Melbourne c 1837

The map “shewing” the site of the township of Melbourne outlines the grid of the future township, together with the position of the already established huts, buildings and land holdings previous to the “foundation” of the Township by Sir Richard Bourke in 1837.  The map was surveyed and drawn by Robert Russell.  Note that the word “shew” is an archaic spelling of the verb show, and is also recorded as a definition of the verb establish.

Interestingly Bourke agreed with John Batman’s site for a village as noted in Batman’s diary on the 8th of June 1835.

Prior to the naming of Melbourne by Governor Sir Richard Bourke in the March of 1837, the new village was most commonly referred to as “The Settlement”.

Map of Melbourne c 1837 Batman's Hill - Cropped

Enlargement of Map Section showing Batman’s Hill, Home, Outbuildings, Cultivated Ground & Garden – c 1837

The first map of Melbourne clearly identifies John Batman’s “Batman’s Hill“, the infrastructure set in place by him within the short period since his first journey to the region.

However, the governance clearly ignored his efforts, his sacrifice and his achievements.  In fact, they somehow managed to declare his venture illegal though John Batman had been working on this concept for well over a decade.  He exhaustively negotiated with the governance who simply shut him down.  In accordance to the concept of ‘Terra Nullius’, he and the Port Phillip Association were in fact legally correct, and it would appear that the governance of the time were well aware of this . . .

Undeterred, Bourke bestowed the name “Melbourne” upon the new township of Port Phillip, in honour of William Lamb, usually referred to as Lord Melbourne (b: 15 Mar 1779 – d: 24 Nov 1848) who served as Britain’s Home Secretary from 1830 to 1834, and, as Britain’s Prime Minister in 1834 and again, from 1835 to 1841 . . .

Map of Melbourne 1837 b - Small

The Developing City

” . . . The width of the main streets having been fixed by the Surveyors at a chain and a half, or 99 ft., the Governor decided that a lane or right-of-way should run from east to west through the centre of all the ten-acre blocks, to give access to the rear of all the allotments it was proposed to sell.  These points having been settled, it only remained to find names for the thirteen streets indicated on the plan.

The greater number of the existing buildings, such as they were, converged upon the neighbourhood of William Street, and running up as it did direct from the then landing-place on the Yarra bank, it seemed to promise to be the principal avenue of trade.  Consequently it was named after His Majesty, and the street next to it on the east was called after the Queen.  Having thus satisfied the demands of loyalty, the next street, now the centre avenue of Melbourne, then a thickly timbered gully down which a small rivulet flowed to join the Yarra, was called Elizabeth Street, in memory of the Governor’s deceased wife.  The one beyond was devoted to perpetuating the name of Captain Swanston, the Hobart Town banker who had done so much to forward the interests of the Port Phillip Association ; and ascending the Eastern Hill, Russell Street was named after Lord John Russell, Stephen Street after a Colonial Office official, and Spring Street after Mr. Spring Eice, a former Colonial Secretary, but then Chancellor of the Exchequer.  Of the two streets to the west of William Street, the first was named after the Governor’s companion.  Captain King, and the boundary line in that direction was subsequently called Spencer Street, after Lord Spencer, who had been a member of Lord Melbourne’s cabinet.

The four main thoroughfares running east and west were named respectively after Flinders, the early navigator of the bay ; Collins, the unsuccessful coloniser of 1803 ; Bourke, the present sponsor, and Lonsdale his local representative.  A good night’s work, well done, but not without some inconvenient results to the settlers, if we may accept the statement of the Cormwall Chronicle that the alignment of the streets “left only one house, a public-house, to stand.  Every other house is to come down.”  A couple of days later the Governor, accompanied by Hoddle, visited the site of Williamstown, and caused some allotments to be surveyed and prepared for sale.  On his return to camp he conferred with Mr. Hoddle as to the most suitable blocks to be cut up for disposal by auction, and greatly gratified the settlers by deciding that the sale should take place on the spot on the 1st of June following.  He decided to reserve block three, bounded by William, Collins, Queen and Flinders Streets, for Government purposes, including a custom house.  The Surveyor was instructed to divide five of the blocks into twenty half-acre allotments each, and those selected were as follows : Block two bounded by King, Collins, William and Flinders Streets ; block four by Queen, Collins, Elizabeth and Flinders Streets ; and three blocks on the north side of Collins Street, extending from Swanston to William Streets, numbered twelve, thirteen and fourteen.

