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Melbourne
Historical and geographical information
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Introduction
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.
Headlines of the history of the Lythe
are in brown.
References and citations are in turquoise.
Contextual history is in purple.
This webpage about the Lythe has the following
section headings:
- Matthew
Farndale and his family
- Melbourne,
an overview
- Timeline
of Melbourne
- Links, texts and
books
Matthew Farndale and his family
We do not know what it was that made Matthew Farndale (FAR00225) and
Hannah decide to emigrate to Australia. Perhaps they had been thinking of this
for some time, but whatever the reason it was a major undertaking to look for a
new life at the age of 57 and to leave his family and all that he knew. Before
leaving Kildale their eldest daughter Mary Ann married William Martin of
Kildale who had been a butler at Ingleby Manor.
The Argo left Liverpool on 8 October 1852. Onboard were Matthew
(59), Hannah, his wife (45), Elizabeth (19) their youngest daughter and Mary
Ann (23) and her husband William Martin (23).
The Argo
was a chartered American ship on its first voyage to Melbourne. The voyage
lasted 100 days arriving in Melbourne of 19 January 1853. It departed Melbourne
on March 25, 1853, for Callas
They must
have first spent some time in Melbourne, first renting a house, hut or tent; there were only a few permanent buildings. Here
they would enquire after land.
They
would have heard much of gold - the gold rush was in full cry. However they decided against it. Someone advised them
to move west to Western Victoria around Colac.
There was
not much there; it was a risk; but they took it. It was a land of bush, huge
gum trees, scrub, native wattle huts and bracken. There were no roads so they
must assemble stores, equipment and prepare to move. They would probably have
had a large wagon hauled by bullocks and a few horses. They would have found
their way across country, crossing rivers where they could, until they came to
Geelong - perhaps 60 miles the way they would have to go - this would have
taken about a week. They would camo outdoors listening to the starnge sounds of a strange land., particularly the
birds. The most unusual would be the kookoburra with
its hearty laugh, but magpies would remind them of Yorkshire. The land and the
sky, with the southern cross would all be new, strange
and different. They would see signs of aborigines who still lived in the area
and were not always friendly to the white invaders. The heat of the day would
be much more than anything they had ever experienced before and the terrible
insects and flies. They would have been dirty and weary, the women in their
long skirts sweeping the ground when they rested at Winchelsea. Then on
to Colac where they must have stayed sometime looking for land.
They eventually
settled at Birregurra.
Melbourne
Melbourne (Boonwurrung, Woiwurrung, Narrm or Naarm) is the capital of
the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in
Australia, after Sydney. Its name generally refers to a 9,993 km2 metropolitan
area known as Greater Melbourne.
Melbourne Timeline
40,000 BCE
Indigenous
Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for an estimated 31,000 to
40,000 years.
When European
settlers arrived in the 19th-century, under
2,000 hunter-gatherers from three regional tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong, inhabited the area. It was
an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance
and a vital source of food and water.
1803
The first
British settlement in Victoria, then part of the penal
colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David
Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento.
The
following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated
to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and founded the city
of Hobart. It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted.
1835
In May
and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip
Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, and later
claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 600,000 acres
(2,400 km2) with eight Wurundjeri
elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place
for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land.
A late
19th-century artist's depiction of John Batman's treaty with a
group of Wurundjeri elders
In August
1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in the area and established
a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum.
Batman and his group arrived the following month and the two groups ultimately
agreed to share the settlement, initially known by the native name of Dootigala.
Batman's
Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by Richard Bourke,
the Governor of New South Wales (who at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia), with compensation paid
to members of the association.
1836
In 1836,
Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip
District of New South Wales, and commissioned the first plan for its urban
layout, the Hoddle Grid, in 1837.
1837
Known
briefly as Batmania, the settlement was
named Melbourne on 10 April 1837 by Governor Richard Bourke after
the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne,
whose seat was Melbourne Hall in the market town of Melbourne, Derbyshire.
That year, the settlement's general post office officially opened
with that name.
Between
1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were largely dispossessed of their
land by European settlers.
1844
By
January 1844, there were said to be 675 Aborigines resident in squalid camps in
Melbourne. The British Colonial Office appointed five Aboriginal
Protectors for the Aborigines of Victoria, in 1839, however their work was
nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took
possession of Aboriginal lands.
1845
By 1845,
fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences then issued in
Victoria and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria for
generations to come.
1847
Letters
patent of Queen Victoria, issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne
a city.
1851
On 1 July
1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the
Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital.
The Victorian gold rush
South
Melbourne's "Canvas Town" provided temporary accommodation for the
thousands of migrants who arrived each week during the 1850s gold rush.
The
discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a gold rush, and
Melbourne, the colony's major port, experienced rapid growth. Within months,
the city's population had nearly doubled from 25,000 to 40,000
inhabitants. Exponential growth ensued, and by 1865 Melbourne had
overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city.
