 Section 7. Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Lucy Burgoyne. Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria by William Westcarth. Section 7. Some names of Mark in the early years. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. 12th Night. Before endeavouring to give a sketch of our early society and its ways and means, I am famed to pick out a few prominent persons as they flitted before me at the time and have stuck to my recollection since. Although they might not all have been, in an equal degree, interesting, good or great in themselves, they were yet men of Mark, closely associated in various ways with our early colonial life, and, like a busy dentist, much in the mouth of their public. By all right and reason, the first of these prominent personages is the brotherhood group of the messes, Henty. The Henty Family and the Foundation of Victoria. Let the end try the man. Second part, Henry IV. Great world Victoria brings, thee meat and corn and wine, with richly veined woods and glittering gold from mine, fairy web of silk and thread, soft thick snowy fleece, wide room for smiling homes of industry and peace. Mrs H. N. Baker. The founder of today's great colony of Victoria was Mr Edward Henty, who landed at Portland Bay from Launceston with livestock and stores for the purpose of settlement on 19 November 1834. But in regard to that notable event I prefer to speak of, the Henty Family, because in their colonising efforts they seem to have acted so much with mutual family purpose and in mutual help and because there was a preparatory work in which the family were all more or less engaged, all leading up to this settlement at Portland, a site which had been selected after more than two years of previous adventurous excursions and observations along the coasts of Western Victoria and of South Australia. The successful settlement of the noble Port Phillip Harbour, the following year by Batman and Faulkner, caused such general attention and such a tide of colonisation that remote Portland was comparatively overlooked. For many years, therefore, much less was heard of the Henties than of those who had merely followed their steps. In fact, there can be but little doubt that these latter were first aroused to the colonising of the vast areas. The All-Veterra Incognita, across the straits by the vigorous example set by the Henty Family, almost from the moment of their arrival in Launceston in 1831. And by the reports which they brought back from time to time they had the lands of promise they were opening to public notice in southeastern Australia. But now that rail and telegraph had virtually abolished distance and familiarised the central colonists with the value and beauty of the earliest occupied Western areas, the Australia Felix of Mitchell, the Messers, Henty's position has passed more to the front and their priority being universally acknowledged. I was not personally very intimate with any of the Henty Family, otherwise I might have had more to say in this sketch. But I have met most of the brothers repeatedly and frequently I met James, the Melbourne merchant who was the eldest and also William, the lawyer and ex-premier of Tasmania, the most amiable and gentlemanly man who laterally resided at home where he died and who often attended the lectures and discussions at the Royal Colonial Institute of London. Both of these brothers were rather grave and quiet while Edward and Stephen were energetic and lively even beyond most colonists. Francis, now the only survivor of the large family, I met only once, about 43 years ago, in the Western District. He was then a handsome and rather slim young man, not of the Henty Mole, which was rather of the full John Bull kind as punch gives him, minus the obesity. If I may credit the Melbourne illustrators, in a recent likeness of the last Victorian founders, he must have consented in later life to drop more into the family mole. They were a family of eight sons and one daughter. Seven of the sons emigrated with their father. They were all men of Mark, above average in mind and physique, men of the presence who would have been prominent in any society all together in numbers, in appearance, in circumstances and in events, quite a remarkable family. As I am not writing for history so as to study completeness in my account, but only of personal observation and recollections, I shall not do more than give a very slight sketch of the emigratory particulars of this family. And my excuse is that these data are so far personal as having been told me direct by one or other of the family. The story is striking and our descendants may look back with surpassing interest to the Romulus and Remus of a future Rome which in the possibilities of modern progress may exceed that of the past. The father, Mr Thomas Henty, of Sussex, England took the resolution to emigrate with his family to the Swan River as the present Western Australia was then called. In 1829 he sent his eldest and two younger sons there with suitable servants and supplies, intending to follow with the rest. These pioneers declared against the Swan and advised their father to go to Lonseston instead to which place they themselves also went. Arrived all there in 1831 a new disappointment awaited the family. No grant of land could be had as in the case of the Swan where they had 84,000 acres. This grant system had been abolished only a fortnight before their arrival. They had now to rent their farms and the prospects therefore were discouraging. They were unable even to effect an exchange for their Swan River grant. This disappointment led to a search, begun in 1832 under the lead of Edward II son who twice traversed the seas between Portland and Spencer Gulf examining the aspect and promise of the country. The result was always in favour of Portland where he landed on one occasion confirming all impressions by actual inspection ashore. He therefore resolved on a settlement here. In his second expedition he took his father with him as the latter had expressed the wish to see for himself the Swan River grant before finally abandoning it. The party having reached the Swan found that what they had got was sand, not land and so it was finally given up. Edward, who was the prime adventurer of the party now got ready to settle at Portland Bay. He chartered a small schooner, the Thistle loading her with stools and livestock and with selections