Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Birth of Melbourne
'Modern' Melbourne's story begins in the 1830s. John Batman, an ambitious grazier from
Van Diemen's Land, sailed into Port Phillip Bay in mid-1835 with an illegal contract of
sale. (Britain's colonial claims of terra nullius relied on the fiction that the original inhabit-
ants did not own the land on which they lived and hence could not sell it.) He sought out
some tribal elders and on a tributary of the Yarra - it's been speculated that it was the Merri
Creek, in today's Northcote - found some 'fine-looking' men, with whom he exchanged
blankets, scissors, mirrors and handkerchiefs for over half a million acres (2400 sq km) of
land surrounding Port Phillip.
Various kings, queens and assorted contemporary bigwigs (including Governor Bourke himself) got the
nod in the naming of Melbourne's streets.
Despite the fact that the Aboriginal people from Sydney who were accompanying Bat-
man couldn't speak a word of the local language and vice versa, Batman brokered the deal
and signatures were gathered from the 'local chiefs' (three suspiciously called Jaga-jaga
and all with remarkably similar penmanship). He noted a low, rocky falls several miles up
the Yarra, where the Queens Bridge is today. Upstream fresh water made it a perfect place
for, as Batman described it, 'a village'. Batman then returned to Van Diemen's Land to
ramp up the Port Phillip Association.
It's at this point that the historical narrative becomes as turbid as the Yarra itself. Before
Batman could get back to his new settlement of Bearbrass (along with 'Yarra', another
cocksure misappropriation of the local dialect), John Pascoe Fawkner, a Launceston public-
an and childhood veteran of the failed Sorrento colony, got wind of the spectacular oppor-
tunity at hand. He promptly sent off a small contingent of settlers aboard the schooner
En-
terprize
, who, upon arrival, started building huts and establishing a garden. On Batman's
return there were words, and later furious bidding wars over allotments of land. Historians
regard the two in various ways, but Fawkner's foremost place in Victoria's story was sealed
by the fact he outlived the syphilitic Batman by several decades. Despite the bickering,
hubris and greed of the founders, the settlement grew quickly; around a year later, almost
200 brave souls (and some tens of thousands of sheep) had thrown their lot in with the new
colony.
