Duelling lads

The district of Port Phillip seems an overwhelmingly Victorian city. [There's a little pun there, for those of you not familiar with Melbourne, because the Port Phillip District later came to be known as 'Victoria'.]  Queen Victoria ascended to the throne in 1837, when Port Phillip was in its infancy, and the influx of immigrants which became a tsunami in the 1850s gold-rush, embedded the ideas and mindset of Victorian Britain along with the foundation-stones of many Gold Rush era buildings.  But there is one manifestation of an older, Georgian-era mindset in Port Phillip during the late 30s/early 1840s – duelling.

There had been a late 18th century revival in duelling in Britain, especially amongst army officers.  In 1777 at the Clonmel Assizes a group of Anglo-Irish gentlemen drew up the ‘Clonmel Code’ which comprised 26 rules for duelling. Although it was becoming less popular in Britain in the early decades of the 19th century, it continued in the colonies for longer, especially in Upper Canada, Sydney and Hobart which could perhaps be explained by the heavy presence of army officers in those locations.

It existed alongside, and was often inter-twined with the legal system.  Indeed, lawyers were frequent participants.  It was both a supplement to the legal system, and was supplemented by it, with disputes involving duelling often being played out through placards, newspaper letters and court cases as well.  Hence, while he was serving in Upper Canada in 1828 Judge Willis heard a court case that emerged from a duel that had occurred more than ten years previously, that had been reignited by a letter published in the newspaper.

There were several duels in Melbourne.  One famous one involved Peter Snodgrass (good name, eh?) and Redmond Barry who was later to become Chief Justice, and famously acted as the judge in the Ned Kelly trial.  Peter Snodgrass had been involved in an earlier duel as well.

As Edmund Finn tells it in The Chronicles of Early Melbourne (p. 776)

On the evening of the 1st January 1840, a select dinner-party assembled in one of the club-rooms to bid hearty welcome to the newly-arrived year, and here gathered as choice a dozen of exuberant spirits as could well be found from that day to this. They sat round a table of “full and plenty” where no stint was imposed upon the animal enjoyment of eating and drinking; and after dinner there was no disposition to bring the convivialism to anything like a premature termination, so there they stayed without giving a thought to an early breakup….When the wine, or rather the brandy, was in the wit flew out.  “A cup difference” arose between Mr Peter Snodgrass and Mr. William Ryrie, and heated words and offensive insinuations followed.  Snodgrass was the son of a Lieutenant-Colonel of distinction, and may be supposed to have inherited a martial ardour, which , which he was never reluctant to suppress when any occasion arose to excite it, and accordingly, a circumstance not surprising to those who knew his temperament, he forthwith challenged  Ryrie to mortal combat.  The verbal cartel was accepted as willingly as it was offered…

The shooting match was fixed for daybreak the following morning, on the western slope of Batman’s Hill, now the site of the Spencer Street [Southern Cross] Railway Station, and there was not much time for effecting the preliminary arrangements.

But an unexpected and formidable difficulty interposed…Strange and unaccountable omission! The Club was not provided with such gentlemanly indispensables as duelling pistols; and worse too, it was impossible to procure any in town without exciting a curiosity which might spread the matter abroad, and conduce to its interruption by police or other interference.

What to do?  Then someone remembered-

Mr Joseph Hawdon, of Heidelberg, was the possessor of a splendid case of hair-triggers, which could be got, if only their owner could be got at; but he was enjoying the pleasures of his peaceful home, and that was eight miles in the country.  This was a gloomy and disheartening look-out…Fortunately, there was present a man worthy of, and equal to the occasion.  H-lt-n, Ryrie’s second, had a good horse in the Club stable, and fresh from the “land of green heath and shaggy wood” was an expert plucky rider, as firm in the pigskin as on the solid ground, and jumping up, proclaimed his readiness to ride… to Heidelberg, storm the Hawdon domicile, and either return with the pistols, or never show his honest face amongst them.  The offer was rapturously applauded…

And so off he rode-

Arriving at his destination, the dreaming Hawdon was broken in upon, the pistols obtained, and the eight miles back were thundered over again in a double-quick time never out-paced since.  It was about 1 o’clock when the courier galloped up Collins Street, flourishing a pistol in each hand…

Lack of ammunition was the next problem, again solved by the enterprising second Mr H-lt-n, who sweet-talked the Military Commandant into handing over the needful.  On the way back to the club, he called in on Mr D. J. Thomas the surgeon, who agreed to accompany them.

