Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria

by William Westgarth

SOME INTERJECTA IN RE BATMAN, PIONEER OF THE PORT PHILLIP SETTLEMENT.

Mr. Edward Henty, from Launceston, first entered the future Victoria in 1834 by her remote portal, Portland Bay, and thus became the founder of the colony. In the following year, John Batman, of Hobart, sailing from the same stirring little Launceston, entered by the central and grander portal of the Port Phillip Heads, and was thus the pioneer of Port Phillip settlement; for we must really turn blundering Collins, with his abortive doings in 1803-4, out of the running. I never saw Batman, as he died the year before my arrival, so that, according to my rule, I have nothing to say of him. But I must mention an incident occurring shortly before my date, and characteristic of the times, namely, the raffling for Batman's old and well smoke-begrimed pipe. This was at the famous Lamb Inn, a little wooden edifice on the north side of West Collins-street, opposite the Market-square, and fronting a small cliff which the street levelling there had left for future disposal. There were thirty tickets at a pound each, and the fortunate winner was to compensate the disappointed by standing champagne all round. I was once in the Lamb Inn ere its glories had quite expired, as might be inferred from a charge of 4 shillings for a bottle of cider, for which I had called in support of the house, and to while away time in waiting for a friend. I had to share it with two others who happened to be in the room, the waiter having promptly filled the three tumblers he had brought, without even "Robert's" professional stereotype of "by your leave," the tumblers, too, being as promptly emptied without any ceremonious bother about acknowledgment. The Lamb Inn lived a brief space longer, but utterly bereft of its old position in the revels and extravagance of every kind of the young settlement, and was finally levelled out of existence in company with the "cliff" at its back.

But I have to do also with nearer and dearer connections of Batman than his tobacco pipe. I have to record the marriage, during 1844, of two of his daughters, the elder, already a widow, Mrs. McKinney, to my pleasant friend Fennell, as I have previously mentioned, and, happily, resulting in a family of descendants to the Port Phillip founder, and the younger to one of the two squatter brothers Collyer. The latter event, which came off at the hospitable and comfortable homestead of old John Aitken of that ilk (I mean of Mount Aitken), was a grand gala time to a very wide circle. Guests, by the score together, trooped up from town and country, headed, in the former direction, by Andrew Russell, then second mayor of Melbourne, in succession to my friend Condell, and in the latter by his cheery and ever-smiling uncle, Peter Inglis, of Ingliston, a great station homestead in the comparisons of those early times, and once, as Peter liked to tell, taken for a town, perhaps in the gloaming hours, by a bush traveller when he inquired of one of the domestics, to her great amusement, the name of the street he had confusingly got into. Mrs. Aitken, as literally as by courtesy the good wife of the house, and then in the full charm of her beauty and strong youth (now Mrs. Kaye, and sadly changed in both respects), went busily about, her young family at her skirts, administering plenty and preserving order, while, towards genial eve, her good man occupied a quiet corner, indisputable king for the nonce of the toddy race. The night accommodations were a difficulty, although not a few, like the host himself, were in no great want. I and a score or two of others turned into a wool loft, where a number of little mattresses, mostly of a pro re nata kind, were provided, into one of which I was soon ensconced and fast asleep. But well on, as I guessed, in the small hours we were all awoke by loud and burly noise in the loft, proceeding, as we soon recognized, from two Anakims of the party, Isaac Buchanan and John Porter, who seemed on the eve of a struggle for a Mace or Nolan belt. Porter had retired peacefully with me, but Buchanan had been vieing in the toddy corner with his host, and when inevitably knocked under—for the other had not yet been limited by his doctor to that woman's wash, as he called it, sparkling moselle—he had contrived to find the common loft. It is said, of unpractised topers at any rate, that, after an extra indulgence, they either see nothing or see double. Whichever it was with Buchanan, he insisted on berthing for the night in Porter's occupied nest, while the latter, after standing the all-round chaff for a little, got savage and threatened war. Buchanan's sight getting by-and-by clearer, the remainder of the night was, happily, peace. But it was not for long, as almost with the dawn our host, alive as if nothing out of the usual had happened, woke us up with the invitation to finish the champagne by way of refresher after all the toils and toddy we had gone through.

DR. THOMSON, OF GEELONG.

This earliest amongst the early of Port Phillip, whose active form flitted about its shores ere the memorable year 1835 had expired, might have come in for a full separate sketch had I been thrown more with him, so as to have sufficient personal data. But, although I met him at times, he lived at Geelong, fifty miles away from Melbourne. I have put him under this sub-heading, in the Batman interjecta, because, as his daughter, Mrs. Henry Creswick, told me, it was Batman's representations to him of the land of promise to the north that induced him to follow the early tide with his flocks and his family—the latter consisting of his wife and one only child, the daughter above alluded to. She still survives, in her pleasant residence, situated in the fitly named Creswick-street, Hawthorn.

The doctor was one of the most active of the colonists, both politically and generally. He was chiefly concerned in establishing the Geelong Corporation, of which he was several times Mayor, and he was most actively interested in the early representation of the district in the Sydney Assembly. He sat there as one of the district members prior to the "separation" session of 1851, and it was at his instance that the House made an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of the aboriginal natives. In the separation session elections his party was outvoted by the squatting or anti-democratic element; but none the less the former in Geelong deputed the doctor to accompany the elected members, in order to keep a watch upon their doings. The case had its comic aspect, but as the doctor and I were on the same side of the politics of the day, he was most useful to me in our common effort to secure a due share of representation for the mass of the people, as intended by the Imperial Government. The aim of the reigning regime was to continue their power by means of an electoral distribution which was to secure a majority of Crown nominees and Crown tenants in the two future sections of the old colony.

The doctor, as I said, went over with the earliest from the Hobart side of the island, quitting his land grant, which was the last under that system, and was got for him by his friend Governor Arthur—a privilege for which, as I have said, the Henty family arrived just too late. Amongst the live stock he took over was Miss Thomson's pony, which was the first of the equines landed at Port Phillip. Its owner was then a very young girl. She and her mother landed towards the end of 1835, and were the first ladies of "the settlement." The family pitched a tent almost under a magnificent gum tree, whose stump, covered with ivy, still exists close to the Cathedral at Prince's Bridge. But shortly after several of the young men of the settlement, in order to provide them better accommodation, collected some boards and built them a hut lower down the river bank. With the two places the Thomsons were able to dispense hospitalities, their guests including Messrs. Gellibrand and Hesse, Mr. James Smith, and Mr. Mackillop. It used to be said that "the settlement" was in the habit of going to tea with Mrs. Thomson.

This brings us into 1836. The next year came the officials in charge from Sydney, who included Mr. R.S. Webb, as Collector of Customs, whose daughter, Annie, was the first white child born in the settlement (with, however, some dispute as to a blacksmith's child having been the first), and who was afterwards married to my late friend, Colin Mackinnon, younger brother of the better known Lauchlan. Dr. Thomson used to read prayers to the little settlement in a rude structure upon the ground now occupied by St. James's Church. Afterwards he removed to Kardinia, Geelong, as his live stock had been landed there, and this place he finally made his home.

From these lively and mixed events of our early society, let me now turn to another subject, which is neither less lively nor less mixed than its predecessors—the subject, namely, of: