000 acres (404.7 km²) 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
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
in Tasmania
Tasmania
Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart...
(then known as Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land
Van Diemen's Land was the original name used by most Europeans for the island of Tasmania, now part of Australia. The Dutch explorer Abel Tasman was the first European to land on the shores of Tasmania...
) and began plans to mount a large expedition to establish a settlement on the Yarra. But John Pascoe Fawkner, by now a businessman in Launceston
Launceston, Tasmania
Launceston is a city in the north of the state of Tasmania, Australia at the junction of the North Esk and South Esk rivers where they become the Tamar River. Launceston is the second largest city in Tasmania after the state capital Hobart...
, had the same idea. Fawkner bought a ship, the schooner Enterprize
Enterprize (1829)
The topsail schooner, Enterprize, was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1829 by William Pender. It was used for coastal transport of cargo such as coal, livestock, and supplies....
, 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
Batman's Treaty
Batman's Treaty was a document signed on 6 June 1835 by John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and explorer, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of the city of Melbourne...
with the Aborigines was annulled by the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
government (which at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia) on 26 August 1835 (and the annulment confirmed by the Colonial Office on 10 October 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 Bourke established the Port Phillip District
Port Phillip District
The Port Phillip District was an historical administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales, existing from September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria....
of New South Wales, though the borders had still not been determined, with the settlement as its administrative centre. (Bourke was authorized by London to establish a settlement in April 1836) Bourke also appointed Captain William Lonsdale
William Lonsdale (colonist)
William Lonsdale supervised the founding of the official settlement at Port Phillip from 1836 and went on to serve under the Superintendent La Trobe from 1839 to 1854.-Early life:...
as police magistrate, chief agent of the government and commandant of the district. Captain William Hobson
William Hobson
Captain William Hobson RN was the first Governor of New Zealand and co-author of the Treaty of Waitangi.-Early life:...
(later Governor of New Zealand) 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 29th had proceeded north and anchored off Point Gellibrand, Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay
Hobsons Bay is a bay in Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia....
, near the mouth of the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
. 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.B. R. Penny, 'Lonsdale, William (1799 - 1864)', Australian Dictionary of Biography
Australian Dictionary of Biography
The Australian Dictionary of Biography is a national, co-operative enterprise, founded and maintained by the Australian National University to produce authoritative biographical articles on eminent people in Australia's history....
, Volume 2, MUP, 1967, pp 124–126
Bourke also commissioned Robert Hoddle
Robert Hoddle
Robert Hoddle was a surveyor of Port Phillip in the 1830s, and the creator of the Hoddle Grid, the street grid system upon which inner city Melbourne is based. He was also an accomplished artist and depicted scenes of the Port Philip region as well as New South Wales...
to make the first plan for the town, completed on 25 March 1837, which came to be known as the Hoddle Grid
Hoddle Grid
The Hoddle Grid is the layout of the streets in the centre of the central business district of Melbourne. Named after its designer, Robert Hoddle, the Grid was laid out in 1837, and later extended...
. The surveys were intended to prepare for land sales by public auction
Public auction
A public auction is an auction held on behalf of a government in which the property to be auctioned is either property owned by the government, or property which is sold under the authority of a court of law or a government agency with similar authority....
. Bourke visited Port Phillip in March 1837, confirmed Lonsdale's choice of a site for the new town and named it Melbourne, after the then British prime minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, PC, FRS was a British Whig statesman who served as Home Secretary and Prime Minister . He is best known for his intense and successful mentoring of Queen Victoria, at ages 18-21, in the ways of politics...
, who resided in the village of Melbourne
Melbourne, Derbyshire
Melbourne is a Georgian market town in South Derbyshire, England. It is about 8 miles south of Derby and 2 miles from the River Trent. In 1837 a then tiny settlement in Australia was named after William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, Queen Victoria's first Prime Minister, and thus indirectly takes...
in Derbyshire. Before being officially named, the town had several interim names — including Batmania, Bearbrass, Bareport, Bareheep, Barehurp and Bareberp (in June 1835).Bill Wannan, Australian folklore: a dictionary of lore, legends and popular allusions, Lansdowne, 1970, p.42Alexander Wyclif Reed, Place names of Australia, Reed, 1973, p.149"Batmania" Melbourne Metblogs by Neil, 13 June 2007. Accessed 7 July 2008 The General Post Office opened under that name on 13 April 1837. 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
Charles Swanston
Charles Swanston merchant, banker and politician was a financial backer of the Port Phillip Association. He was born in Berwick upon Tweed, England the son of Robert and Rebecca Swanston...
.
George Gipps
George Gipps
Sir George Gipps was Governor of the colony of New South Wales, Australia, for eight years, between 1838 and 1846. His governorship was during a period of great change for New South Wales and Australia, as well as for New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales for much of this...
became Governor of New South Wales in 1838. In October 1839, he appointed Charles La Trobe
Charles La Trobe
Charles Joseph La Trobe was the first lieutenant-governor of the colony of Victoria .-Early life:La Trobe was born in London, the son of Christian Ignatius Latrobe, a family of Huguenot origin...