of seed, fruit trees, vegetables, etc. Part of them bought from Faulkner who had then a market garden on Windmill Hill near Lonseston besides keeping the Cornwall Hotel there and with these he sailed in October 1834. In two days they were within 25 miles of their destination when a storm drove them back to King's Island. Six times successively they were thus driven back losing a good many of their livestock and it was only after 34 days that they affected their landing. The work of colonisation begun at once. The Thistle returned to Lonseston for fresh supplies and additional colonists and returned the second time with Francis Henty who was the youngest of the family who landed at Portland on 13 December within 24 days of his brother. Edward was then 24 years of age and his brother only 18. This is the brief that momentous story of the founding of Victoria. Mr Francis Henty has given a most amusing account of the meeting between his party and afterwards Sir Thomas Mitchell who in exploring Australia Felix in 1836 came in great surprise upon the Henty settlement at Portland. The story reads now like the highest romance of adventurous exploration. The Mitchell intruders five in number were at once regarded as bush rangers and a defence promptly organised. The firearms were limited to an old musket which was loaded to the very muzzle to be ready for a grand discharge. Then as to the Mitchell party even after they were relieved of their first fears the they too had taken the others to be no better than they should be. They exercised a measure of reserve as though doubtful of their new friends, respectability, mutual suspicions. However, being at last dismissed the travellers were supplied with the stores they much wanted and in return they gave such a favourable account of the pastures of the Wannan Valley as to induce Mr Edward Henty subsequently to remove a part of the flocks there and to establish the homestead where as I have already stated I enjoyed in my western Victorian travels the squatting hospitality. Let me add just one more incident of the Henty family one personal to myself but in quite a different direction from the above. Once on a special occasion I met the banker Charles to his profession at Launceston instead of adventuring across the straits with his brothers besides his quiet banking vocation he was I think the portliest of the family which may be the explanation. The occasion was a public dinner to the anti-transportation league delegation sent from Melbourne in 1852 to stir up the cause at the Van Diemen's land fountain head of the common evil and of which delegation my lately deceased old friend Lachlan McKinnon and myself were regarded as the heads. McKinnon like many another such vigorous highlander as he then was could never take a subject of deep interest to himself quietly. We had had a sample of him already at Hobart where the feeling as to our mission was by no means clear both from the natural touchiness of conflict connection or dissent and from that still considerable section of colonial employers and traders who thought that the ledger and its profit and loss account had at least an equal right to be heard in the question as any other so-called higher interest the ground slippery enough at Hobart was supposed to be still more treacherous at Lonseston had not Edward Wilson of the thoroughly McKinnonised Melbourne Argus been better little before nearly mobbed by the furious anti-anties of this place to his utter surprise and astonishment at his own importance and been only saved in life or limb perhaps by old Jock Sinclair who was timely on the spot and who dexterously led him by a roundabout to safety within the departing steamer for Melbourne in short a row was more than half expected from the McKinnon's speech and as this was undesirable for good reasons to all sides of Lonseston society Mr. Henty resolved to prevent it and did so most successfully by a very adroit but not unworthy trick he took occasion to speak just before the McKinnon avalanche was to come on introducing McKinnon and commending his straightforward honesty in this matter and so on he said that some such people could not take even a good cause in moderation but that these defects, if he might so call them were more easily seen than remedied and that all kindly consideration must be made in the case I fear I am not literal as to the identical words although I heard them that I have given the poor pit poor McKinnon as he afterwards laughingly pleaded what could he do under the cold dutch of such a wet blanket he made the smallest and quietest speech of his life upon a great and stirring subject End of Section 7 Section 8 Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This reading by Lucy Burgoyne Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria by William Weskearth Some Interjector in Marie Batman Pioneer of the Port Phillip Settlement Mr Edward Henty from Lonseston 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 Lonseston 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 the London 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-smoked the grimmed 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 30 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 Err its glories had quite expired as might be inferred from a charge of four 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 ceremonies bother about acknowledgement The Lamb Inn lived a brief space longer but utterly bereft of its old position in the revels and extravagance of every kind of young settlement and was finally levelled out of existence in company with the cliff at its back that 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 had previously mentioned happily resulting in a family of descendants to the Port Phillip founder and the younger to one of the two squatter brothers Collier 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 school 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 Condall and in the latter by his cheery and ever smiling uncle Peter Inglis of Ingolston 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 glowing 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 Kay 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 of the knots of the Toddy race the night accommodations were a difficulty not a few like the host himself we're in no great want I and a score or two of others turned into a wool loft we're a number of little