Geelong

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The town which served early Farndale migrants to south Australia

 

 

 

  

Home Page

The Farndale Directory

Farndale Themes

Farndale History

Particular branches of the family tree

Other Information

General Sir Martin Farndale KCB

Links

 

Dates are in red.

Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.

Headlines are in brown.

References and citations are in turquoise.

Context and local history are in purple.

 

 

The Farndale Family and Geelong

 

Matthew Farndale and his family (FAR00225) settled at Birregurra – see also the Birregurra (Australia 1) Line, the Australian Farndales and the Martin Family.

 

Geelong was the centre from where the Farndales and the Martins and their descendants bought supplies.

 

A close up of a map

Description automatically generated

 

Geelong

 

Geelong is a port city located on Corio Bay and the Barwon River, in the state of Victoria, Australia. It is 75 km south-west of Melbourne and the second largest Victorian city, with an estimated urban population of 192,393 in 2016.

 

Geelong runs from the plains of Lara in the north to the rolling hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with Corio Bay to the east and hills to the west. Geelong is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Geelong municipality, which covers urban, rural and coastal areas surrounding the city, including the Bellarine Peninsula.

 

Geelong was named in 1827, with the name derived from the local Wathaurong Aboriginal name for the region, Djillong, thought to mean "land" or "cliffs" or "tongue of land or peninsula". Geelong City is also known as the 'Gateway City' due to its central location to surrounding Victorian regional centres like Ballarat in the north west, Torquay, Great Ocean Road and Warrnambool in the southwest, Hamilton, Colac and Winchelsea to the west, and the state capital of Melbourne in the north east.

 

The area was first surveyed in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne. The post office was open by June 1840 (the second to open in the Port Phillip District). The first woolstore was erected in this period and it became the port for the wool industry of the Western District. 

 

During the gold rush, Geelong experienced a brief boom as the main port to the rich goldfields of the Ballarat district. The city then diversified into manufacturing, and during the 1860s, it became one of the largest manufacturing centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks, and paper mills.

 

Geelong was proclaimed a city in 1910, with industrial growth from this time until the 1960s establishing the city as a manufacturing centre for the state, and the population grew to over 100,000 by the mid-1960s. During the city's early years, an inhabitant of Geelong was often known as a Geelongite, or a Pivotonian, derived from the city's nickname of "The Pivot", referencing the city's role as a shipping and rail hub for the area.

 

The 1850s Gold Rush

 

Gold was discovered in nearby Ballarat in 1851, causing the Geelong population to grow to 23,000 people by the mid-1850s. To counter this, a false map was issued by Melbourne interests to new arrivals, showing the quickest road to the goldfields as being via Melbourne. The first issue of the Geelong Advertiser newspaper was published in 1840 by James Harrison, who also built the world's first ether vapour compression cycle ice-making and refrigeration machine in 1844, later being commissioned by a brewery in 1856 to build a machine that cooled beer.

 

 A boat in the water

Description automatically generated

 

A paddle steamer approaches Geelong Harbour in 1857

 

The Geelong Hospital was opened in 1852, and construction on the Geelong Town Hall began in 1855. Development of the Port of Geelong began with the creation of the first shipping channel in Corio Bay in 1853. The Geelong to Melbourne railway was built by the Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company in 1857. 

 

Rabbits were introduced to Australia in 1859 by Thomas Austin, who imported them from England for hunting purposes at his Barwon Park property near Winchelsea. 

 

One of Geelong's best-known department stores, Bright and Hitchcocks, was established in 1861, and the H M Prison Geelong built using convict labour, was opened in 1864.

 

In 1866, Graham Berry started a newspaper, the Geelong Register, as a rival to the established Geelong Advertiser. When this proved unsuccessful, he bought the Advertiser and made himself editor of the now-merged papers. Using the paper as a platform, he was elected for West Geelong in 1869. In 1877, he switched to Geelong, which he represented until 1886, and served as Victorian Premier in 1875, 1877 to 1880, and 1880 to 1881. On the Market Square in the middle of the city, a clock tower was erected in 1856, and an Exhibition Building was opened in 1879.

 

A landscape with trees and a river

Description automatically generated

 

Geelong in 1856

 

1860s: The 'Sleepy Hollow'

 

A group of people outside a building

Description automatically generated

Exhibition Building and Market Square Clocktower in 1879 (both since demolished)

 

The gold rush had seen Ballarat and Bendigo grow larger than Geelong in terms of population. Melbourne critics dubbed Geelong 'Sleepy Hollow', a tag that recurred many times in the following years. A number of industries became established in Geelong, including Victoria's first woollen mill at South Geelong in 1868. In 1869, the clipper Lightning caught fire at the Yarra Street pier and was cast adrift in Corio Bay to burn before finally sunk by artillery fire. Improvements to transport saw Geelong emerge as the centre of the Western District of Victoria, with railway lines extended towards Colac in 1876, and to Queenscliff in 1879. Construction of the Hopetoun shipping channel began in 1881 and completed in 1893.

 

The Geelong Cup was first held in 1872, and Victoria's first long-distance telephone call was made from Geelong to Queenscliff on 8 January 1878, only one year after the invention of the device itself. Geelong was also the home of a prosperous wine industry until the emergence of the grapevine-eating insect Phylloxera vastatrix in 1885, which killed the industry until the 1960s. Between 1886 and 1889, the central business district's major banks and insurance companies erected new premises in a solid and ornate character. The existing Geelong Post Office was built during this time and the Gordon Technical College was established. Further industrial growth occurred with the Fyansford cement works established in 1890.

 

The town became known as 'the Pivot' in the 1860s owing to its being a central rail and shipping hub to Melbourne, Ballarat, and the western district.