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
Treasury Gardens, Melbourne
The Treasury Gardens consist of 5.8 hectares on the south-eastern side of the Melbourne Central Business District, East Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The gardens are bounded by Wellington Parade, Spring Street, Treasury Place, and by the Fitzroy Gardens across Lansdowne street to the west...
, the Carlton Gardens
Carlton Gardens, Melbourne
The Carlton Gardens is a World Heritage Site located on the northeastern edge of the Central Business District in the suburb of Carlton, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
, the Flagstaff Gardens
Flagstaff Gardens, Melbourne
Flagstaff Gardens is the oldest park in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, first established in 1862. In 2005 it is one of the most visited and widely used parks in the city by nearby office workers and tourists...
, Royal Park
Royal Park, Melbourne
Royal Park is the largest of Melbourne's inner city parks . It is located north of the Melbourne Central Business District, Victoria, Australia, in the suburb of Parkville....
and the Royal Botanic Gardens
Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne
The Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne are internationally renowned botanical gardens located near the centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, on the south bank of the Yarra River. They are 38 hectares of landscaped gardens consisting of a mix of native and non-native vegetation including over...
.
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
Henry Fyshe Gisborne
Henry Fyshe Gisborne was the first Commissioner for Crown Lands of the Port Phillip District, founder of Flemington Racecourse and petitioner for Victoria's separation from New South Wales.-Early career:...
and presented by him to Governor Gipps
George Gipps
Sir George Gipps was Governor of the colony of New South Wales, Australia, for eight years, between 1838 and 1846. His governorship was during a period of great change for New South Wales and Australia, as well as for New Zealand, which was administered as part of New South Wales for much of this...
. 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
City of Melbourne
The City of Melbourne is a Local Government Area in Victoria, Australia, located in the central city area of Melbourne. The city has an area of 36 square kilometres and has an estimated population of 93,105 people. The city's motto is "Vires acquirit eundo" which means "She gathers strength as she...
was declared by letters patent
Letters patent
Letters patent are a type of legal instrument in the form of a published written order issued by a monarch or president, generally granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or corporation...
of Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
.
Early settlement
Melbourne began as a collection of tents and huts on the banks of the Yarra. The river was used for bathing and drinking water. The river had by the 1850s become quite polluted and was the cause of an epidemic of typhoid fever which hit the town resulting in many deaths. Though the Melbourne City Council opened the first Melbourne City Baths on 9 January 1860,Melbourne City, Past and Present people continued to swim and drink the river water.Until the building boom which followed the gold rushes, most of Melbourne was built of timber, and almost nothing from this period survives. Two exceptions are St James Old Cathedral
St James Old Cathedral
thumb|300px|St James Old Cathedral, MelbourneSt James Old Cathedral, an Anglican church, is the oldest church in Melbourne, Australia, and one of only three buildings in the central city which predate the Gold Rush of 1851...
(1839) in Collins St (now relocated to the Flagstaff Gardens), and St Francis Catholic Church
St Francis Catholic Church (Melbourne)
St Francis' Church is the oldest Catholic church in Victoria, Australia. Located on the corner of Lonsdale Street and Elizabeth Street, it is one of only three buildings in central Melbourne which predates the Gold Rush of 1851.- History :...
(1841) in Elizabeth St. Suburban development had already begun. The first sale of Crown lands in St Kilda
St Kilda, Victoria
St Kilda is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km south from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Port Phillip...
took place on 7 December 1842, and the wealthy began building houses by the seashore, and a port developing at Williamstown
Williamstown, Victoria
Williamstown is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km south-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hobsons Bay. At the 2006 Census, Williamstown had a population of 12,733....
. In 1844, a bridge was built to span the Yarra River
Yarra River
The Yarra River, originally Birrarung, is a river in east-central Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established in 1835 and today Greater Melbourne dominates and influences the landscape of its lower reaches...
at Swanston Street. The bridge replaced the privately operated punts
Cable ferry
A cable ferry is guided and in many cases propelled across a river or other larger body of water by cables connected to both shores. They are also called chain ferries, floating bridges, or punts....
. The bridge was a privately-built wooden trestle
Trestle
A trestle is a rigid frame used as a support, especially referring to a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by such frames. In the context of trestle bridges, each supporting frame is generally referred to as a bent...
toll bridge. In 1850, a government-built sandstone free bridge replaced the wooden bridge.
In 1848, Charles Perry
Charles Perry (bishop)
Charles Perry was the first Anglican bishop of Melbourne, Australia.-Early life:Perry was born in Hackney, Middlesex, the third son of John Perry, sheriff of Essex and shipbuilder, and his second wife, Mary, daughter of George Green...
became the first Anglican bishop for Melbourne
Anglican Diocese of Melbourne
The Anglican Diocese of Melbourne is the metropolitan diocese of the Province of Victoria in the Anglican Church of Australia. The diocese includes the urban cities of Melbourne and Geelong and also some more rural areas. The cathedral church is St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne...
, and James Alipius Goold
James Alipius Goold
James Alipius Goold was an Australian Augustinian friar and the founding Roman Catholic Bishop and Archbishop of Melbourne in Australia.-Early years and background:...
became the Catholic Bishop of Melbourne.
