MELBOURNE, VIC. — Port Phillip is a large bay in southern Victoria, Australia, on the northern end of which is situated the Victorian capital city of Melbourne. The bay was discovered in February 1802 by Lieutenant John Murray, who was sent by Governor Philip Gidley King to survey the northern coastline of Bass Strait.
Although Murray named the bay Port King after the Governor of New South Wales, King later renamed it Port Phillip to honour Captain Arthur Phillip, who had led the First Fleet to New South Wales.
Explorer Matthew Flinders entered Port Phillip Bay six weeks later and charted the entire bay, and further mapping of the area was undertaken in January 1803 by Surveyor-General Charles Grimes.
Settlers first arrived in the Port Phillip area in October 1803, but did not stay long. Lieutenant-Governor David Collins was under orders from the British Government to establish a settlement on the southern coast, and brought 308 convicts, 51 marines, 17 free settlers, 12 civil officers, and a missionary and his wife.
The settlement was not a success, as fresh water was in short supply. The local timber was unsuitable for many uses, and the treacherous entrance to Port Phillip Bay made the site unusable as a whaling base. Hearing of better land and timber in Van Diemen’s Land, Collins moved most of the settlement across Bass Strait.
Despite this failure, however, the land in Port Phillip Bay remained of interest to numerous parties.
One such group was the Port Phillip Association, an initiative of John Batman. A native born Australian, Batman was interested in opening up new pastureland and promoting the growth of the colonies. Following the successful 1824 expedition of explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, Batman, together with lawyer Joseph Tice Gellibrand, applied for land in the Westernport Bay area of Port Phillip, but their request was denied.
In May 1835, Batman and Gellibrand led a syndicate calling themselves the ‘Port Phillip Association’ to explore Port Phillip Bay, looking for suitable sites for settlement.
In June 1835, Batman signed a ‘treaty’ with the elders of the indigenous Wurundjeri people, giving the syndicate free access to almost 250,000 hectares of land in exchange for an annual offering of dozens of items such as blankets, axes, knives, scissors, mirrors, handkerchiefs, flour and clothing. To settle the land which the Association believed had been legitimately acquired, the Port Phillip Association was formalised on Monday, June 29, 1835.
Governor Bourke declared Batman’s treaty invalid and issued a proclamation warning off him and his syndicate as trespassers on crown land.
Nonetheless, the illegal settlement which Batman established under the name of Batmania prospered. By 1837, Governor Bourke conceded the existence of the village and directed that the town be laid out. He renamed it ‘Melbourne’ after the British Prime Minister of the day.