Source: Excerpt – “A History of the Colony of Victoria from its Discovery to its Absorption into the Commonwealth of Australia in Two Volumes” – Volume I – A.D. 1797 – 1854 – by Henry Gyles Turner – published 1904 – pp 165-167

 

Town of Melbourne Harbour of Port Philip - 1837 b

 

 ” . . . During Sir Richard Bourke’s stay there was a remarkable controversy between him and Mr. Hoddle as to the width of the streets.  The Governor had a notion that the perfection of town-planting consisted in big streets with little streets or lanes backing them up from behind — a sort of personal attendant like the knight and esquire of old, or the gentleman and valet of modern times.  It was also a hobby of his that no town street should, under any circumstances, be of a greater breadth than sixty-six feet, and like most hobbyised people he nursed this notion with much affection.  But Mr. Hoddle, though a subordinate, had not only a mind of his own, but what was better, the moral courage to speak it, and that he did so with effect, will be seen by a perusal of the history of the transaction as penned by himself in the following extract from the journal already referred to :—

“When (he writes) I marked out Melbourne in 1837, I proposed that all the streets should be ninety-nine feet wide.  Sir Richard Bourke suggested the lanes as mews or approaches to the stablings and out-buildings of the main streets of buildings.  I staked the main streets ninety-nine feet wide, and after having done so, I was ordered by the Governor to make them sixty-six feet wide; but upon my urging the Governor, and convincing him that wide streets were advantageous on the score of health, and convenience to the future city of Victoria, he consented to let me have my will.  I therefore gave up my objection to the narrow lanes thirty-three feet wide, which have unfortunately become streets, and many expensive buildings have been erected thereon.  Had a greater number of allotments been brought to public auction at first, houses in the broad streets would have been built in preference.  I have remedied it afterwards in marking out North and East Melbourne, by making the various streets sixty-six feet wide.  In 1837, after marking the streets, Sir Richard Bourke came early one morning into my tent and gave me the list of the names of the streets.” . . . “

Source:  Excerpt – ‘Chronicles of Early Melbourne – 1835 to 1851’ – by Garryowen published 1888

The naming of the Streets of Melbourne

The famous ‘grid’ that remains the instrument of the City of Melbourne to this very day was designed and recorded by surveyor Mr Hoddle, who accompanied Sir Richard Bourke during the trip to ‘The Settlement’ as it was then known, in the March of 1837.  The naming of the town, the boundaries, streets, and street names were all established during this visit:

” . . . The boundaries of “Old Melbourne” were from the Yarra by Spring, Latrobe, and Spencer Streets, back to the river, and for years no sane man ever dreamed, that for any business purposes, the township would require any extension.  The streets from the Yarra to Latrobe Street were named after Captain Flinders, one of the earliest navigators of Port Phillip Bay ; Colonel Collins, the Commandant of the Convict Settlement of 1803 ; Governor Bourke, and the Captain Lonsdale, before mentioned.  The streets from west to east were called after Lord Spencer (the Lord Althorpe of a Melbourne Administration), Governor King, of New South Wales ; William Street, after William the 4th, and Queen Street after his Consort, though the compliment would have been more marked, and the name more distinctive, if they had called it “Adelaide” Street.  There is a difference of opinion as to the lady whose name is borne by Elizabeth Street.  Some years ago it was stated in a Melbourne publication that it was a compliment paid by Sir Richard Bourke to one of his daughters; but I am assured, on the authority of Mr. Hoddle, that it was meant for Elizabeth, the “Virgin Queen  of English history.  Swanston Street distinguishes a captain of that name, the chairman of the Batman Association ; Russell Street is a memento of the once popular Earl Russell ; and Stephen Street a tribute to a permanent Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies.