With the arrival of Europeans in the area, the local indigenous people were hard hit by introduced diseases, and their decline was hastened by mistreatment, alcohol and venereal disease. There were also frontier conflicts such as the Battle of Yering
Battle of Yering
The Battle of Yering was a conflict between Indigenous Australians of the Wurundjeri nation and the Border Police which occurred on 13 January 1840, on the outskirts of Melbourne-Frontier Conflict:...
in 1840.Kath Gannaway, Important step for reconciliation Star News Group, 24 January 2007. Accessed 1 November 2008Isabel Ellender and Peter Christiansen, pp65-67 People of the Merri Merri. The Wurundjeri in Colonial Days, Merri Creek Management Committee, 2001 ISBN 0957772807 Simon Wonga
Simon Wonga
Simon Wonga ngurungaeta and son of Billibellary, was an elder of the Wurundjeri indigenous people who lived in the Melbourne area of Australia.In 1840 Simon Wonga injured his foot in the Dandenongs...
made moves to reclaim land for Kulin
Kulin
The Kulin nation, was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in Central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement. Their collective territory extended to around Port Phillip and Western Port, up into the Great Dividing Range and the Loddon and Goulburn River valleys. To their...
people to settle on in 1859, but they were not successful until 1863 when the surviving members of the Wurundjeri
Wurundjeri
The Wurundjeri are a people of the Indigenous Australian nation of the Woiwurrung language group, in the Kulin alliance, who occupy the Birrarung Valley, its tributaries and the present location of Melbourne, Australia...
and other Woiwurrung
Woiwurrung
Woiwurrung is an Indigenous Australian language spoken by some of the Kulin Nation clans, the Wurundjeri people, of Central Victoria, from Mount Baw Baw in the east to Mount Macedon, Sunbury and Gisborne in the west.The Woiwurrung clans inhabited the Yarra River, called Birrarung in Woiwurrung,...
speakers were given 'permissive occupancy' of Coranderrk
Coranderrk
Coranderrk was an Indigenous Australian mission station set up in 1863 to provide land under the policy of concentration, for Aboriginal people who had been dispossessed by the arrival of Europeans to the state of Victoria 30 years prior. The mission was formally closed in 1924 with most residents...
Station, near Healesville
Healesville, Victoria
Healesville is a town in Victoria, Australia, 52 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges...
and forcibly resettled.
In July 1851 the successful agitation of the Port Phillip settlers led to the establishment of Victoria as a separate colony, and La Trobe became its first Lieutenant-Governor. In 1851 the white population of the whole Port Phillip District was still only 77,000, and only 23,000 people lived in Melbourne. Melbourne had already become a centre of Australia's wool export trade.
A few months after separation, gold was discovered at several locations around the colony, most notably at Ballarat
Ballarat, Victoria
Ballarat is a city in the state of Victoria, Australia, approximately west-north-west of the state capital Melbourne situated on the lower plains of the Great Dividing Range and the Yarrowee River catchment. It is the largest inland centre and third most populous city in the state and the fifth...
and Bendigo
Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...
. The ensuing gold rush
Victorian gold rush
The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. In 10 years the Australian population nearly tripled.- Overview :During this era Victoria dominated the world's gold output...
radically transformed Victoria, and particularly Melbourne. During land speculation of the 1850s many stone and brick public and financial buildings were built.
1850s Gold Rush
In 1853 work began on the Yan Yean Reservoir
Yan Yean Reservoir
Yan Yean Reservoir is the oldest water supply for the city of Melbourne, Australia. It is built on the Plenty River a tributary of the Yarra River, 30 km north of the city. A 9.5 metre embankment holds back 30,000 megalitres of water...
to provide water for Melbourne. Piped water started to flow in 1857. Victoria's population reached 400,000 in 1857 and 500,000 in 1860. As the easy gold ran out many of these people flooded into Melbourne or became a pool of unemployed in cities around Ballarat and Bendigo. There arose a huge wave of social unrest urging the opening of the lands in rural Victoria for small yeoman farming. In 1857 a Land Convention was held in Melbourne. Later a provisional government was formed by land hungry miners demanding land reform.
The accelerated population growth and the enormous wealth of the goldfields fuelled a boom
Boom and bust
A credit boom-bust cycle is an episode characterized by a sustained increase in several economics indicators followed by a sharp and rapid contraction. Commonly the boom is driven by a rapid expansion of credit to the private sector accompanied with rising prices of commodities and stock market index...
which lasted for forty years, and ushered in the era known as "marvellous Melbourne." The city spread eastwards and northwards over the surrounding flat grasslands, and southwards down the eastern shore of Port Phillip. Wealthy new suburbs like South Yarra
South Yarra, Victoria
South Yarra is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 4 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area are the Cities of Stonnington and Melbourne...
, Toorak
Toorak, Victoria
Toorak is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district located on a rise on the south side of a bend in the Yarra River. Its Local Government Area is the City of Stonnington...
, Kew
Kew, Victoria
Kew is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 6 km east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Boroondara. At the 2006 Census, Kew had a population of 22,516....
and Malvern
Malvern, Victoria
Malvern is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 8 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Stonnington. At the 2006 Census, Malvern had a population of 9,422.-History:...
grew up, while the working classes settled in Richmond
Richmond, Victoria
Richmond is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
, Collingwood
Collingwood, Victoria
Collingwood is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra...
and Fitzroy
Fitzroy, Victoria
Fitzroy is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Yarra. Its borders are Alexandra Parade , Victoria Parade , Smith Street and Nicholson Street. Fitzroy is Melbourne's...
