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First inhabitants of Port Phillip
Melbourne was the home of the Kulin people, an alliance of several language groups of Indigenous Australians, whose ancestors had lived in the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years.
The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin, as well as a vital source of food and water. The Kulin lived by fishing, hunting and gathering, and made a good living from the rich food sources of Port Phillip and the surrounding grasslands. -
Uses of the Yarra River and surrounding colonial Melbourne
The Yarra river was mainly utilised primarily for agriculture by early European settlers. The landscape of the river has changed dramatically since 1835. The course has been progressively disrupted and the river widened in places. The first of many Crossings of the Yarra River to facilitate transport was built in Princes Bridge. Princes Bridgeand at the time of the gold rush Melbourne was extensively mined. -
Arrival of John Batman on the Yarra River
John Batman and a group of investors founded the Port Phillip Association, a grouping of Tasmanian bankers, graziers and East India Company retirees, with the intention of settling at Port Phillip. In May 1835, Batman hired a boat called the Rebecca and sailed across the Strait and up Port Phillip to the mouth of the Yarra. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne. The land he travelled through was mostly treeless, and covered in dense swards of Kangaroon grass. -
John Batman's treaty
John Batman signed a treaty with eight Wurundjeri elders, in which he supposedly bought 2,400 km2 of land around Melbourne and another 400 km2 around Geelong. In exchange for the land he traded with them a variety of items such as mirrors and axes, all of which were useless to the Aboriginals. The treaty though was and still is disputed whether or not it was genuine and done with good intentions. -
The affects of the Gold Rush on Melbourne
Melbourne was a major Boomtown during the gold rush. The city became the centre of the colony with rail networks radiating to the regional towns and ports. The Gold Rush brought new skills and inventions to Australia, which helped the country to develop throughout the 1800's. Melbourne became one of the great cities of the British Empire and the world. -
Arrival of electricity in Melbourne
The first application of electrcity in Victoria was the telegraph between Melbourne and Williamstown in 1854, maimly to transmit information and shipping movements. However, the first authentic record of electric light in Melbourne was in the late 1860's. -
Melbourne land boom
From 1883 to 1889 Melbourne witnessed an extraordinary boom in real estate prices and land speculation. By 1889, the value of land in parts of central Melbourne was as high as that in London. In central Melbourne, huge sums of money were poured into opulent new office buildings, many for the building societies, land banks and mortgage companies that were driving the boom. These gothic buildings came to characterise central Melbourne, especially Collins Street, until the 1960s. -
The Great Depression
The Great Depression of the 1930s was an economic catastrophe that severely affected most nations of the world, and Australia was not immune. For many people this period began before the market crash in prices and lasted until the Second World War. There were several causes for the Great Depression, a fall in export prices and sales, a fall in overseas loans leading to a reduction in government capital spending and a fall in residential construction. -
The Olympics Games
The Olympics games in 1956 was held in Melbourne after it was selected as the host city. This event made a huge impact on Melbourne's population, bringing people from all over the world to see just how advanced and developed Melbourne had become. -
Development of the Docklands
From the 1880s, the former swamp west of Melbourne became heavily used as a dock with an extensive network of wharfs, heavy rail infrastructure and light industry. However following the containerisation of shipping traffic it fell into disuse and by the 1990s was virtually abandoned, becoming notable for an underground rave dance scene. However Melbourne Docklands is now being developed in stages to create a sustainable, mixed use community where people can live, work, invest and visit.