Every obstruction now removed, the party moved off to the convincing ground, a grassy common on the verge of the swamp northwardly adjoining Batman Hill.  By this time it was clear daylight, as fine and fresh a summer morning as could be decided.  The distance was measured, the pistols primed, and the men placed; but just as the fatal signal was about to be given, Snodgrass, who was always a victim to over-impatience, or ultra excitement on such occasions, so mismanaged his hair-trigger that it went off too soon; so, instead of slaying his antogonist, he wounded himself in the toe, and came to grief.  Ryrie, as a matter of course, could not think of behaving so unhandsomely as to shoot a man down, and forthwith flared up in the air.  Thomas was immediately at work with the wounded patient, who, though literally prostrated, was found to have sustained no serious injury…

And what became of the Hawdon Duelling Pistols? As Garryowen tell us, Hawdon had a contract with the New South Wales government to convey the mail overland to and from Yass.  The pistols were placed in the hands of the first mailman, John Bourke, one of Hawdon’s employees, to be used as a means of defence against “possible bushrangers and probable Aboriginal assailants”.  Garryowen did not know if the pistols were ever deployed, but as Bourke was a good marksman, he was sure that he wouldn’t ‘toe’ himself as the first duellist did.

Sources:

Edmund Finn (Garryowen) The Chronicles of Early Melbourne

Penny Russell Savage or Civilized? Manners in Colonial Australia

Cecilia Morgan ‘In Search of the Phanton Misnamed Honour’: Duelling in Upper Canada Canadian Historical Review , Vol 76, No. 4 Dec 1995 pp 529-562

Crossposted (partially) at Banyule Homestead Matters because the aforesaid Joseph Hawdon later lived at Banyule Homestead in Heidelberg

‘Sea of Dreams: The Lure of Port Phillip Bay 1830-1914′ at Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery

If, like my husband, your appreciation of the beach is best bolstered by being in an air-conditioned building, far from the sand and the water, then you too might like this exhibition at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery.  It’s on until 19 February so you still have time to get there (just!), have lunch at Mornington, and if you feel so inspired, even walk down to Mother’s Beach, as we did on a beautiful warm summer afternoon.

Source: http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/mornington/photos/

The exhibition has been divided into five themes which highlight different aspects of Port Phillip Bay.  I can hear my uncle Peter reproving me for the tautology, but Melburnians generally call it Port Phillip Bay and I’m not absolutely convinced that a port and a bay are the same thing. (Did you know that it was originally named Port King (after King George)  by Lieutenant Grant? It was renamed Port Phillip by Governor Phillip Gidley King to commemorate NSW’s first Governor, Arthur Phillip “my worthy and dear friend, the Admiral, who, until now has not had his name bestowed on either stick or stone in the colony” [King to Murray, 31 Oct. 1801 HRNSW, iv, p. 602]  Although I wonder if King was being a bit bashful, thinking that people would think it was named after him?).

I digress.  The exhibition is divided up into five themes, which are arranged in different sections of the gallery.  The gallery, which is not large, has a long ribbon of the names of different spots along bay displayed just about the skirting board, spooling  from room to room.  I think that Melbourne people tend to be rather parochial over ‘their’ beach, identifying more with the Mornington Peninsula side or (for me) the other side over at Queenscliff. Seeing the scroll of names brought home to me just how many there are.

The first theme, “Land of Promise” examines emigration- both the experience for the emigrants themselves and for the families they left behind.  As well as emigration literature painting for a British market, it had paintings of the landing at Queenscliff, and a painting that one would hope the “home” audience didn’t see: the wreck of the ‘Asa Packer’ c. 1861 at Point Nepean as it was passing through the heads.  Although not directly related to Port Phillip, there was also a depiction of the wreck of the Loch Ard- after all, who can resist that story?- although I think that it undermined the focus of the exhibition somewhat to include it.

The second theme “Unsettling the Land” examined early depictions of the Port Phillip settlement.  A printed notice on one of the pillars was the Gallery’s response to criticisms that there was no Aboriginal representation of what we know as Port Phillip.  It explained that approaches had been made to the local Aboriginal community to become involved with the exhibition, but no response was received.  It reveals an interesting twist on the politics of depiction of indigenous presence, and the expectation that it will be represented- and what is to be done if the local community chooses not to become involved.   It pointed to the Tommy McRae painting of a corroboree (1890) included in the exhibition, but admits that otherwise the depictions of Aboriginal people in the paintings were executed by white painters.  I found it interesting that George Gordon McCrae, the son of Scottish painter Georgiana McCrae, painted a corroboree at Arthur’s Seat on the Mornington Peninsula in 1844-9 that looked very similar to the indigenous Tommy McRae painting (no relation or contact, despite the similarity of their names).  I had seen quite a few of the early Port Phillip paintings in this section of the exhibition before, but there was one Robert Russell sketch in particular that reinforced how scrappy and primitive that first white settlement on the Yarra was.

“Defending our Shores”, the third theme, highlighted the strategic importance of the Heads and their fortification, but also the ceremonial aspects of military and government display with visiting royalty, and navy and military manoeuvres intended to reinforce sovereignty.

The fourth theme picked up on trade and commerce, especially in the wake of the gold rush.  “Riding the wave” depicts the presence of American ships after the repeal of the Navigation Acts from the mid 1850s, and highlights the activity and wealth generated  around the bay.  Several of these paintings were themselves commissioned as a way of advertising the prosperity of ship-owners and entrepreneurs.