.
The influx of educated gold seekers from England led to rapid growth of schools, churches, learned societies, libraries and art galleries. The first railway in Australia was built in Melbourne in 1854. Also in 1854, the government offered four religious groups land on which to build schools.A Great Australian School: Wesley College Examined, Andrew Lemon (2004) Helicon Press ISBN 0-9586785-8-8, p. 27 These included the Wesleyan Methodist Church,Wesley College - The First Hundred Years, Geoffrey Blainey, James Morrisey and S.E.K. Hulme (1967) Robertson & Mullens, p. 21 and the Anglican Church
Anglican Church of Australia
The Anglican Church of Australia is a member church of the Anglican Communion. It was previously officially known as the Church of England in Australia and Tasmania...
. These resulted in Wesley College
Wesley College, Melbourne
Wesley College, Melbourne is an independent, co-educational, Christian day school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Established in 1866, the college is a school of the Uniting Church in Australia. Wesley is the largest school in Australia by enrolment, with 3,511 students and 564 full-time staff...
and Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, located in South Yarra and Caulfield, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
being built in St Kilda Road
St Kilda Road, Melbourne
St Kilda Road is a street in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is part of the locality of Melbourne which has the postcode of 3004 and along with Swanston Street forms a major spine of the city....
a few years later. The University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
was founded in 1855 and the State Library of Victoria
State Library of Victoria
The State Library of Victoria is the central library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne. It is on the block bounded by Swanston, La Trobe, Russell, and Little Lonsdale streets, in the northern centre of the central business district...
in 1856. The foundation stone of St Patrick's Catholic Cathedral
St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne
St Patrick's Cathedral is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, and seat of its archbishop, currently Denis J. Hart. The building is known internationally as a leading example of the Gothic Revival style of architecture.In 1974 Pope Paul VI...
was laid in 1858 and that of St Paul's Anglican Cathedral
St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne
St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, is the metropolitical and cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne, Victoria in Australia. It is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and Metropolitan of the Province of Victoria...
in 1880. The Philosophical Institute of Victoria received a Royal Charter in 1859 and became the Royal Society of Victoria
Royal Society of Victoria
The Royal Society of Victoria is the oldest learned society in the state of Victoria in Australia.The Royal Society of Victoria was formed in 1859 from a merger between The Philosophical Society of Victoria and The Victorian Institute for the Advancement of Science , both founded...
. In 1860 this Society assembled Victoria's only attempt at inland exploration, the Burke and Wills expedition
Burke and Wills expedition
In 1860–61, Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills led an expedition of 19 men with the intention of crossing Australia from Melbourne in the south to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres...
.
A Melbourne Town Council had been created in 1847, and one by one other suburbs also gained town status, complete with town councils and mayors. In 1851 a party-elected Legislative Council
Victorian Legislative Council
The Victorian Legislative Council, is the upper of the two houses of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia; the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit in Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Council serves as a house of review, in a similar fashion to...
, dominated by squatter interests, opposed the notion of universal suffrage and the role of the Legislative Assembly. In December 1854 discontent with the licensing system on the goldfields led to the rising at the Eureka Stockade
Eureka Stockade
The Eureka Rebellion of 1854 was an organised rebellion by gold miners which occurred at Eureka Lead in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The Battle of Eureka Stockade was fought on 3 December 1854 and named for the stockade structure erected by miners during the conflict...
, one of only two armed rebellions in Australian history (the other being the Castle Hill convict rebellion
Castle Hill convict rebellion
The Castle Hill Rebellion of 4 March 1804, also called the Second Battle of Vinegar Hill, was a large-scale rebellion by Irish convicts against British colonial authority in Australia...
of 1804).
In November 1856, Victoria was given a constitution and in the following year full responsible government
Responsible government
Responsible government is a conception of a system of government that embodies the principle of parliamentary accountability which is the foundation of the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy...
with a two house Parliament
Parliament of Victoria
The Parliament of Victoria is the bicameral legislature of the Australian state of Victoria. It follows a Westminster-derived parliamentary system and consists of The Queen, represented by the Governor of Victoria; the Legislative Council ; and the Legislative Assembly...
. For Melbourne, the major consequence was the magnificent edifice of Parliament House, Melbourne
Parliament House, Melbourne
Parliament House in Melbourne, located at Spring Street in East Melbourne at the edge of the Melbourne city centre, has been the seat of the Parliament of Victoria, Australia, since 1855 .- History :In 1851, even before the colony of Victoria acquired full parliamentary self-government, Governor...
, which was started in December 1855 and completed in stages between 1856 and 1929.
The boom fuelled by gold and wool lasted through the 1860s and '70s. Victoria suffered from an acute labour shortage despite its steady influx of migrants, and this pushed up wages until they were the highest in the world. Victoria was known as "the working man's paradise" in these years. The Stonemasons Union won the eight-hour day
Eight-hour day
The eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions...
in 1856 and celebrated by building the enormous Melbourne Trades Hall in Carlton
Carlton, Victoria
Carlton is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 2 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne...