For years Spring Street was an enigma, which neither myself, nor any one I asked, could solve.  The only theory that ever suggested itself to my mind, with any show of probability was that, the street, when pegged out, was so far away in the ” bush,” and passed over such a smooth, grassy, picturesquely timbered stretch of country, up a beautiful hill from the Yarra — across towards the Carlton Gardens, that either Governor or surveyor was induced by the fragrance of the gum trees and the freshness of the day, to present a votive offering to the goddess of Spring, whose season in another country they seemed to be enjoying, and so Melbourne came to have a Spring Street.  This fanciful surmise has been singularly sustained by the testimony of Mr. Hoddle, to the effect that when Sir Richard Bourke and he arrived on the crown of the Eastern Hill, there was such an abundance of beautiful black and white wattle-trees growing where the Parliament Houses and Treasury are built, that the Governor, in a fit of happy inspiration, pronounced in favour of a “Spring” Street.  Another idea is that Governor Bourke intended it as a compliment to Thomas Spring Rice, afterwards Lord Monteagle, a once distinguished British Statesman, the private friend and political patron of Bourke . . . “

Source:  Excerpt – ‘Chronicles of Early Melbourne – 1835 to 1851’ – by Garryowen published 1888

 

Epilogue

And so, within a period of only two years, Port Phillip Bay and the land explored and allocated by John Batman and the Port Phillip Association was overrun by settlers and government officials.  It was an absolute convenience that the two most important members of the association were dead within 4 years of their momentous discovery – Batman (the man with the dream, the explorer, the founder) and Gellibrand (the lawyer who ensured the enterprise was valid).  The following extract explains:

” . . . On the other hand, the public verdict will probably be that the Government of the day acted with a parsimony bordering on huckstering ; and that the Colonial Secretary certainly led the applicants to believe at one time that he intended to do more for them than the local administrator considered himself empowered to carry out.  It is needless to travel over the ground again, or to cite the numerous precedents where men had been endowed by the Crown with enormously valuable estates for merely undertaking to employ a number of convict servants, and thus relieve the Crown of their maintenance.  Much of the apparent hardship was due to the then recent radical changes in dealing with Crown lands, and to the transition state of land regulations.  Beyond this, there would appear to have existed in the British Cabinet over which Lord Melbourne ruled a spirit of severe financial economy that somewhat militated against the dignity of the Crown.

If, however, exception is fairly taken to the treatment of the Association, it certainly may be held to apply with even greater force to the manner in which the much milder claims of John Batman were dealt with.  He was not a great hero or a great discoverer, but he was unquestionably the pioneer of the district, and he cast his all in with its progress.  He brought over with him the proceeds of his Van Diemen’s Land estate, and what was perhaps of more value, he brought a wife and seven daughters to help in building up the community, and a son was born to him on the banks of the Yarra in the first year of his residence.  Financially his affairs did not appear to prosper in the new colony.  It seems to be implied by the narrators of the early days that the want of success was his own fault, was, in fact, want of steady application, of temperance and of industry.  His family averred that his health was shattered by the hardships he underwent in the preliminary exploration, and that his early death was its direct result.  Be this as it may, it is certain that with the capital he brought with him he erected the most substantial house in the place, with stores, barns and huts for his servants ; planted some hundreds of fruit-trees in his garden facing the Yarra, and brought under the plough some twenty acres of land which the great railway terminus now covers.  The buildings were mostly put up before he was warned that he was a trespasser, and all were in existence before the town was surveyed.  Nor was he without a proper sense of his duties as a citizen, for he entertained Captain Lonsdale for a week or two after his arrival, while the primitive ” Government cottage ” was being erected, and he headed the list of subscriptions for building the first church with a donation of £50.

The survey of the town of Melbourne, and the general anticipation of the prospective value of the allotments, probably first brought him face to face with the chance of losing his home through inability to provide the large sum that might be necessary for the purchase of the land, if competition was keen.  Therefore, on the 21st of March, 1837, while Sir Richard Bourke was in Melbourne, he drew up a memorial to the Colonial Secretary, for transmission through the Governor, in which he set out his claims to consideration, and asked for a free grant of the twenty acres ” on which he had built and cultivated, and which was not in the township now laid out “.

Glenelg, in reply, regretted that he could not comply with the prayer of the memorial, but he confirmed the Governor’s permission to Batman to continue his occupation of the house and garden until further notice, if he abstained from erecting any additional buildings or enclosures.