The final theme, “Whiff of the Briny” was perhaps my favourite, with paintings that showed the pursuit of leisure around the bay.  Artwork from different eras is placed side by side, so that you can move from a very detailed, almost draftsmanlike rendering of clothes and ships from the mid 19th century to the adjacent painting that might be a bolder, brighter and more impressionistic piece by one of  the Australian Impressionists. Conder, in particular, painted several works down at Mentone and Rickett’s Point, but other Australian Impressionists are represented too.

So, as is often the case, here I am telling you about an exhibition that is in its closing stages- so if you want to catch it, you’d better go soon!

Frocking up for the theatre

For a little treat the other night (well…a rather expensive treat actually) it was off to see the MTC production of The Importance of Being Earnest.  To get ourselves in the mood we watched Wilde starring Stephen Fry the night before, and sitting in the Sumner Theatre on Tuesday night, I was very much aware that we were laughing away at the same lines, probably delivered in much the same way to the audience at its opening night on St Valentine’s Day 1895.  It was a very traditional performance- no postmodern trickery or contemporary insertions here- and I felt rather overawed to be three rows away from one of the world’s greatest actors, Geoffrey Rush, right here in our shared home town.

What a striking, imperious and handsome Lady Bracknell he makes! (even though I don’t particularly think of Geoffrey Rush as handsome.)  He clearly relished rolling around in  the language, and being so close, we could see every raised eyebrow and every moue.  The rest of the cast was very good too, although if I had to name any criticism it would be at the slightly over-rehearsed delivery of Algernon’s lines. I recall Fry’s character in Wilde issuing the injunction that the lines should be delivered as sparkling, off-the-cuff repartee, rather than something that had been memorized and enunciated, and I think that the same observation could be made here too.

Two odd things about our night at the theatre though.  One was the sight of a very pushy woman, approaching everybody in the front row, asking them if instead of enduring their front row seat, they would be willing to swap with her seat at the back (“See, where the man is waving?”). When someone asked her if there was a particular reason, she said that she liked to be able to see their faces close up- well, don’t we all?  What amazed me was that someone actually did swap with her.

The second odd thing was an email we received a couple of days prior to the performance.  We have just endured a couple of hot days, and the email cautioned that the stage was heavily airconditioned for the comfort of the actors on stage in heavy costumes, and that as we were sitting in the front rows, we might want to bring a jacket or shawl.  It was good advice- it did get chilly after a while.

Patrons might have appreciated advice about their big night out at at Melbourne’s first theatre during the 1840s too.  The Pavilion, later renamed the Theatre Royal, was located on the east side of Bourke Street, between Elizabeth and Collins Street.  Garryowen describes it as:

one of the queerest fabrics imaginable.  Whenever the wind was high it would rock like an old collier at sea, and it was difficult  to account for it not heeling over in a gale.  The public entrance from Bourke Street was up half-a-dozen creaking steps; and the further ascent to the “dress circle” and a circular row of small pens known as upper boxes or gallery, was by a ladder-like staircase of a very unstable description. Internally it was lighted by tin sconces, nailed at intervals to the boarding filled with guttering candles, flickering with a dim and sickly glare. A swing lamp and wax tapers were afterwards substituted, and the immunity of the place from fire is a marvel.  It was never thoroughly water-proof, and, after it was opened for public purposes, in wet weather the audience would be treated to a shower bath. Umbrellas were not then the common personal accompaniment they are now in Melbourne, but such playgoers as could sport a convenience of the kind took it to the theatre, where it was often found to be as necessary within as without. The expanded gingham would of course, very seriously incommode the comfort and view of the adjacent sittings, but that was a consideration so trifling as to be scarcely thought about.  (Garryowen ‘Chronicles of Early Melbourne’ p. 452)

I know that we often complain about people with their mobile phones in the theatre, but there are worse things:

… the Pavilion would at times be turned into a smoking saloon, and even when some of the more mannerly persons in the pit would take off their hats and place them on the floor, the bell-topper, cabbage-tree, or pull-over, whichever it was, would be utilized as a spittoon for shots expectorated with sure aim from the dress circle.  If any of the unhatted individuals happened to present a bald pate, the spot was regarded as a justifiable target for hitting at short range, and terrible would be the indignation with which an unoffending spectator, somewhat sparse in hair, would find himself patted on the bald crown-piece with something analogous to a molluscous substance “shelled” at him from one of the side boxes.  In hot weather or cold the moist application was an unpleasant sensation, and naturally resented. The person so “potted” would pull out his handkerchief, wipe his head, jump up, and “rush the batter” whence he would be probably repelled with a black eye or enlarged nose. (Garryowen, p. 456)

So, are we ready and all frocked up for our night at the theatre? Let’s see …  umbrella, hat, handkerchief….I’ll settle for the shawl or jacket thank you.