.
1880s and 1890s expansion
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
, after London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In terms of area, Melbourne was already one of the largest cities in the world. Rather than building high-density apartment blocks like European cities, Melbourne expanded in all directions in the characteristic Australian suburban sprawl.
The middle classeshttp://gallery.slv.vic.gov.au/image.php?id=784 Doing the Block, Collins St, 1880. State Library of Victoria collection. lived in detached villas on large blocks of land, while the working class lived in reasonably comfortable cottages in the northern and western suburbs, and older areas like Fitzroy and Collingwood became slum
Slum
A slum, as defined by United Nations agency UN-HABITAT, is a run-down area of a city characterized by substandard housing and squalor and lacking in tenure security. According to the United Nations, the percentage of urban dwellers living in slums decreased from 47 percent to 37 percent in the...
s. Most of the new heavy industry was concentrated in the western suburbs. The wealthy built huge mansions beside the sea or in the picturesque Yarra Valley.
The new suburbs were serviced by networks of trains and trams which were among the largest and most modern in the world. Melbourne's civic pride was demonstrated by the huge edifice of the Royal Exhibition Building
Royal Exhibition Building
The Royal Exhibition Building is a World Heritage Site-listed building in Melbourne, Australia, completed in 1880. It is located at 9 Nicholson Street in the Carlton Gardens, flanked by Victoria, Nicholson, Carlton and Rathdowne Streets, at the north-eastern edge of the central business district...
, built in 1880 to house the Melbourne International Exhibition
Melbourne International Exhibition (1880)
The Melbourne International Exhibition was held from 1 October 1880 until 30 April 1881. It was the second international exhibition to be held in Australia , the first being held the previous year in Sydney...
.
In the 1880s the long boom culminated in a frenzy of speculation and rapid inflation of land prices known as the Land Boom. Governments shared in the wealth and ploughed money into urban infrastructure, particularly railways. Huge fortunes were built on speculation, and Victorian business and politics became notorious for corruption. English banks lent freely to colonial speculators, adding to the mountain of debt on which the boom was built.
1891 economic bust
In 1891 the inevitable happened: a spectacular crash brought the boom to an abrupt end. Banks and other businesses failed in large numbers, thousands of shareholders lost their money, tens of thousands of workers were put out of work. Although there are no reliable statistics, there was probably 20 percent unemployment in Melbourne throughout the 1890s.Melbourne had 490,000 people in 1890, and this figure scarcely changed for the next 15 years as a result of the crash and subsequent long slump. Immigration dried up, emigration to the goldfields of Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
and South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
increased, and the high birthrate of the mid 19th century fell sharply and the city's growth continued, but very slowly.
Australia's capital: 1901-1927
Parliament of Australia
The Parliament of Australia, also known as the Commonwealth Parliament or Federal Parliament, is the legislative branch of the government of Australia. It is bicameral, largely modelled in the Westminster tradition, but with some influences from the United States Congress...
, while Victoria's Parliament found temporary accommodation in the Royal Exhibition Building.
The city's growth stalled, and by 1905 Sydney had resumed its place as Australia's largest city.
Not until about 1910 did economic growth resume, and Melbourne's population reached 670,000 by 1914. But the boom years did not return, and the level of wages remained far lower than it had been in the 1880s. As a result urban poverty became a feature of city life, and the slum areas of the inner industrial suburbs spread.
Due to long delays in establishing permanent capital at Canberra
Canberra
Canberra is the capital city of Australia. With a population of over 345,000, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The city is located at the northern end of the Australian Capital Territory , south-west of Sydney, and north-east of Melbourne...
, Melbourne remained Australia's capital until 1927. This had important long-term consequences. Melbourne became the centre of the Commonwealth Public Service
Australian Public Service
The Australian Public Service is the Australian federal civil service, the group of people employed by federal departments, agencies and courts under the Government of Australia, to administer the working of the public administration of the Commonwealth of Australia...
, the Australian Defence Force
Australian Defence Force
The Australian Defence Force is the military organisation responsible for the defence of Australia. It consists of the Royal Australian Navy , Australian Army, Royal Australian Air Force and a number of 'tri-service' units...
s, the diplomatic corps (very small until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
), and also to a large extent of the legal profession, all of which reinforced the supremacy of Melbourne University and exclusive schools such as Scotch College
Scotch College, Melbourne
Scotch College, Melbourne is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for boys, located in Hawthorn, an inner-eastern suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
, Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School
Melbourne Grammar School is an independent, Anglican, day and boarding school predominantly for boys, located in South Yarra and Caulfield, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and Xavier College.
