When Fawkner, in August, 1835, following Batman's example of the previous May, organized and sent forth his party from Launceston to explore and colonize Port Phillip, his instruction was that they should squat down for a home only where there was adequate fresh water. When, in their cruising about to that end, the party entered the Yarra at the Bay's head, ascended its roundabout course, and found ample water to drink above "the Falls," they at once disembarked there, and there in consequence arose Melbourne. Fawkner, following in October, confirmed the choice, and with his characteristic energy commenced the work of colonization. The immediate needs decide many things "for better, for worse." A good many have since thought that this has been a costly and inconvenient site for the colony's capital, and that that of Williamstown, with its healthful level, like New York, might have been better, and, still better than either, Geelong, with its beautiful ready-made harbour, its immediate background of rich soil, and its direct access to all the superior capabilities of the west and north-west. But there Melbourne is, and in spite of all obstacles it is already the prominent city of the Southern Hemisphere, and Fawkner is justly its father. When Melbourne's father died, now a good many years ago, and with not a few of the admitted honours and merits of a long, laborious, and useful life, I sent authority to friends there to subscribe for me to the inevitable monument. But my offered money was never demanded, and therefore I fear that the living busy tide of such a host of sons has crowded out the memory of the dead parent.
A vision of earliest Melbourne rises before me. Allotment speculators were bound, within moderate time, to construct a "dwelling" on their purchase, and in some cases these were made with honest intention, as in the two adjacent half-acres of Mr. James Smith and Mr. Skene Craig in west Collins-street. But in most cases these coerced structures were only shams, which disappeared right early. The only "buildings" on a good many sections, that are now central and almost priceless, were post-and-rail fences, somewhat dilapidated at places by our license of jumping over them for a short diagonal to adjacent streets.
Let me try to recall the Melbourne of 1840, as it looked in that year, the year of my arrival. In the first place I must protest against the meagre view given some years ago in the "Illustrated London News", from a sketch by Mossman, an early colonist of my acquaintance, and copied into the lively and pleasant volume of my esteemed friend, Miss Isabella Bird (now Mrs. Bishop). It may be true as far as it goes, but it is only the Western Market square, which had hardly one-thirtieth part of that year's Melbourne. At the close of 1840 there were between three and four thousand of population, although perhaps one-fourth of these, who had been recently shot out of emigrant ships, were merely waiting for employment or settlement. The whole District had about nine thousand. Curiously enough, Melbourne (including suburbs) has always had about one-third of the total colonial population, while Sydney and Adelaide respectively have been much the same. But this naturally comes of a vast interior behind, which has practically only the one outlet. In New Zealand, on the other hand, the long strip of land, with the sea near to every part, calls into being a number of small capitals. The latter are the immediate facilities; but, in the other case, the ultimate creation of a surpassingly great city, with all its powerful concentration of resource, seems on the whole the more promising for a country's advance in all the interests of human life. The latest returns for the end of last year (1887) give 392,000 people to Melbourne, in a total for the colony of 1,033,000.
Taking central Collins-street, which was then, and I suppose is still, the chief seat of business, and beginning with "The Shakespeare," at the market corner, where originally Fawkner opened the first public-house, and proceeding eastwards to Swanston-street, there was a good sprinkling of brick-built offices, stores, and shops, including Kerr and Holmes, in stationery; Drummond's grocery (wooden), Turnbull, Orr and Co., Forsyth's druggery, the Imperial Inn, Pittman, Dinwoodie's saddlery, Townend's corner (wooden), George James's wine office and house, and the ill-fortuned Port Phillip Bank. Returning by the other side were Hood, chemist; Cashmore, draper; Carson, shoemaker; J.M. Chisholm and the Benjamins, soft goods; the hardware shop of William Witton, a leading Wesleyan, his Wesleyan Church, and the Bank of Australasia, which towered up, prince of the small squad. To the far east, on the south side, was our worthy Dr. Howitt's good house and garden. On the other side were some few small brick dwellings. One was occupied by Deputy-Assistant Commissary General Erskine. In another was Dr. Hobson, whose untimely death was an early grief to our small society, unable to spare such lives. He was the friend and correspondent of Professor Owen, and supplied the Prince of Science with curious data of the strange, and then but scantily known, Australian fauna, from the platypus, at the head of modern wonders, back to the earliest marsupialdom of the fossil world.
The Reverend Alexander Morison's Independent Church and adjacent manse came next. The Scots Church, lower down, of which the Reverend James Forbes was minister, was then being built. Not till the next year was the creditably large Mechanics' Institute begun. A good story is told of it, characteristic of the earlier flourish of the times. Mr. P.W. Welsh, then the leading merchant, had offered to subscribe so largely that the committee took offence at such vain presumption, and limited subscriptions to more modest sums.
Returning to the market place, and taking its eastern side, was a small nest of early merchants—E.M. Sayers, whose stores my firm bought eight years later; Watson and Wight; Were Brothers, whose senior, the well-known Mr. Jonathan Binns Were, was always, under all fortunes, a prominent and influential merchant and citizen; W. and H. Barnes and Co., and perhaps one or two more. But as the buildings are not given in Mossman's sketch, they probably belong to the end of the year, or possibly tide over into 1841. Towards the foot of the market slope the first Custom House was being built, and of that dismal, dark-brown indurated sandstone, of which other places—St. James's Church, the old gaol, etc.—were also built, because it was so near at hand.