‘Pioneers of Bushwalking’ Exhibition at the RHSV

I’m up to my habitual practice of catching an exhibition in its closing days again. This time it is the ‘Pioneers of Bushwalking’ exhibition at the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.  It was officially launched on the 24th of October by that intrepid bushwalker, Tim Holding M.P. and closes this coming Friday 9 December.

Between 2004 and 2010 the RHSV was donated archival material from the Melbourne Walking Club  including photograph albums, maps and archival material. The club was founded in 1894 as a male-only enterprise: a status which it (rather surprisingly)  still holds today, although women are welcome to attend ‘many’ of their events as ‘visitors’.  Early on it encouraged race-walking, and the exhibition shows two Edwardian gentlemen strutting along in that curious gait. However, it seems that a major part of their activities involved bushwalking, particularly in the high country mountain areas.

The photograph albums in particular are fascinating.  They are beautifully presented and labelled, and they document trips particularly in the 1930s around Healesville, Gippsland and the snowfields.  It looks to be a damned uncomfortable hobby, sleeping on groundsheets under the stars, or under tents with do-it-yourself waterproofing.  There’s a curious flavour to the exhibition though- lots of jolly-ho, rather private-boys’-school humour, and an unsettling hint of homophobia in one particular publication discreetly placed on a lower display shelf.

Looking at the names of the stalwart members, I was attracted by the name ‘Chris Bailey’, a now-deceased but well known Ivanhoe resident who was, among many other things, President of the Heidelberg Historical Society and heavily involved in conservation of the Yarra River. My husband noted R. H. Croll, prominent in athletic, literary and arts circles.

I thought of both these men whose names seem to pop up in varied contexts as I browsed the glossy magazine that came with The Age this morning.  It lists Melbourne’s 100 most “influential, inspirational, provocative and creative” people for 2011.  The 100 are arranged by theme: ‘provocateurs’ (the men and women shaking things up around this place); ‘power partnerships’ (when two heads are much better than one); ’cause and effect’ (the people encouraging us to give a little bit- or a lot; ‘social glue’ (Who brings everybody together to make things happen?); ‘bright ideas’ (Why didn’t we think of that?) ; ‘My first time’ (i.e. people’s debut events);   ’20/20′ (twenty inspirational people all in their twenties); ‘global sensations’; ‘changing lives’ (making a difference to people’s lives; ‘music’ and ‘from these hands’ (creative people).  Just flipping through, there is a strong entrepreneurial theme running through them, along with activism, sport, politics,and an emphasis on youth- although that may well just be me getting older!

I wonder what themes a similar list for the early 1900s would emphasize?  I think that early 1900s examples could be found under each of these headings- for example, there would be examples of young men, clever inventions, and provocateurs- but I think that the language to talk about them would have been different.   I’m sure that formal clubs and societies, organized with archives and meetings (just like the Melbourne Walking Club), would be far more prominent than the more ephemeral and individual-based networks that we see today.

The great Great Melbourne Telescope

When I hear the term ‘GMT’, I automatically think of Greenwich Mean Time.  Those of an astronomical bent, apparently, think of the Giant Magellan Telescope, four times more powerful than existing telescopes, and scheduled for completion in 2018.   But there’s another GMT too- The Great Melbourne Telescope, which I heard about at a lecture at La Trobe last week given by Richard Gillespie, the author of a recently-released book of the same title.  And a great little story it is too.

John Herschel, the son of the inventor William Herschel, first turned the telescope to the southern skies at the Cape of Good Hope in 1834-8, and in 1849 the British Association for the Advancement of Science called for a large reflecting telescope to be erected in the southern hemisphere.  Four years later they teamed with the Royal Society to create the Southern Telescope Committee to assess designs and seek funding.   The Cape of Good Hope, Sydney and Tasmania were considered as possible sites, but thanks to effective lobbying by William Parkinson Wilson of the University of Melbourne and support from the Victorian Government flush with post-Gold Rush wealth, the telescope was placed in Melbourne.  It was not the largest telescope in the world- that honour went to Lord Rosse’s ‘Leviathan of Parsontown’ in Ireland until 1917 but it was the second largest telescope at the time, and more importantly it was the largest steerable equatorial telescope, scanning not just up and down but across the skies as well.

It was the pride of Melbourne- and why shouldn’t it be.  The Irish-built telescope opened in a purpose built house in the grounds adjacent to the Botanic Gardens in June 1869. Its close proximity to Government House meant that the governor and visiting dignitaries and their ladies could pop in for a squizz (literally).  A brilliant image of the moon captured by the camera attached to the telescope in the 1870s was distributed to schools, libraries and Mechanics’ Institutes  throughout Victoria.  The “Great Melbourne” referred not only to the telescope, but to the self-image of Melbourne itself at the time as a centre of learning and civilization in an international context.

But technology and invention does not stand still, and other telescopes were devised with superior design and capacities surpassed the GMT.  Its lens became tarnished and by the 1940s the telescope was dismantled and moved to Mt Stromlo Observatory where it formed the skeleton of a new improved telescope, overlaid with new technology and materials.  This updating was an ongoing process and more than half of the original telescope was harvested in 1984 by Museum Victoria as a historical artefact.  The GMT was barely recognizable, visually at least, as the technology that had evoked such pride seventy years earlier.