mattresses mostly of a pro renata kind we're 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 awake by loud and burly noise in the loft proceeding as we soon recognise from two anacoms of the party Isaac Buchanan and John Porter who seemed on the eve of a struggle for a mace or nylon belt Porter had retired peacefully with me but Buchanan had been viewing 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 toppers at any rate that after an extra indulgence they either see nothing or see double whichever it was with Buchanan he insisted on birthing 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. Thompson of Geelong this earliest amongst the earlier Port Phillip whose active form flitted about its shores early 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 50 miles away from Melbourne I have put him under this subheading in the Batman interjector because as his daughter Mrs. Henry Kreswick 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 these blocks and his family the latter consisting of his wife and one only child the daughter above alluded to she still survives in a pleasant residence situated in the fitly named Kreswick Street Hawthorne 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 nonetheless 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 lane 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 livestock he took over was Miss Thompson's pony which was the first of their queens 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 of Princess 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 Thompson's were able to dispense hospitalities their guests including Mrs. Jellibrand and Hessey Mr. James Smith and Mr. McKillop it used to be said the settlement was in the habit of going to tea with Mrs. Thompson 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 McKinnon younger brother of the better known Lachlan Dr. Thompson 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 Cardinia, Geelong as his livestock 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 John Pasco Forkner father of Melvin the force of his own merit makes his way Henry VIII well I am not fair and therefore I pray the gods to make me honest as you like it he's honest on my honor Henry VIII he has a heart as sound as a bell his tongue is the clapper for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks much ado about nothing for now he lives in fame though not in life Richard III if circumstances won't make a poet as genius contemptuously asserts nor make up for blood in a horse as even the stable boy swears to they are at times marvelously effective in making and for the matter of that also in unmaking men so might we say with regard to the well known subject of this sketch who arriving amongst us with the earliest and within the repellent surrounding of an evil repute yet under different surroundings and favoring circumstances outlived all producements whether true or otherwise and after a long practical and singularly useful career died in the full regard of his adopted country the unanimity of dislike and moral depreciation with which he was regarded by his Tasmanian fellows was not indeed without a certain share of reason or excuse that he was the son of a convict or not of course to prejudice him in these Christian days when the sins of the fathers are not to be visited upon the sons even to the first generation his father arrived with Collins prisoner party and the boy John Pasco then eleven years old was sent with his parent for not seldom were wives or children thus sent with the convicts to ameliorate by such a touch of nature the hard features of a society of adult vice much as Hogarth in some of his masterpieces the human woes or vices of his time gives in striking contrast a foreground of maternal affection or of children a play in the artless innocence of their looks and ways that he was probably neither a pretty nor an interesting boy for as a man he was of the very plainest with a short figure always negligently put on a rough, maniless way and a voice husky and hoarse although redeemed at times into an approach to commanding an audience when he was strongly stirred in some exciting cause some people have no patience to subdue natural antipathies in such cases and these people would as well known scripture with some transposition the idea tells us be apt to be most plentiful in his own country but again Faulkner was himself a convict yes but for what certainly if a man so notorious in after life had committed any very disparaging crime it must have been as notorious as his known but I never heard anything distinctive beyond that he had for something or other passed under the cord and forks of the Van Diemen's land criminal courts ineventably his early upbringing was in low associations where probably ties of friendly feelings survived as to which he might have said with the bard of Avon I am not of that feather to shake off my friend Timon of Athens my impression was that he had been convicted of harbouring or aiding to escape some who had broken the law whatever more that may have meant for with his pluck he was probably little troubled about niceties of fine feeling and thus a countered providence drop the man amongst altogether different circumstances and associations in his new location I had much to do with Faulkner especially after he and I met in our young colony's first legislature and after I sufficiently knew him so as to allow for the rough exterior of his nature I never had but one opinion of the man that opinion was that throughout every condition at the considerable space of his later life whether in health or sickness strength or weakness prosperity or adversity for at first at least he like many others was not prosperous in golden fleece and golden victoria he toiled late and early for what in his honest judgement was for the good of his colony and with the singleness of purpose which was not excelled was not I think equal to my knowledge at least by any other in that colony he seemed to make an ascent under the exhilarating circumstances of his new and increasingly responsible position and to have the consciousness of a great mission which nerve him to surmount all that was in his earlier career nor was he behind in less pretentious ways I never once heard of any mean or overreaching act of his even in the smallest matters he once told me in his prosperous days with much becoming feeling and as an