Some plaques, cairns, gates and remnants
First of all let me wish all of you a Happy New Year. I hope that those that have been able to have had / are having some downtime at this time of year.
I’ve not posted for a little while because December was a busy month as I managed to get my second book to the printer. As a self-publisher, there’s an incredible amount of things that need to be done not the least of which was finalising the cover, which took quite some time and then getting that final proof ready. Anyway, I got there but that’s where my spare time went so hence no blog last month.
To start 2017, I thought I’d point out a number of things that are out and about that most people simply miss. My focus here is Geelong and the immediate environs and Melbourne, the CBD in particular.
Point Henry
On Corio Bay just to the east of the city is Point Henry. Until recently this location was the site of the Alcoa Aluminium smelter but that’s now closed and is currently being dismantled. There are many plans afoot for the site but that’s the future and I’m looking to the past.
Point Henry was the original place where most ships and boats coming into Corio Bay and Geelong landed. You see, in the early days there was a sand bar that ran across the bay and closed off the port of Geelong to larger ships. Smaller ones were able to get through and into Geelong when the tides were right but larger ones could not make it. This was dealt with later when a number of channels were cut through the bar to open Geelong to the world. But initially the place to land ships was Point Henry.
Many of those on the early ships were over-straiters from Van Diemen’s Land (VDL) bringing their sheep and cattle to settle what became Melbourne and Geelong. There were also immigrant ships from Great Britain and others from Sydney.
The landing place and Point Henry is remembered with a little known or seen plaque that remains there today.
Batman and Flinders memorial
At a place called Indented Head on the Bellarine Peninsula we find a cairn to two very famous and important people in the settlement of Victoria. While he appears second on the cairn, the first is Matthew Flinders. I’ve written about Flinders in some detail in an earlier post but he’s important because he did a couple of things. First, Flinders circumnavigated and mapped the coastline of Australia, the first person to do so. Second, he landed at Indented Head where the cairn is and then crossed the bay to the You Yangs where he is well remembered by Flinders Peak. If you want to know more about Flinders see my post “Mallee fleas.”
The second person on the cairn is John Batman. Batman is famous for a couple of things. First, for the Batman treaty with the indigenous population of Geelong and Dutigalla. In June 1835 Batman landed near this point on Indented Head and seat up his camp. From here he headed into Geelong then to nearby present day Melbourne where he entered into the treaty to “purchase” 600,000 acres of land from the Aborigines.
History shows that the purchase was declared void by the Government of the day. But what Batman, and the Port Phillip Association that he represented, had done was burst open the doors to settlement of Port Phillip, which later became Victoria.
The second honour that goes to Batman is the selection of the site and settlement of the town of Melbourne. Truth be told, however, there was a second player in all of this and his name is John Pascoe Fawkner, another settler from VDL in direct competition with Batman. He too landed in Port Phillip from VDL around the same time and can lay equal claim to the founding of Melbourne.
The joint honour exists so much so that until recently the City of Melbourne had statues of both men on the corner of Collins and William Street in the city. The building that was there was recently demolished and the statues seem to have been removed. Hopefully they will be returned – I await a reply from the City of Melbourne on this one... However, at the same location there is also a plaque to Fawkner commemorating that Fawkner purchased the lands there. It is embedded in the wall of the building at the corner of Market and Collins Streets in Melbourne (419 – 429 Collins Street.)
Captain Lonsdale
Nearby, very hidden, is another one that I stumbled across. Another important person in the history of Melbourne and Victoria is William Lonsdale. In 1836 Lonsdale was chosen by Governor Sir Richard Bourke to be the first police magistrate at Port Phillip. The plaque is embedded in the wall at 616-622 Little Collins Street.
Separation
In a later post I’ll come back to this one in some detail, but on 1 July 1851, just 15 years after settlement, Victoria was formally carved out from New South Wales to be its own colony, later a state. There was much excitement and joy about this in Port Phillip (renamed Victoria for the Queen.) The Bill that enacted this was passed in London in mid 1850 but news did not make it to the Colony until November.