Interwar period
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, in which 112,000 Victorians enlisted and 16,000 were killed. There were bitter political divisions during the war, with Melbourne's Irish-born Catholic Archbishop Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix
Daniel Mannix was an Irish-born Australian Catholic bishop. Mannix was the Archbishop of Melbourne for 46 years and one of the most influential public figures in 20th century Australia....
leading opposition to conscription
Conscription
Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
for the war and the Labor Party suffering a traumatic split. Another 4,000 Victorians died in the Spanish flu
Spanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
epidemic which followed the war. There was a modest revival of prosperity in the 1920s, and the population reached 1 million in 1930, but in 1929 the Wall Street Crash
Wall Street Crash of 1929
The Wall Street Crash of 1929 , also known as the Great Crash, and the Stock Market Crash of 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States, taking into consideration the full extent and duration of its fallout...
ushered in another Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, which lasted until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
During these years Melbourne acquired another great landmark, the Shrine of Remembrance
Shrine of Remembrance
The Shrine of Remembrance, located in Kings Domain on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, Australia was built as a memorial to the men and women of Victoria who served in World War I and is now a memorial to all Australians who have served in war...
in St Kilda Road, largely built by unemployed workers during the Depression. The population stagnated again, and was still only 1.1 million in 1940.
World War two
Main articles: Australian home front during World War IIAustralian home front during World War II
Although most Australian civilians lived far from the front line of World War II, the Australian home front during World War II played a significant role in the Allied victory and led to permanent changes to Australian society....
, and Military history of Australia during World War II
Military history of Australia during World War II
Australia entered World War II shortly after the invasion of Poland, declaring war on Germany on 3 September 1939. By the end of the war, almost a million Australians had served in the armed forces, whose military units fought primarily in the European theatre, North African campaign, and...
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, although Canberra was officially the capital, most of the military and civilian administration was centered in Melbourne, and the city's economy benefited from wartime full employment and the influx of American service personnel (including General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
, who made his headquarters in Collins St).
Organised crime was rife, with gang fights in the streets of Collingwood and underworld figures like Squizzy Taylor
Squizzy Taylor
Joseph Leslie Theodore "Squizzy" Taylor was an Australian Melbourne-based gangster. He rose to notoriety by leading a violent gang war against a rival criminal faction in 1919, absconding from bail and successfully hiding from the police for over a year in 1921-22, and the Glenferrie robbery in...
legendary. The Labor Party
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
was much less successful in Melbourne than it was in Sydney and other Australian cities. Labor did not form a majority government in Victoria until 1952.
Post World War Two
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a new era of increasing prosperity arrived, fuelled by high prices for Victoria's wool, increased government spending on transport and education, and the stimulus of renewed high immigration. Unlike prewar immigration, which had been mostly from the British Isles, the postwar program brought an influx of Europeans, at first mostly refugees from eastern and central Europe. A large proportion of these immigrants were Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
, and the Jewish population of Melbourne became the largest population proportionally of any Australian city, at about 1.4% in 1970. http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Archive/Melbourne.asp They were followed by migrants from Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
.
Later, in the 1960s, migrants came from Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
, Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
and Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
. These inflows rapidly transformed the city's demographic profile and many aspects of its life. This new growth required new spending on infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals, which had been neglected during the long decades of recession and low growth between 1890 and 1940. Henry Bolte
Henry Bolte
Sir Henry Edward Bolte GCMG was an Australian politician. He was the 38th and longest serving Premier of Victoria.- Early years :...
, Premier from 1955 to 1972, was responsible for much of this rapid development of infrastructure. Under Bolte, some of the old inner-city slums were bulldozed and the dislocated tenants were housed in high-rise blocks of state-owned apartments.
Since the 1970s, the pace of change in Melbourne has been increasingly rapid. The end of the White Australia Policy
White Australia policy
The White Australia policy comprises various historical policies that intentionally restricted "non-white" immigration to Australia. From origins at Federation in 1901, the polices were progressively dismantled between 1949-1973....
brought the first significant Asian migration to Melbourne since the gold rushes, with large numbers of people from Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
and China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
arriving. For the first time, Melbourne acquired a large Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
population, and the official policy of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
encouraged Melbourne's various ethnic and religious minorities to maintain and celebrate their identities. At the same time, the practice of mainstream Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
largely declined, leading to a secularisation of public life.
State patronage of the arts led to a boom in festivals, theatre, music and the visual arts. Tourism
Tourism
Tourism is travel for recreational, leisure or business purposes. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people "traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes".Tourism has become a...
became a major industry, bringing still more foreign faces to Melbourne's streets. In 1956, the city became the first in the Southern Hemisphere
Southern Hemisphere
The Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
to host the Olympic Games
1956 Summer Olympics
The 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XVI Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was held in Melbourne, Australia, in 1956, with the exception of the equestrian events, which could not be held in Australia due to quarantine regulations...
. Two new universities opened, Monash University
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
in 1961 and La Trobe University
La Trobe University
La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 by an Act of Parliament to become the third oldest university in the state of Victoria. The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are...
in 1967, followed by others in the 1980s, maintaining Melbourne's place as a leader in tertiary education.
By the end of the 20th century Melbourne had 3.8 million people. The urban sprawl spread from Werribee
Werribee, Victoria
Werribee is a city in Melbourne, Australia, 32 km south-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Wyndham. At the 2006 Census, Werribee had a population of 36,641. Statistically, Werribee is considered part of Greater Melbourne.Werribee is...
in the south-west to Healesville
Healesville, Victoria
Healesville is a town in Victoria, Australia, 52 km north-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges...
in the north-east and encompassing the whole of the Mornington Peninsula and Dandenong Ranges
Dandenong Ranges
The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
to the south and east. A program of freeway construction was fast tracked in the 1970s and 1980s, while the expansion of rail and tram networks were neglected. These factors led to the rapid growth of the number and use of private cars.