incident he could never forget that when quite broken in fortune he had received as fast as unexpected and most timely pecuniary helped from Mr Henry Moore the well known solicitor the two were I think and hearty variance across the political hedge the more honour to both we have seen that he showed plucked in his earlier life even in bad associations and he displayed the same under better circumstances later on his action with a certain gravely suspected commissioner of crown lands was a good illustration this high functionary who in those pre-constitutional times was practically an irresponsible Caesar over a vast estate of dependent crown tenants whose interests might in any case be seriously jeopardised by any unfairness and who therefore like the wife of his prototype should be even above suspicion was accused by rumours of no slight noise or breath of unfaithfulness to his charge and in the grossest and most mercenary of thorns even with the clearest case it was anything but assuring to attack such a man in those days of superiority but Forkner's bite was too deep for any latex fair cure and so Nolan's violence the commissioner had to defend or retrieve his character the verdict of the farthing damages at which amount the jury estimated that character in the case was complete justification to Forkner and laid the whole province under lasting obligation to him for a most important public service another of these more prominent services was among the first gold commission 1854-5 summoned hastily together by the Governor Sir Charles Hoffam under the surprise not unmixed with consternation caused by the Ballarat riot an incident which asserts aspects such as the stock age structure deserve Rala the graver name of rebellion already in his 63rd year in broken health and certainly the weakest physically at the membership he was the most active of all ever running full tilt into every abuse or fault or complaint that might help to explain this unwanted and indeed utterly purposeless and stupid incident of a British community in my capacity as chairman I appreciated Forkner's untiring or more properly unyielding spirit and under travelling fatigues too of no mean trial even to younger men for the colossus of roads as my energetic friend Doctor now Sir Francis Murphy was humorously called on accepting recently before the charge of the rutty and myry ways of golden Victoria had as yet made but feeble progress in his most urgent mission we learned enough to explain at least if not to excuse the minus and were thus guided to a reconstruction of Goldfield's administration this was chiefly in that national element here the two utterly absent there of local representative institutions and the changes since assured the future from even John Bull's proverbial growling General MacArthur with a few troops promptly but not without considerable bloodshed ended the sad farce with the very exceptional features of an incident extremely unlikely to occur again Faulkner and most others of the commission were most decided for a general condolence and this was agreed to in the report by all except the official commissioner Mr. Wright who exclusively enough sided with his official superiors for a treason trial but the jury as might have been anticipated acquitted the prisoners one of their leaders Mr. Peter Lowell who lost one of his arms in the cause has since been for many years speaker of the Victorian assembly and is loyal to his queen as he is junior to his many friends when we wound up the commission's inquiry at Castle Main and on the morning of a hot mid-summer day embarked upon one of the springless cob and co's at the time with the prospect of 10 or 12 hours of terrible jolting before us poor old Faulkner seemed so much enfeebled that I was in some doubt as to he's being landed alive at Melbourne but game to the last he rode uncomplainingly through all and he lived even a worldly number of years after but only to do more and more work old General Anderson of early colonial memory had a habit quite his own of saying to the face of anyone whose conduct gave him satisfaction and in his blunt soldierly way sir, I have a great respect for you such an accrediting and not formal declaration he addressed times more I think than once to Faulkner indeed all classes of the colony from the highest in which the gallant colonel moved to the humblest now alive recognised the veteran who had so long and so well fought for them all when at last the spirit quitted the worn out frame and its well known form even to the last keeping up still amongst some few the lingering dislike of the long past was to be no more seen amongst us there's seen but one impulse for the occasion which fittingly expressed itself in a funeral procession entirely unprecedented in its every aspect this was not less to the colony's honour than to that of Faulkner he died on 4th September 1869 not the least impressive feature of the funeral perhaps the most was the remarkable prayer offered up at the grave by Reverend Doctor Cairns Victoria's most eloquent preacher in giving the true setting to the life and character of the man thank god in the name of the colony for such a life the influence and example of which could not but be for good to all who were to follow he has fought bravely for the RIP of the tomb he rests from his labours and his works do follow him end of section 8 section 9 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William Wesker section 9 James Simpson First Magistrate of the Settlement He has an excellent good name much adieu about nothing when the settlement begun and went like the pre-judges time in Israel every man did as he pleased the inevitable inconvenience of that ultra radical paradise led the small community to seek out a male Deborah and with one accord they made choice of James Simpson their early fellow immigrant in the Tide from Launceston had there been even a much larger society the choice would probably have been surely the same for it would have been difficult indeed to find anyone who in the grace and command of natural presence exceeded this inaugurator of authority Victoria his figure rather tall shapely, well developed surmounted by a noble head bored with age just touching the venerable and with a genial expression of face which however never descended to liberty all though times without number to a smile or slight laugh he sat erect upon the bench facility so institutions