In Geelong, the following plaque was placed originally located in 1951 in Brougham Street across the road from the Geelong Club where Mack’s Hotel once stood. After some redevelopment in Brougham Street it’s been moved to the Geelong Foreshore. After some hunting, I located it at Steampacket Gardens just near the Carousel.
Hume and Hovell
Some of you will know that I’ve become a bike rider of late. One of my favourite rides takes me north of Geelong to Lara. Here, on the service road on the side of Princes Highway, I found a cairn to William Hume and Hamilton Hovell – i.e. Hume and Hovell.
In 1824 Hume and Hovell set out from near Sydney and headed south. Their goal was to get to Westernport Bay. Their story is really interesting as they mistakenly made it to Corio Bay, just near the cairn on what is now called Hovell’s Creek. What followed was a sometimes funny, sometimes acrimonious but very interesting diatribe between the two, carried out, as seemed the way then, in the newspapers of the day and in their own publications. Each blamed each other for getting to the wrong point and each claimed success.
Regardless they are well remembered in NSW and Victoria for their endeavors and their journey.
The gates 1
When I return home from Lara I pass a set of gates. They sit on the left hand side of the Princess Highway as you come into Geelong. They stand alongside the Highway on the corner of Swinburne Street. I’d noticed them for quite some time but at last put two and two together.
These gates, that do nothing these days other than stand there next to a cricket ground, have no markings, plaque or indicators as to why they’re there or what they do. Beyond the gates and the two ovals, overlooking Corio bay stands a lovely old home. It was built in 1858 for local squatter, Robert Muirhead, who named the mansion after Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, England. Muirhead commissioned the leading Melbourne architects Webb and Taylor to undertake this task. He lived at the house until his death in 1862, with the house being sold the following year after the death of his wife. Today it’s used by local associations and council bodies. (Just quietly – the main house looks pretty empty and underused. It would make an awesome home…)
The gates that stand there were once for Osborne House. Mystery solved.
The gates 2 & 3
When I head out on my bike south from Geelong some days I head to Torquay. There I pass another two set of gates on The Esplanade. The gates are to “Taylors Park,” at both of its entrances on the road there.
The park harks back to Torquay’s past, well before the first land sales of 1886. It is one of a few parcels of land in Torquay that has never been subdivided for public sale. It continues to be Crown Land, now managed by the Great Ocean Road Coastal Committee (GORCC).
With thanks to Torquay Museum Without Walls Inc. (torquayhistory.com):
“The name TAYLOR PARK came about in 1921 just before the death of John William Taylor who had worked very hard for the development of Torquay. He was one of the first trustees of Torquay Reserves and Parks being appointed in 1893. John William was chairperson of the Trustees and also President of the Torquay Improvement Association at a crucial time when the Lands Department had to be convinced by him to maintain the land as a public reserve and not subdivide the land for sale. John William also planted gums and pines in a series of straight lines across the park and organised nurserymen to propose other vegetation for planting.
In 1935 when J.C. Taylor & Sons had the contract to build the College of Surgeons for the British Medical Association in Spring Street Melbourne, Alan Taylor (EJ Taylor’s son) was the site manager. This College was built on the site of the Model School, built in 1852. As contractor for the site, surplus materials from the demolition belonged to the contractor. EJ Taylor liked the cast iron fence and the two gates with their blue stone gate pillars. He didn’t want to see them wrecked, so he dismantled them stone by stone and had them re-erected on The Esplanade entrances to Taylor Park. EJ had always hoped that the boundary of the park would be fenced up to the blue stone gate posts.”
Another mystery solved.
That’s it for this post. There’s always something out there if you look around, some pointer to or remnant from the past. All the best for 2017.
Chris
P.S. For those that have asked – you can get my latest book, “Major Mercer” at the following:
Geelong – Paton Books, 3/329 Pakington Street, Newtown.
On eBay.
E-book – Amazon Kindle.
Paperback – print on demand (for those in USA or Europe) – Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
Or if you want, and you’re in Oz, drop me a note at mercerhill@icloud.com and I’ll sort you out.