Partly as a result of the increasing difficulty of traveling across the city, the central business centre declined, and satellite suburbs such as Frankston
Frankston, Victoria
Frankston is a suburb within the Greater Melbourne metropolitan area in Victoria, Australia. It is located 40 km southeast of the state capital Melbourne at the southernmost edge of Greater Melbourne, near the beginnings of the Mornington Peninsula...
, Dandenong
Dandenong, Victoria
Dandenong is a suburb and major urban centre in metropolitan Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 30 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Situated on Dandenong Creek and mostly flat land at the foothills of Mount Dandenong, it is the main administrative centre for the City of...
and Ringwood
Ringwood, Victoria
Ringwood is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, east of Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Maroondah. At the 2006 Census, Ringwood had a population of 15,185....
, and further out Melton
Melton, Victoria
Melton is an outer-suburban city of Melbourne Victoria, Australia located 35 km east from Melbourne's central business district. It is the administrative centre for the Shire of Melton Local Government Area. At the 2006 Census, the Shire of Melton had a population of 35,490...
, Sunbury
Sunbury, Victoria
Sunbury is a regional city, located north-west of Melbourne's central business district, in the state of Victoria, Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume. At the 2006 Census, Sunbury had a population of 31,000...
and Werribee, became centres of manufacturing, retailing and administration. As a result, industrial employment in the old working class inner suburbs declined, with these areas rapidly gentrifying in the 1990s and 2000s.
1989 financial crash
These trends, along with cyclical recession and poor governance contributed to a financial crash in 1989, leading to the forced sale of one of Victoria's best-known symbols, the State Bank of VictoriaState Bank of Victoria
The State Bank of Victoria was a bank that existed from 1842 until 1990 when it was taken over by the Commonwealth Bank. It was owned by the State of Victoria....
. This was followed by a deep recession. Melbourne's population growth slowed during the early 1990s as employment contracted, with a rise in migration to other states such as Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
.
In turn this recession contributed to the fall of Joan Kirner
Joan Kirner
Joan Elizabeth Kirner AM , Australian politician, was the 42nd Premier of Victoria, the first woman to hold the position, which she held for two years prior to a landslide election defeat.-Biography:...
's Labor government and the election in 1992 of a radical free-market Liberal
Liberal Party of Australia
The Liberal Party of Australia is an Australian political party.Founded a year after the 1943 federal election to replace the United Australia Party, the centre-right Liberal Party typically competes with the centre-left Australian Labor Party for political office...
government under Jeff Kennett
Jeff Kennett
Jeffrey Gibb Kennett AC , a former Australian politician, was the Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999. He is currently the President of Hawthorn Football Club. He is the founding Chairman of beyondblue, a national depression initiative.- Early life :Kennett was born in Melbourne on 2 March...
. Kennett's team restored Victoria's finances by making sweeping cuts to public expenditure, closing many schools, privatising the tramways and electricity production, and reducing the size of the public service. These reforms came at a high social cost, but ultimately restored confidence in Melbourne's economy and led to a resumption of growth. By 1999 Kennett was voted out, but key landmarks that his government commissioned, such as the Crown Casino
Crown Casino
Crown Casino and Entertainment Complex is a large casino and entertainment precinct located on the south bank of the Yarra River, in Melbourne, Australia. Crown Casino is a unit of Crown Limited....
, the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre
Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre
The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre is the name given to two adjacent buildings next to the Yarra River in South Wharf, an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
and the new Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum
Melbourne Museum is located in the Carlton Gardens in Melbourne, Australia, adjacent the Royal Exhibition Building.It is the largest museum in the Southern Hemisphere, and is a venue of Museum Victoria, which also operates the Immigration Museum and Scienceworks Museum.The museum has seven main...
, remain.
2000s
Australian Labor Party
The Australian Labor Party is an Australian political party. It has been the governing party of the Commonwealth of Australia since the 2007 federal election. Julia Gillard is the party's federal parliamentary leader and Prime Minister of Australia...
government of Steve Bracks
Steve Bracks
Stephen Philip Bracks AC is a former Australian politician and the 44th Premier of Victoria. He first won the electoral district of Williamstown in 1994 for the Australian Labor Party, and was party leader and Premier from 1999 to 2007....
, which restored public expenditure on health and education. As the city's suburbs continued to sprawl outwards, the Bracks government sought to restrict new suburban growth to designated growth corridors and encourage higher-density apartment living in the city's main transport hubs.
The city's Central Business District experienced a major resurgence in the 2000s, aided by a large increase in inner-city apartment living, the opening of new public spaces such as Federation Square
Federation Square
Federation Square is a civic centre and cultural precinct in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia....
and the new Southern Cross
Southern Cross Station
Southern Cross is a major railway station and transport hub in Melbourne Docklands, Victoria, Australia. It is located on Spencer Street between Collins and La Trobe Streets at the western edge of the central business district...
railway station, a determined marketing campaign by Lord Mayor John So
John So
John Chun Sai So JP is a Chinese-Australian businessman who served as the 102nd Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, Australia. He was the first Lord Mayor in the city's history to be directly elected by the people; previously, Lord Mayors were elected by the Councillors.First elected...