In 2003 the Mt Stromlo Observatory was destroyed by fire, including the cannabalized remnants of the GMT. But,- and here there’s a flush of parochial pride- the fire stripped away all the plastic and modern metal, leaving the original cast iron skeleton of the telescope. Alongside the parts that had been harvested earlier, 90% of the original telescope still exists in one form or another.

The original telescope house still exists on the grounds of the former Observatory side, now part of  the Botanic Gardens.  There are plans to restore the house and the telescope and make it available again to the public which involves a balancing act between restoration and the re-creation of a :century telescope.  They won’t, for example, be using a speculum lens again that caused so much grief and expense in the original telescope.  They’re trying to raise a million dollars- which seems chicken-feed in these corporation days- hence the publication of this book (which I assume will be available at Museum Victoria even though it doesn’t seem to be in the bookshop yet).

Marvellous Melbourne: Queen City of the South

What a fantastic video! A horse-drawn Melbourne c.1910; verandah-ed shops; a stuffed-full museum; Federal Government house; a footy match; cable cars; ships in the Yarra.  I’ve seen snippets of it before, but never the whole thing.

There are certainly worse ways to waste 14 minutes of your life.

Marvellous Melbourne

‘The River’ at Bundoora Homestead

A wet, humid day and nothing to do on a Saturday afternoon so up we went to Bundoora Homestead to see their current exhibition ‘The River’. I’ve written about Bundoora Homestead previously.  It’s a beautiful Federation-era house, well worth seeing in its own right.

Chandelier in dining room, Bundoora Homestead

Another homestead that was once a gallery, Banyule Homestead, is very much in my thoughts at the moment.  More than ever I realize that if you value a gallery or a library or a museum,  then you need to visit it- you need to walk right through that door and go in.  In the case of Bundoora Homestead, it’s free and it literally costs you nothing: the gain is all yours.

Stained glass skylight, Bundoora Homestead

The current exhibition is called ‘The River’ and it centres on Melbourne rivers (well, creeks) the Merri  and the Darebin Creeks. In recent years of drought these creeks have dwindled to small puddles connected by a fitful ribbon of water.   One of the joys of the recent rains this year has been to look down from a train into the city, as you cross over the creek, and to see the water gushing and tumbling along waterways that had seemed so dismal just a few years ago.

The exhibition contains well-known works, most particularly Burtt’s depiction of the purported signing of the Batman treaty and several Heidelberg school paintings of river scenes around Melbourne, as well as 19th century photographs and engravings.  These are juxtaposed against more recent works on the Merri and Darebin Creeks, including reflections on the ‘treaty’ painting and more surreal and threatening depictions of these urban places.  There will be a lecture panel this coming Thursday 24th November at 2.00 discussing Burtt’s painting.

This is a terrific exhibition. I’ve seen reproductions of the Batman painting before, but not the original, and I was delighted to see Sarah Susannah Bunbury’s painting of her house on the Darebin Creek in 1841.  I liked the sense of fun in many of the modern depictions, and it was lovely to see it in a beautiful suburban gallery, close by to the two rivers featured in the exhibition itself.

 

’1835′ by James Boyce

James Boyce, 1835: The Founding of Melbourne and the Conquest of Australia, Black Inc, Melbourne, 2011.  212 p & notes

At last! I thought when I finally got my hands on this book.  In fact, three ‘at lasts!’  I’m almost sure (nothing is really sure these middle-aged days!) that I read about this book at the beginning of 2010 when publishers were spruiking the books that were about to appear during the year.  I waited throughout 2010 but no sign of it.  And now- here it is.  And ‘at last!’ I thought because in the closing chapters of excellent previous book, Van Diemen’s Land, James Boyce clearly signalled that, just like Tasmanian settlers themselves, his own  thoughts about Van Diemen’s Land crossed the strait as well.  And ‘at last!’ again  I thought because in reading about the early history of the Port Phillip District – for example in A.G.L. Shaw’s A History of the Port Phillip District – you find yourself wondering if Port Phillip will ever get itself off the ground.  Navigators just kept sailing past it, missing the bay completely; Collins picked up sticks and decamped for Hobart after a short time, and the aborted and rather half-hearted  attempts to establish a settlement on Westernport Bay sputtered away fitfully.  Like a car with a flat battery, the Port Phillip settlement just didn’t seem to be able to turn over and take off for decades.