were to bend to him and not he to them when we entered the little hut like structure in the middle of the western market area so long Melbourne's only police office James Simpson seemed to us as much a part of its fittings as the rude little bench itself and it was a disappointment not to find him there as the indispensable compliment to the same even although better conduct in the community was to be in third how so striking so influence wielding a man did not get or take a still more leading position than he had was due perhaps to some indolence of nature to a rare and inviolable contentment or to a mixture of both he took what fell in his way magistracies bank directorships or what else and lived unambituously on his moderate but sufficient means always in the front social position and of course in universal respect and how again so quiet a spirit adventure to cross amongst the tag rags of the earlier lawn cistern tide unless indeed under some benevolent inspiration and pre-science about the magisterial needs is a mystery which although I often converse with him I never happened to hear him explain David Charteris MacArthur father of Victorian banking a man of good repute, carriage, bearing and estimation loves labour lost almost as earlier colonist as Simpson his intimate friend his colleague in the Melbourne branch of the bank of Australasia of which he was himself general manager with Simpson as director MacArthur fitly follows the other in this list of early colonial prominence to the day of his death he held the first position active or honorary in Victorian banking but he was even better known or at least better regarded as par excellence mine host of the early community during a long life of which the later and much the larger half were spent in Victoria there was none who entered more readily constantly or acceptably into the very life of the community his leisure such as he had his means his fellowship were at their command he was genealogy personified but he was a banker and the banker has duties and in the ups and downs of colonial business life he was but too often reminded to that effect it was quite a sight if you happen to witness the scene with a bank customer to whom as to the state of his account it was necessary to administer what makes countrymen call a hearing often he had to pity victims of circumstances in the sudden changes of colonial commerce but the gods a boon can only can to discriminate impartially in such cases and duty to the bank must be done first the humorous twinkle in the eye of the colony abated but it still lingered there unless there must be still stronger stages of the ordeal to bring the business culprit to reason but when the last gleam went out a storm was certainly imminent the storm however swept past on the instant with the provocation when that eye finally closed a veritable sunbeam went out with it Mrs. MacArthur who still survives when hand in hand with her husband that they were an attached couple has the complimentary illustration of his making her his full air as they had no family to divide cares and means we must blame the less the surpassing hospitalities that distinguished them had really no other fault unless indeed we must fall back on the general limitation which Adam Smith had to admit even in the excellence of his departed friend Hume for after all a man can be good or perfect only so far as the nature of human frailty will permit Charles Joseph La Trobe CB Superintendent of Port Phillip and First Lieutenant Governor of Victoria however God or fortune cast my lot their lives or dies a loyal just and upright gentlemen Richard II the more I saw of the subject of this sketch over nearly all the 15 years of his unusually prolonged and varied officiate the more I explained his case by the excusing consideration that he was where he was without his own consent he was naturally a quiet, amiable, unambitious man full of official activity and ability in a prescribed line or under the instructions of superiors thus commended at Sydney he accepted as matter of duty his appointment by the governor in 1839 to the super tendency of the Port Phillip community a small body as yet although making an ominously loud noise upon the far southern skirts of the vast colonial expanse of which Sydney was then the official and business centre the charge did not then seem to threaten to be an anxiously large one and in any case his inauguratory office might hardly remove him from the accustomed instruction of superiors what he did not bargain for was that the child he went to nurse was to rush almost from the cradle into manhood and the little settlement he began his reign with today he had done with it notable if not indeed actually the most important colony of the empire he was a Moravian Christian of a well known name in that excellent body and possessed of all its virtues he was besides a well educated gentleman the pure and happy home which he transferred to the new scene was of priceless value to its society and all the more so at a time when such virtuous homes in such high quarters were by no means over common thereabout but with a natural shyness and in a sociopolitical sense timidity of character which in ordinary circumstances are feelings leaning to the better side he exemplified how a good man a good ruler of men the diffidence is often mistaken by the ruled and always disappointing and in public affairs it is apt as Mr. La Trobe but too well illustrated to take the inconvenient and injurious form of personal indecision he had not a particle of pride or selfishness hardly even of the commoner infirmity he would whenever possible take a roundabout to escape observation but if even the humblest colonists persisted to address him unrepelled by the evident tendency to move on he would be as frank and unceremonious as our queen in a high lane cottage we regret that so righteously stored a man should make a bad governor but so it was nonetheless there was comparatively little damage during the day of smaller things prior to the gold still even then the characteristics told in the reluctance to resolve upon action in any departure from the red tape of the beaten track any young settlement of men nearly all in the exuberant prime and almost daily called upon amongst Australia peculiarities to confront their novel circumstances for instance upon rumors often repeated that there was good workable coal at western