's City Council and continuing development of the Southbank
Southbank, Victoria
Southbank is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia located direct south of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne's Hoddle Grid. The northernmost area is considered part of the Central Business District and Central Activities District of the city. Its Local Government Area are the...
and Docklands
Melbourne Docklands
Docklands is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia occupying an area extending up to 2 km west of and adjacent to Melbourne's Central Business District . Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne...
precincts.
Since the late 2000s, population growth in Melbourne has been accelerating. Since the early 20th century, the city has been expanding outwards with low-density suburban urban forms to accommodate population growth. As this urban form is unsustainable, many sustainable
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
alternatives have been proposed and implemented into policy to limit suburban sprawl
Urban sprawl
Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a multifaceted concept, which includes the spreading outwards of a city and its suburbs to its outskirts to low-density and auto-dependent development on rural land, high segregation of uses Urban sprawl, also known as suburban sprawl, is a...
, create transit-oriented urban environments and affordable housing and rent. However, in 2009 the Victorian Government announced plans to extend the city's urban growth boundary, potentially rezoning green wedges and agricultural land for housing development.
Real estate
In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
. Major inner-city urban renewal has occurred in areas such as Southbank
Southbank, Victoria
Southbank is an inner city suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia located direct south of the Yarra River opposite Melbourne's Hoddle Grid. The northernmost area is considered part of the Central Business District and Central Activities District of the city. Its Local Government Area are the...
, Port Melbourne, Melbourne Docklands
Melbourne Docklands
Docklands is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia occupying an area extending up to 2 km west of and adjacent to Melbourne's Central Business District . Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne...
and more recently, South Wharf
South Wharf, Victoria
South Wharf is a small inner suburb of Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, Australia. Its Local Government Area is the City of Melbourne.South Wharf is located on the southern bank of the Yarra River, bounded by Clarendon Street, Normanby Road, the West Gate Freeway and Docklands Highway. Gazetted...
. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics
Australian Bureau of Statistics
The Australian Bureau of Statistics is Australia's national statistical agency. It was created as the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics on 8 December 1905, when the Census and Statistics Act 1905 was given Royal assent. It had its beginnings in section 51 of the Constitution of Australia...
, Melbourne sustained the highest population increase and economic growth rate of any Australian capital city in the three years ended June 2004. The city survived the Global Financial Crisis better than any other Australian city, adding more jobs in 2009 than any other Australian city, almost as much as Brisbane and Perth combined, the 2nd and 3rd fastest growing cities.
These factors combined has led to yet further suburban expansion through the 2000s into Green Wedges and beyond Urban Growth Boundaries, to accommodate the large population growth. Melbourne's property market is currently in a bubble,The Age.com.au with property largely expensive and unaffordable, and widespread rent increases.The Age.com.au The most recent generation of Melburnians are expected to see a sharp decline in housing and property ownership in line with unaffordability.
Despite lack of a progressive economy, general lack of government funding for public services such as public transport, and continued unsustainable urban growth, the city has seen sustained growth in its cultural institutions such as art, music, literature, performance, etc, as many contributors to and patrons of the arts relocate to Melbourne amongst excellent independent community support structures such as press and radio and a thriving cultural community. In 2003, Melbourne was named as a UNESCO City of Literature and the city hosts the majority of Australia's contemporary festivals, events and institutions, new galleries, music venues, museums, of all shapes and sizes are opening across the city.
From 2006, the growth of the city extended into "green wedges" and beyond the city's Urban growth boundary
Urban growth boundary
An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for higher density urban development and the area outside be used for lower density development.An urban growth boundary circumscribes an...
. Predictions of the city's population reaching 5 million people pushed the state government to review the growth boundary in 2008 as part of its Melbourne @ Five Million strategy. Melbourne survived the financial crisis of 2007-2010 better than any other Australian city. In 2009, more new jobs were created in Melbourne than any other Australian capital - almost as many as the next two fastest growing cities, Brisbane and Perth, combined. and Melbourne's property market remained strong, resulting in historically high property prices and widespread rent increases.
In February 2010, The Transition Decade
The Transition Decade
The Transition Decade is a non-partisan shared campaign which is coordinated by an alliance of Australian community, social, and environmental groups, non-profits and NGO's...
, an initiative to transition human society, economics and environment towards sustainability, was launched in Melbourne.Beyond Zero Emissions.org
See also
- Population Projections for Melbourne
- Timeline of Melbourne historyTimeline of Melbourne historyThis is a timeline of major events in the history of the city of Melbourne, Australia.-Pre-European settlement:*At least 5,000 years of settlement by various Aboriginal nations that were existing then-19th century:...
- History of VictoriaHistory of VictoriaThis article describes the history of the Australian state of Victoria.-Aboriginal history:The state of Victoria was originally home to many indigenous nations that had occupied the land for tens of thousands of years...
- MelbourneMelbourneMelbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
- Melbourne population growth
External links
- Local History of the city of Melbourne
- http://www.whitehat.com.au
- http://www.museum.vic.gov.au
- http://www.enterprize.org.au