Boyce describes the arrival of squatters coming across from Launceston in 1835 as “a brazen act” that “would shape the history of Australia as much as would the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788″ (p xi). It’s a big claim:

…the policy turmoil which followed the establishment of a squatters’ camp in 1835 had an significance far beyond the baptism of a great city.  In this place, at this time, ‘Australia’ was born. (p. xiii)

As might be expected from the title, Boyce starts his book in the year 1835, which he approaches from a range of perspectives: by locating us in the deep time of the Yarra River, and then  amongst the smaller black/white encounters along Bass Strait in the decades prior to 1835 through the unregulated and largely undocumented whaling, sealing and wattle-bark industries.  After this largely geographical perspective he then moves on to explore the political mindset of the three groups of players during 1835: – the financiers, pastoralists and adventurers in nearby Van Diemen’s Land who formed themselves into the Port Phillip Association ; the governors in Sydney under official British instructions to limit settlement to the area adjacent to Sydney ; and the Colonial Office and lobbyists representing opposing evangelical and pastoral interests in London.

It’s important to remember that there was no inevitability about the Port Phillip district being considered as part of New South Wales.  In terms of distance, it was far closer to Van Diemen’s Land than it was to Sydney- it still surprises me when driving down near Lakes Entrance that you’re just as likely to find local Tasmanian stations as Victorian ones on the car radio.  Governor Arthur, whom Boyce suggests was influential in the whole Port Phillip Association endeavour, certainly was in no hurry to let Sydney know what was going on across the strait.

Indeed, as Boyce suggests,  this policy double-speak pervaded the whole endeavour.  Batman’s so-called ‘treaty’, was as Bain Attwood also suggests in his recent book Possession, a legal fiction, but Boyce claims that it was not meaningless, either to the Port Phillip Association, or to the Kulin leaders who putatively ‘signed’ it. Adopting the slow-motion, close reading that Inga Clendinnen used to such good effect in Dancing with Strangers,  Boyce traces the pedigree of the treaty in colonial thinking generally and in the actions of both black and white protagonists in that first year.  There was an intricate dance of go-slow and evasion between all the political actors involved, in Port Phillip, Hobart, Sydney and London, that exploited all the silences and ambiguities of correspondence at a distance.   Had the Colonial Office, or its representatives in Sydney really wanted to suppress the Port Phillip settlement in line with the espoused policy of closer settlement,  they could have used policy to do so. It could have punished squatters for illegal possession by banning them from future land purchases; it could have with-held convict labour from them and it could have equipped Aboriginal Protectors with the authority to award or strip leases depending on the treatment of the Aboriginal tribes already there.  There was, he claims, a choice involved, and the governments here in NSW and the British Govt through the Colonial Office,  chose to do none of these things.

Boyce takes up a second theme that he foreshadowed in his chapter in Van Diemen’s Land entitled ‘Victoria’s Van Diemonian Foundation’.   There was, he claims, a deliberate policy both in the Colonial Office and in Sydney to dilute the influence of the small, bush-savvy Tasmanian ex-convicts who flooded across the strait as shepherds and labourers.  By blaming ex-convict shepherds  as the main threat to Aboriginal tribes, Sydney and the Colonial Office and the behind-the-scene evangelists, championed the more ‘respectable’ large, NSW-based pastoralists as the means of civilizing and incorporating Aboriginal people into the settlement endeavour.  The pastoralists, already a powerful lobby group, were only too pleased to reap the benefits of this portrayal.    Boyce’s argument is not couched in the Marxist terms and language of Martin Sullivan’s earlier Men and Women of Port Phillip, but there is a strong class dynamic at play nonetheless.  In this regard, Boyce’s argument needs to spill out of the 1835 chronological straitjacket he has confined himself within.  For example, although Boyce does not mention it, in succeeding years the decision to hold the first land auctions in Sydney rather than in Melbourne itself played to the interests of Sydney pastoralists and speculators, and the early constitutional arrangements for elections to the Legislative Assembly favoured Sydney-based candidates for Port Phillip seats.  This process of expunging the VDL-based nature of Port Phillip society was set in play in 1835 and intensified in the years following.  But because his book focuses on the first year of settlement in Melbourne,  his account gives more prominence to VDL than the longer-term perspective suggests.

Boyce closes his book by asserting that the land rush and dispossession that so quickly followed the settlement of Port Phillip was not inevitable, even though it was portrayed that way by Governors and the Colonial Office at the time and is still portrayed that waytoday.  His final chapter engages in an exploration of ‘what-if’.  I’m always wary of ‘what-if’ (even though I enjoy it!)- I see it as a guilty pleasure but ultimately a sterile pursuit because the reality is that it didn’t happen.

I’m likewise  a bit uncomfortable about his closing observations that extend his observations about government decision-making, or the lack thereof, during the settlement of Port Phillip  into a discussion of climate change policy today.  His argument has been strong and  persuasive throughout the rest of the book but I don’t know if it can stretch this far into the realm of present-day politics.  Although ‘doing nothing’ or failure to act (are they the same thing?) might be the end result, I’m not sure that it always springs from the same impetus. It might be a deliberate delaying tactic; it may be quite self-conscious; it may be because some actions are literally unthinkable and certainly unvoiceable because other imperatives are more important, or it may reflect a failure of imagination.  I’m not convinced that failure to act on climate change and failure to act to suppress illegal possession are the same thing.  It’s a debate worth having, I suppose, and perhaps that was his purpose in introducing the question at all.