A year later Batman again addressed the Colonial Secretary, this time in the light of the experience gained by the first land sale.  He urged that having already expended £1,500 in improvements on the land, it would be ruinous to his family to compel him to compete under the authorised conditions.  He quoted from correspondence between the Colonial Office and the Association, in which the Minister was alleged to have expressed himself as considering it ” unreasonable ” that improvements should be the object of general competition, and pleaded as the first occupant of the country, and the one through whose means a friendly intercourse had been established with the natives, that he should be allowed to purchase the land direct at a moderate price.  Lord Glenelg’s reply to the Governor of New South Wales, dated 25th August, 1838, expresses an opinion that in the purchase of the land on which his house is built, and any adjacent land actually cultivated as a garden, Batman should be allowed the full value of his improvements.  It took Sir George Gipps some months to consider how the recommendation was to be acted on, and in April, 1839, he addressed a series of inquiries to Captain Lonsdale as to the value of the improvements, the estimated value of the land if sold by auction, and generally as to the validity of Batman’s claim to any further consideration beyond what had already been accorded to the Association.  Captain Lonsdale’s reply on the 6th of May was generally adverse to any special recognition.  He valued the improvements at only £400 ; he estimated the land as worth an upset price of £150 per acre, and that part could not be claimed by him, because it formed a portion of the town of Melbourne.  But the letter concluded with an intimation that ” after a protracted illness Mr. Batman died last night “.  It would appear as if the Government only considered that another pertinacious claimant was happily disposed of, for Sir George Gipps simply advises the Home Office that, ” as an indulgence, he had consented to allow the materials of the houses and everything else that is movable to be taken away for the benefit of Mr. Batman’s family “.

The wail of the dispossessed widow and her eight fatherless children went up a few years later in the form of a petition to Her Majesty Queen Victoria, appealing for a plot of land somewhere else on the broad acres of the colony, but it probably never penetrated beyond the Downing Street repository for such prayers.  At any rate, it was fruitless, and no compensation of any kind beyond what may have been realised by the old building materials was ever vouchsafed to the pioneer’s family.

Notwithstanding the urgency of the Government to get the trespasser cleared off, no attempt was made to sell the land on which the house stood.  For ten years or more it remained unutilised, until, in the expansion following on the gold discoveries, the frontage to the river became gradually covered with wharves ; the extension of Flinders Street westward passed through the garden; the fruit-trees gave place to a depot on which the coal supply of the city was stored ; and in 1870 the entire hill which perpetuated the name of the discoverer, and was for long the most noticeable landmark of the settlement, was levelled for the extension of the railway yards.  With the right of self-government the property had passed under the control of the Parliament of Victoria, and a community enjoying a revenue of £8,000,000 a year would certainly not have grudged having to pay the actual outlay which had been expended on his homestead by so enterprising a colonist as John Batman . . . “

 Source: Excerpt – “A History of the Colony of Victoria from its Discovery to its Absorption into the Commonwealth of Australia in Two Volumes” – Volume I – A.D. 1797 – 1854 – by Henry Gyles Turner – published 1904 – pp 196-199

Though the land occupied, developed and cultivated by John Batman remained untouched for some 10 years, the government did, however, evict Batman’s family immediately upon his death in 1839, and proceeded to move their offices therein – as the following extract describes:

” . . . Down Collins-street once more, we pass the primitive wooden cottage residence of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, whose family of fine daughters were already all married–Mrs. D.S. Campbell, Mrs. R. Russell, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Hutton–excepting the youngest, then a school-girl, afterwards married to Nantes, of Geelong, D.S. Campbell’s partner.  Then came Craig and Broadfoot’s stores, and Alison and Knight’s flour mills.  At the end was pretty green Batman’s Hill, which has since been remorselessly sacrificed for the great railway terminus.  Batman’s original wooden house on the southern slope was, after his early death, occupied as the Government offices by Mr. La Trobe, and this homely tenement did such high duties for no small subsequent term . . . “

Source:  Excerpt – “Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria” – by William Westgarth – published 1888

It would appear that the governance of the time did all they could to eradicate the memory of the founder of Melbourne . . .

View other important events in this Region’s History . . .

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