Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
New South Wales wasn't happy. Governor Bourke dispatched Captain William
Lonsdale south in 1836, quashing any notion of ownership by the Port Phillip Association.
Surveyors were sent for and the task of drawing up plans for a city began. Robert Hoddle,
the surveyor in charge, arrived with the governor in March 1837, and was horrified by the
lack of order, both that of his unruly staff - who had absconded upriver to get drunk or
shoot kangaroos one too many times - and the antipodean topography itself. For Hoddle,
it was all about straight lines; his grid, demarcated by the Yarra and what was once a 'hil-
lock' where Southern Cross Station now lies, is Melbourne's defining feature. Land sales
commenced almost immediately, and so the surveying continued, but with little Romantic
notion of exploration or discovery. It was, by all accounts, a real-estate feeding frenzy.
The British were well served by their
terra nullius
concept, as returns on investment were
fabulous. The rouseabout 'Bearbrass' was upgraded to the rather more distinguished
'Melbourne', after the serving British prime minister.
During these years, the earliest provincial towns were also established along Victoria's
coast, around the original settlement of Portland to the southwest and Port Albert to the
southeast. Early inland towns rose up around self-sufficient communities of sheep sta-
tions, which at this stage were still the main source of Victoria's fast-increasing fortunes.
This, however, was soon to change.
Chinese migrants founded Melbourne's Chinatown in Little Bourke St in 1851, making it the longest con-
tinuous Chinese settlement in any Western country.