This book is well-written, clear, engaging and forceful in its claims and well worth reading.   As a Melburnian, it nudges you into a different place to look at your city’s history, and that’s a bracing and exciting thing to do.

A day trip to Westgarthtown

The sun was a-shining, the magnolias a-blooming, the wattles a-bursting and the magpies a-caroling-  so a good day for The Sunday Drive.  It’s the second Sunday in the month and Ziebell’s Farmhouse is open  at Westgarthtown.  Westgarthtown is not, as one might assume, in Westgarth.  Instead, it’s out at Thomastown and now surrounded by 1970s brick veneer homes.

We decided to head out along Plenty Rd, stop off for lunch at a cafe we both knew of vaguely in Mernda, then go across through Wollert to Epping and back to Thomastown.  After all, Sunday drives are supposed to be a circuit, aren’t they?

My wordy, I haven’t been this far out along Plenty Road for a long time.  I was once told that there wouldn’t ever be any development on the east side of Plenty Road because there was a MMBW covenant on it.  Obviously not.  There was little discernible difference between “Bush Boulevard” (huh! with its takeaway food stores) on the left and “Development Boulevard” on the right.

We often receive glossy pamphlets in our letter box advertising new land developments out at Berry Lane,  Eden Gardens, Eucalypt etc.  They all sound so bucolic until you see them clawing their way into what had been farmland.

We headed back towards the city (which was actually visible on the horizon), passing drystone walls and strange farmhouse gardens composed entirely of prickly-pear.  The paddocks gave away again, this time to the triple-fronted brick veneers so proudly bought by ‘New Australian’ migrants as they moved out into suburbia in Lalor and Thomastown in the 1960s and 70s.  Down a couple of side streets and there we were- Westgarthtown.

Westgarthtown is named after William Westgarth, who arrived in Port Phillip from Scotland in 1840.  He was here during Judge Willis’ time and an active member of civic society with involvement in the Mechanics Institute, the Benevolent Society, and later the Victorian branch of the Australasian League for the Abolition of Transportation and the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce. He helped found the first gas company and was an enthusiastic promoter of the railways.  He was a member of the NSW Legislative Council and a supporter of manhood suffrage, the abolition of property qualifications, state education and the abolition of state aid to religion.

He was instrumental  in the establishment of Westgarthtown.  I’ve read of other men in Upper Canada, too, who involved themselves in emigration schemes targetting particular geographical regions in the ‘old world’. These men personally sponsored from their own pocket, or sought bounties from the government for the transportation and establishment costs of whole villages into new settlements in the colonies.  It is particularly significant that German settlers, like the Italians up near Daylesford, excelled at agricultural farming in its own right as distinct from pastoral farming- something that the Wakefield scheme tried without much success to encourage amongst British immigrants.  Westgarth explains his own involvement:

When I made my first Home trip, in 1847, I resolved to open, if I possibly could, German emigration to Port Phillip. Quite a number had already been settled, some from the earliest years, in South Australia, where their industry, frugality, sobriety, and general good conduct had made them excellent colonists. This favourable testimony was confirmed to me by correspondence on the subject with my late much-lamented friend, Alexander L. Elder, one of South Australia’s earliest, most esteemed, and most successful colonists. My first step on arrival was to write to the “Commissioners of Emigration,” an officiate since dispensed with, pointing out this South Australian success, and suggesting that a certain charge upon the Colonial Land Fund, authorized in special cases of emigrants–an aid of 18 pounds a head, I think–might be made applicable to German vinedressers emigrating to Port Phillip. In due course, I received a most cordial reply from the secretary, Mr. (afterwards Sir) Stephen Walcot, to the effect that Lord Grey, then Colonial Secretary, highly approved of the project, and that the aid asked for would be forthcoming for properly qualified German vinedressers. ..

But the grand prize for these Germans was the acquisition of land. Accordingly Captain Stanley Carr (then on a visit with the German Prince of Schleswig-Holstein) and myself took up, in trust for such Germans as desired it, and had the means of payment, one of the square miles of surveyed land, as yet unapplied for, about twelve miles north of Melbourne, which was divided amongst them in lots as agreed upon. And there they are to this day, a thriving community. When, in company with Neuhauss, my wife and I visited them in 1857, just before finally quitting the colony, we found considerable progress in the form of a scattered village, with a little Lutheran church, and some show of gardening and cultivation. They seemed delighted to stick to their German speaking, and would not even try to speak English. One amusing feature in the scramble as to allotments was that each tried, in most cases, to get trees, stones, and rocks in preference to clear ground, as if so much additional wealth. The trees might have had value for firewood, but in the other items they had probably more than they bargained for. We secured the land for them at a pound an acre, and the fact of their being so largely settled upon it raised its value at once considerably. All the land thereabout has now risen to many times this first cost. Many more Germans have since, as I understand, settled upon other land.   William Westgarth ‘Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria’

The houses are still there, even though the Germans are not.  There is a large, open square in the midst of suburbia, with Ziebell’s farmhouse in one corner of it.  It is a low-slung, rough bluestone farmhouse, with a barn, wash-house and smokehouse.  The last surviving member of the Ziebell family moved from it in the 1970s into a new house built beside it (now used as a caretaker’s cottage) and for the first time she had electricity and running water- yes- the 1970s.