port a party is formed with capital in readiness to give the case a thorough testing and they as a course apply to the government those aides and concessions or at least a sufficiency of them which could most easily have been given in that quarter for Mr. La Trobe was practically the government he referred the matter to Mr. Crown's solicitor croak to asserting what might be the legal impediments impediments, obstacles difficulties but who had asked for them the application had been for facilities of course Mr. C.S. Croke as instructed and with all the facility of any lawyer worth his salt Julie found the required impediments and so the disturbing enemy was defeated and the government left at rest but when the gold fields grand drama of progress opened thousands promptly flowed into Victoria from neighbouring colonies and a little later on ten thousands from home this charanis of action this resolute irresolution or in Oliver's description of his master Napoleon before he in an unlucky moment swayed over to his side this obstinate indecision proved sadly damaging although indeed under all the circumstances it was hardly possible for any obstacle whatever to arrest materially its marvellous growth of course the interest of the colony thus inviably favoured was to settle as best could the strong of enterprising humanity over its vast and all but empty areas being done by prompt and adequate access to the land but some current differences as to the bearing or rights of squatting leases gave the governor the superintendent being now in that higher position the two ready excuse for his infirmity of indecision even the squatting difficulty which could have been easily removed by reserve of compensation whatever of it might have been real was only one part perhaps not even the chief part of the Richard case acres by the million on either side along the busy highways and around the many gold filled outbreaks small and great from which the livestock where there had been any were now all driven away might have been brought to market at once without real injury to any interest the squatters naturally enough sided with the governor getting him an encouraging semblance of public principal but did not the one third of united crown officials and crown nominates plus the crown tenants in our first so-called representative legislator show on this question a small majority for the crown at last when the public scandal of so grievous a spectacle made no longer in action impossible when the disappointed and shiftless immigrants began to a retreat from the inhospitable colony the balance streaming by thousands into canvas town all wandering helpless elsewhere and mostly ruined by the cost of living through cabbage had risen to five shillings gold fields and to two shillings and six pence in Melbourne the governor by an adroit move in the despair of the position referred the case home their common sense decided it at once or at least as quickly as might have been expected from the leisurely ways of the colonial office of those far back times but the decision came in a very great failure much too late there had been in the meantime a blazing fire of land speculation which unlike other fires had blazed all the more intensely from the want of fuel the small supply of land and the fury of multitudinous demands had driven up prices to such observe and the utilities considered such impossible heights that the inevitable reaction had already begun involving numbers of families in most sudden and unexpected loss and not a few in ruin but victoria easily recovered from and forgot this preliminary and bad physically and was soon to be seen galloping on its road of progress as if nothing to its damage could ever have happened for the day full of hope for the morrow and the busy colonists saluted cordially the departing governor for my part I do not grudge it to him for his motives and conduct were of the purest and he was ever with all a rightful christian gentleman Sir John O'Shaughnessy Premier and foremost public man of victoria all together directed by an Irishman a very valiant gentleman I faith Henry V one of O'Shaughnessy's oft repeated jokes told with the humorous twinkle of his eye was that all men are born free and equal and must remain so he was wide as the poles are sundered from the radical leveller as this joke of his might help to show indeed he was decidedly conservative in a general socio-political sense of the word while in strong sympathy with the mass of his countrymen he might have limped at times alongside even a panel to say nothing of David and O'Donovan Rosa he had more than O'Connell's dread to pass irretrievably outside the law although he might not have scrupled to drive the proverbial carriage and six through law's usual dubities of expression particularly in certain sections of the Victorian Education Acts as one of the earliest Irish colonists from the old country he soon rose to the leading position amongst his fellow colonists, Irishmen his qualities are like in physique and mind easily gave him that position his tall, massive form with the imperitable good-humoured smile that even when annoyed by an opponent he could hardly dismiss from his face except perchance by a blend of the sarcastic his deliberate manner in speaking and his sonorous voice gave him this surpassing influence but in colonial public life where he had to encounter greater competition and sharper criticism than in his own smaller Irish world he lay under some disadvantages like his friend and occasional opponent Faulkner he had an ungainly gait and rather mannerless address he had too a rich conval broke and certainly he had not enjoyed an education at all commensurate with his great natural endowments but all defects not withstanding he steadily rose in political estimation and for the simple reason that his views of public affairs were characteristic of the statesmen more perhaps than those of any others associated with him he first entered public life in 1851 as one of the three representatives for Melbourne in Victoria's first parliament but doubtful perhaps with his anti-radical temperament as to the fickleness of large town populations as well possibly as the dread of his liability to get compromised by the overzeal of supporters he changed the venue to the small semi Irish town of Fillmore where his seat was always secure until in his advancing years he condescended to the less