1853
Matthew Farndale (FAR00225) and
his family arrived in Melbourne.
Melbourne,
1853 from below Princes Bridge
An influx
of intercolonial and international migrants, particularly from Europe and
China, saw the establishment of slums, including Chinatown and a
temporary "tent city" on the southern banks of the Yarra.
1854
In the
aftermath of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion, mass public-support for the plight
of the miners resulted in major political changes to the colony, including
improvements in working conditions across mining, agriculture, manufacturing and other local industries. At least twenty
nationalities took part in the rebellion, giving some indication of immigration
flows at the time.
A large crowd
outside the Victorian Supreme Court, celebrating the release of the Eureka
rebels in 1855
With the
wealth brought in from the gold rush and the subsequent need for public
buildings, a programme of grand civic construction soon began. The 1850s and
1860s saw the commencement of Parliament House, the Treasury
Building, the Old Melbourne Gaol, Victoria Barracks, the State
Library, University of Melbourne, General Post Office, Customs
House, the Melbourne Town Hall, St Patrick's cathedral, though
many remained uncompleted for decades, with some still not finished as of 2018.
The
layout of the inner suburbs on a largely one-mile grid pattern, cut through by
wide radial boulevards and parklands surrounding the central city, was largely
established in the 1850s and 1860s. These areas rapidly filled with the
ubiquitous terrace houses, as well as with detached houses and grand mansions,
while some of the major roads developed as shopping streets.
1855
In 1855,
the Melbourne Cricket Club secured possession of its now famous
ground, the MCG.
1859
Members
of the Melbourne Football Club codified Australian
football in 1859, and in 1861, the first Melbourne Cup race
was held.
1861
Melbourne
quickly became a major finance centre, home to several banks, the Royal
Mint, and in 1861 Australia's first stock exchange.
With the
gold rush largely over by 1860, Melbourne continued to grow on the back of
continuing gold-mining, as the major port for
exporting the agricultural products of Victoria (especially wool) and with a
developing manufacturing sector protected by high tariffs. An extensive radial
railway network spread into the countryside from the late 1850s. Construction
started on further major public buildings in the 1860s and 1870s, such as
the Supreme Court, Government House, and the Queen Victoria
Market. The central city filled up with shops and offices, workshops, and
warehouses. Large banks and hotels faced the main streets, with fine townhouses
in the east end of Collins Street, contrasting with tiny cottages down laneways
within the blocks. The Aboriginal population continued to decline, with an
estimated 80% total decrease by 1863, due primarily to introduced diseases
(particularly smallpox[25]),
frontier violence and dispossession of their lands.
1864
Melbourne
acquired its first public monument, the Burke and
Wills statue, in 1864.
1880
Lithograph
of the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building, built to host
the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880
The decade
of the 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to
credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of
construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became the
richest city in the world, and the second-largest
after London in the British Empire.
The
decade began with the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880, held in the
large purpose-built Exhibition Building.
In 1880 a
telephone exchange was established, and in the same year the foundations
of St Paul's, were laid.
1881
In 1881
electric light was installed in the Eastern Market, and in the following year a
generating station capable of supplying 2,000 incandescent lamps was in
operation.
1885
In 1885
the Melbourne Tramway Trust built the first line of the Melbourne cable
tramway system, which became one of the world's most extensive systems by 1890.
Federal
Coffee Palace, one of many grand hotels erected during the boom
In 1885
visiting English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala coined the
phrase "Marvellous Melbourne", which stuck long into the
twentieth century and which Melburnians still use today.
1888
Melbourne's
land-boom reached a peak in 1888, fuelled by consumer confidence and escalating
land-value. As a result of the boom, large commercial buildings, grand
edifices, banks, coffee palaces, terrace housing and palatial
mansions proliferated in the city.
The
establishment of a hydraulic facility in 1887 allowed for the local manufacture
of elevators, resulting in the first construction of high-rise
buildings; most notably the APA Building, amongst the world's tallest
commercial buildings upon completion in 1889. This period also saw the
expansion of a major radial rail-based transport network.
In 1888
the Exhibition Building hosted a second event, even larger than the first: the
Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. This spurred the construction of numerous
hotels, including the 500-room Federal Hotel, The Palace Hotel in Bourke
Street (both since demolished), and the doubling in size of the Grand
(Windsor).
1890s
A
brash boosterism that had typified Melbourne during this time ended
in the early 1890s with a severe economic depression, sending the local finance
and property industries into a period of chaos, during which 16 small
"land banks" and building societies collapsed, and 133 limited
companies went into liquidation.
The
Melbourne financial crisis was a contributing factor in the Australian
economic depression of the 1890s and in the Australian banking crisis
of 1893.
The
effects of the depression on the city were profound, with virtually no new
construction until the late 1890s.
Links, texts and books