The parents slept downstairs, beside the large pantry and kitchen, while their eight children slept in the attic upstairs.

The wash-house was separate from the main house, with a well outside it for drawing water, and a fireplace inside the wash-house for heating the water.

The house itself is only open on the second Sunday of each month between 1.00 and 4.00 pm. (entry $3.00) but you can see the garden at any time and a beautiful garden it is, tended with care and pride.  It’s a credit to its keepers (whomever they may be).

The back of the farm opens onto a large expanse of grass and diagonally across is the Lutheran Church, the oldest operating Lutheran church in Australia, and still in use on alternate Sunday afternoons.  I love seeing a church still fulfilling its original purpose, and the doors and windows were open (they are often shuttered and locked for fear of vandalism), a young man was preaching and a small congregation was inside. A card table was set up for their afternoon tea outside.

We didn’t go in- but if we had, the interior would have looked like this:

From www.westgarthtown.org.au

There had been a bluestone schoolhouse built nearby, but it was demolished in the 1950s.

Back across the field to the other corner, and here was the cemetery.  You really had a sense of the centrality of church, school, God and death to these settlers’ lives.  The cemetery is marked out by drystone walls and dark, gnarled conifers.

Many of the inscriptions on the gravestones are in German.  The cemetery is still in use- in fact there was a very recent grave over in one corner that was too muddy to reach- but only direct descendants of the German settlers can be buried there.

It’s wonderful that this little section of Westgarthtown has been preserved intact, but there are other, privately owned old settler houses in the surrounding streets as well.

Maltzahn's Farmhouse

The Westgarthtown website has more information and there’s more here as well.

Bishopscourt

It was Melbourne Open House on Sunday, and on such a magnificent winter day, I just had to call into one of the locations while I was in the area.  We had come across Toronto’s Open House while we were there, and London’s too for that matter, but I think that Open House days are meant for the residents of a city rather than visitors.  Some of the sites are open year round so there was no great appeal there (unless you went to parts of the building not normally accessible), but I was more drawn to places that are not normally open to the public.  I was walking past Bishopscourt and had always been intrigued by it- so Bishopscourt it was!

Bishopscourt is located in Clarendon Street, opposite the Fitzroy Gardens.  It has been the family home of the Anglican Bishop and later Archbishop of Melbourne since it was built in 1853.

If it looks a bit of a hodge-podge, that’s because it is.  The first Bishop of Melbourne, Bishop Perry, selected the location so that he could walk into Melbourne itself, while being close to the site that was originally considered for the Cathedral between Hotham and George Streets in East Melbourne .  It was later decided to construct the Cathedral in its present location on the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets. Construction of  Bishopscourt began in 1851 but because of the shortage of building labourers in these goldrush years, the house was not completed until 1853.  Sixty years later it was decided that a grander house was required. One of the bluestone wings was demolished in 1903 and replaced with the rather discordant red-brick wing, resulting in its rather schizophrenic  appearance.

Although constructed in wealthier gold-rush days,  the design of the bluestone section evokes an earlier, more Georgian influence with its French windows and shutters, wide doors and simple architecture.

The bluestone is rather roughly laid on the front and side of the house, and it has been suggested that perhaps it was intended that the facade be stuccoed at a later time.  The new red-brick section included a large dining room and a private chapel which was a warm, intimate space that might hold perhaps twenty people.  I wish they had let us take photographs, because the chapel was very special place, with many of the furnishings and decorations donated by previous occupants.

The chapel from the outside

Tours ran approximately every half hour and you were ushered from one room to another, where someone who had previously lived at Bishopscourt spoke about their memories of the room as part of their family home.  The Archbishop of Melbourne was there in the drawing room, decked out in his purpleness, and the daughters and daughter-in-law of the former Archbishop Frank Woods spoke in the morning room, dining room and chapel.  Unfortunately we were restricted to the ground floor- I was intrigued by the staircase which was carved with silhouettes of bishops’ mitres- but I suppose that some privacy was in order as the house continues to be used as a family home: the only pre-gold rush estate still to be used for its original purpose.

The gardens have been rescued from disrepair by a dedicated band of volunteers and they were in beautiful condition.

As I left, there was a religious pilgrimage of a different type through the Fitzroy Gardens as the crowds headed towards the MCG for the Collingwood/Essendon match.

The processional to the 'G

Ah- the footy and the MCG on a sunny winter afternoon- hot pies (unfortunately), seagulls, the Footy Record and Jolimont railway station. Who could want for more?

By the way, I wasn’t the only one checking out Melbourne Open House.  Andrew at High Riser had a very busy day and more success photographing than I did.