laborious fear of the upper house I saw much of O'Shaughnessy at the outset of Victorian legislation when he and I in 1851 to three sat together as colleagues for Melbourne in the single chamber of that inaugurative time and afterwards when we were associated in the Goldfields Commission 1854 to five often I noticed the unnering bent of his mind towards the statesman's broad view of subjects of political controversy as a sincere Catholic he was sometimes trampled as he ran with liberal Protestant majorities in the education question for instance as already hinted seeing that Victoria stands amongst the most advanced in the rigid secularity of its teaching to the extent at least of what of instruction is provided and gratuously provided by public money but in general he was anxious to be reasonably accordant with public opinion so much so indeed in that profound direction as given might have phrased it as not to be quite recognizable with the extreme of the Jesuit or ultra monotone section of his church I recollect and record with pleasure one of the Goldfields Commission incidents illustrative of a Shennessy's high public qualities we had completed a castle name near the original Mount Alexander our considerable tour of Goldfields inspection and as we sat round the table of the only public room of the small hotel or public house of the place the evidence completed and all the proposed changes decided on there remained yet one question our proposed chief pecuniary change abolished the indiscriminate and to the many unsuccessful most oppressive charge of 30 shillings monthly license fee and substituted a yearly fee or fine of only 20 shillings and what was this or the documentary receipt that represented it to be called reduced as the amount was it was still a tax and any ingenuity or otherwise reconciled tax was worthy of the best state craft as chairman and not having at the moment a suggestion of my own I had to knock at the heads of my co-members I turned to one then another and yet another but without response either near original brain of Forfner sent forth no sign at length I came to who happened to be at the far end of the table he had been waiting his turn and the answer came promptly call of the miners right it was but one out of many instances of his statements like turn the miners right of course it was called the name passed on to many other gold fields I noticed it in British Columbia shortly after with its new gold discoveries for the commission's report had attracted much attention owing to the forefront position which gold and Victoria had already assumed in the world end of section 9 section 10 personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria this is a LibraVox recording all LibraVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibraVox.org this reading by Lucy Burgoyne personal recollections of early Melbourne and Victoria by William Wescott section 10 William Kerr founder of the Argus and town clerk of Melbourne I am in the place where I am demanded of conscience to speak the truth and therefore the truth I speak in pug ed juzo list the Argus motto another of those shannesses of repeated jokes was a good story about Kerr and always told with that stereotype good temper which I fear the latter with his strong orange antipathies would upon opportunity have but grudgingly reciprocated two brother Scots happening to meet one day in Melbourne one of them presumably not long arrived speared of the other did you kin and will incur hear a reboot will incur replied the other in reproachful astonishment no kin will incur the greatest man in the tomb that a hard headed liberal minded common sense Scott as Kerr was in most things should have had the orange infirmity may be excused or at least explained by the fact that his being a Scotch town almost within hail of Ulster that small and not over much known place has not been the least among the cities in contributing heads and hands to the colonies progress including besides Kerr and others James Hunter Ross a leading Melbourne solicitor and my good old friend Hugh Lewis Taylor who are well out of these teams was made manager at Geelong and is now manager in London of the prosperous bank of Victoria had a high order of abilities in certain literary directions which might have given him a much better position than he ever secured that for his indolence and negligent want of method he had also a bad physical constitution which had probably much to do with the other defects perhaps it was his literary turn that led him first to build a new home to try a stationary business which under the style of Kerr and Holmes afterwards Kerr and Thompson in Collins Street West was I think the precursor of that particular trade in little early Melbourne but that had to be given up and after some looking about with no overloaded means he established the Melbourne Argus the preceding press efforts had at my arrival established three papers which by tolerant neutral arrangement in a bi-weekly issue respectively gave the small public the almost indispensable food of a daily paper almost at the beginning Forkner's practical hand supplied the patriot hand written for the first eight or ten numbers until type came from Launceston this was soon followed by the Gazette of George Arden and that again by the Herald of George Kavanaugh all three had I think the common prefix of Port Phillip the Gazette after a brief career under its very able but rather erratic owner went to the wall the patriot under the boss the quote who had succeeded the overworked Forkner was somewhat later brought up by the Argus under Wilson and Johnston in succession to Kerr the Herald when quitted after an excellent and timely sale by its founder early in the gold times was soon after shipwrecked in the storm of vicissitude that characterised the first years of gold digging with the editorial Pen Kerr was in his element and his naturally competitive tendencies found their fitting expression in the motto he adopted and which still heads the paper I am in the place where I am demanded a conscience to speak the truth and therefore the truth I speak in pug at Houso List but even the little Argus required management and Kerr was no manager he was induced to sell it and for no great sum pounds going a long way in those times to Mr Edward Wilson who's thus laid the foundation of his subsequent great position and fortunes Kerr was fortunate after this