Sweeping now round to the west side we come to the good store and residence belonging to J.F. Strachan, of Geelong, and managed by F. Nodin, who was quite a character of the time, with his bustling form, and face ever full of business, whether business were full or not. He would always accept his bills in red ink, and, as the joke goes, the bills being good, the Nodin manner was supposed to help even the non-Nodin bills through at the "Australasia." At the corner opposite the Shakespeare was the Melbourne Auction Company, where I first met my most worthy old friend, George Sinclair Brodie, so well known for ten years after as the leading Melbourne auctioneer, or rather "broker," for that is nearer the home equivalent. He was the salesman, while a genial and amusing good fellow, John Carey, from Guernsey, was manager. The company had just paid 20 per cent dividend—the first as well as the last in that way. In the jolly days up to that time every buyer got credit, and there was plenty of business; but when the times changed the credit bills were not met, and so the poor M.A.C., which had as usual guaranteed them, got cleaned out.
Down Collins-street once more, we pass the primitive wooden cottage residence of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, whose family of fine daughters were already all married—Mrs. D.S. Campbell, Mrs. R. Russell, Mrs. Martin, Mrs. Hutton—excepting the youngest, then a school-girl, afterwards married to Nantes, of Geelong, D.S. Campbell's partner. Then came Craig and Broadfoot's stores, and Alison and Knight's flour mills. At the end was pretty green Batman's Hill, which has since been remorselessly sacrificed for the great railway terminus. Batman's original wooden house on the southern slope was, after his early death, occupied as the Government offices by Mr. La Trobe, and this homely tenement did such high duties for no small subsequent term. Down hereabout was also a conspicuous line of five little wooden cottages, called Roach-terrace, after Captain Roach, another very early colonist, which were each let at 5 pounds a week, although they would not have brought half that money by the year at home. Returning on the other side was St. James's Church, in charge of the Reverend Mr. Thomson, of most sociable memory, within its ample open area, and, further on, the notorious Lamb Inn.
For the rest of Melbourne of 1840 I must be content with one general sketch. Manton's Mills had arisen at the lower end of "the wharf," such as it then was. Flinders-street had as yet but little in it. James Jackson, afterwards Jackson, Rae and Company, was already there. About the middle was the cottage of P.W. Welsh, prior to his removing to South Yarra; and there, as the story goes again, Mrs. Welsh gave her "Five Hundred Pound Party," but having unfortunately omitted Arden, the editor of the "Gazette", in the invitations, he was left free to denounce so bad an example of extravagance. Bourke-street had an incongruous grouping, including the well-known Kirk's Bazaar, and the superb cottage, for its time, of Mr. Carrington, the solicitor; and in Little Bourke-street was Mr. Condell's brewery. At the far east end was Mr. Porter's good cottage, and further on, Mr. La Trobe's bijou residence, in its pretty grounds, which, although only of wood and of the smallest dimensions, he stuck to until his final leave in 1854. The lanes, or Little Flinders and Collins streets, were already fairly filled, as the land there was much cheaper. In the former were Heap and Grice's offices, and the Adelphi Hotel, approaching the Lamb Inn in noisy repute. The latter had Bells and Buchanan, the Post-Office under D. Kelsh, and, where Elizabeth-street crossed, G. Lovell and Company and Campbell and Woolley. The Catholic Church in Lonsdale-street was under construction, and on the western brow was Mr. Abrahams's good house, with his two pretty girl children, one of whom was in succession Mrs. Pike, Mrs. Gray, and Mrs. Williams, and is still alive, with a creditable total of family. Beyond was the trackless bush, excepting the bush tracks to Sydney, and in the Flemington and Keilor direction. But outside the town were already several suburbs, of which Collingwood was the largest, having the residences of John Hunter Patterson and other leading early colonists.
I used to traverse not a few dreary empty allotments in the hot summer sun to reach the stores of my friend the Honourable James Graham, whose dwelling and business place in Russell, by Bourke street, seemed then quite far out of the village, but is since in the very heart of the great city. The course of values in the colony, early and late, is well illustrated by this example. The allotment originally belonged to our friend in common, S.A. Donaldson, of Sydney, who had bought for some nominal price at the Government sale in 1837. He bought many other lots thereabout, and towards Collingwood, further east and north; and after the gold discoveries, he told me pathetically, oftener than once, that his impatience to sell had lost him the status and happiness—whatever the latter might be—of a millionaire. Donaldson had let this place, with its house, stores, etc., good as these things went then, to Graham, at 500 pounds a year. This was about 1838-9, when everything in business ways was rolling jollily upwards. But some few years afterwards the landlord's attorneys, William Ryrie and myself, had to reduce the rent to either 100 or 50 pounds—I think the latter. Some years later, Graham purchased at 2,000 pounds, and it is understood has lately resold at something approaching a quarter of a million. As these matters are all locally so well known, I feel that, as with wills at Doctor's Commons, I tread upon no toes in such useful illustrations.