in securing the town clerkship of Melbourne in succession to Mr John Charles King the first clerk the corporation was still hardly beyond infancy and Kerr's natural legal acuteness was a great service at his new post where reigned he practically master and was an authority far outside his official spear and even in legislative difficulties of the young parliament but we are now entering into Victoria life and the importance that was first being developed with the gold but after a time the old besetting infirmity turned up here also and in a rather serious form as connected with irregularities incorporation monies and accounts which might have been compromising to any other than Kerr with his well known indifference to such vulgar good things he had a remarkable resemblance in more than one point of character and circumstances to his brother Scotchman and fast friend till death the reverend Dr Lane of Sydney and had he possessed the physical figure not to say the state league proportions of that most competent of members of church militant he might have been his Victorian rival in a far more prosperous and protracted career in each there was a very combative mind behind the moulders of men besides the pulpit Lane sought successfully also the legislature where somehow clergymen are not favourites he was in fact in the first instance one of our members for Port Phillip and it was chiefly to his efforts and abilities that separation from New South Wales was eventually conceded from home in the elective contests we saw some of the peculiar talent with which Lane fought his many political foes when, with an immutable blandness of address and the softest of mellifluous language he would build up a many sided argument patiently and leisurely and at last as with bitterly biting end of a stockman's long whip flay the Wentworths of opposition who with more noise than effect were ever snapping at his heels but alas for the cause of human perfection the doctor being on a mission home and by no means for the first time for the promotion of the immigration of Scotch Presbyterians to Australia he's great and not unworthy hobby and being short of thumbs after raising in one direction all he could upon his bill of lading horrible dictur pledged elsewhere for the balance of his account a spare copy of the set of confidence now was the day of vengeance for his foes and they duly essayed to take it but the impertable doctor was not troubled with too thin a skin especially in a matter which was totally devoured a personal pecuniary advantage the overdraft was as he expected readily made up by the public nor did he sustain any great moral damage even with his foes as his indifference about money was too well known first his own money and after that other peoples Kerr was in a light plight but a great deal more helplessly if he escaped as to character with the many who knew him yet of necessity he lost his good post he was succeeded by Mr Fitzgibbon who more fitly I doubt not than Kerr has held this important office ever since a period of no less than 32 years this serious loss of means and position completed a breakdown that had probably begun before so that Kerr was no longer able for first class work we may envy this opportunity to his old opponent O'Shaughnessy who in power at the time generously found him a small appointment a station upon one of the railways which gave him at least a comfortable and in a social way by no means ungenial home for the short remainder of his life it was mainly at my good friend this urgent instance that I entered public life which was in 1850 for the representation of Melbourne at Sydney doubtless he had his own aims quite as much as my interests in view as he wanted the supposed good card a Melbourne merchant Scotch and Presbyterian like himself into the bargain to play against anti-orange and Irish cum O'Shaughnessy party I fear that his expected henchman was too cosmopolitan at times that Kerr rendered me a more direct service at the subsequent election for Melbourne in Victoria's first parliament by bringing me in at the head of the poll which happened in this way at the first count the poll stood thus O'Shaughnessy Wesgarth Johnston Nicholson the latter being out much to his own and his friends' astonishment as there were only three seats Kerr, who was resolved O'Shaughnessy should not be declared first if he could help it called for a scrutiny prior to declaration on the Irish side where in fact there was a legion of busy Kerr's to my one many of them having voted double or as with Sheridan's proposed yearly parliament often if need be one had voted nine times in succession at different polling places I fear Kerr was wrong and that scrutiny should have been applied for after declaration the Kerr was the most dogged of mortals when he had a mind and an object was then in the zenith of his influence and best of all for his side he was king of the position as town clerk so he secured his purpose and O'Shaughnessy and I changed positions I have a better service and a much more general interest with which to conclude my present sketch a year later the second year of the gold during which it was estimated that 15 millions of gold had been washed out of the drifts cheaply at Ballarat and Bendigo the colony was already flooded and no wonder by the convict element to intensify this evil beyond all bearing that colony's government in view of relief from accumulating prisoners had lately enacted a conditional pardon system the condition being that the criminal was at liberty for all the world except to return home and forthwith Her Majesty's past in hand he crossed to golden Victoria a cry of despair arose there that almost immediately the towns gold fields, highways and everywhere else where havoc was to be made were the almost daily scenes of the most atrocious outrage one for noon word reached town that five ruffians taking position on the St Fielder road had stuck up and robbed some 20 of the merchants and traders on their way to Melbourne including my friend John G. Foxton the anti-transportation league then some years in existence held a great meeting at which a large committee was appointed and was enjoined to find an effective mode of dealing with this novel form of evil I think that it was at my suggestion that each of the committee was to write out his thoughts and bring the paper with him so as to have a basis for arriving at a prompt conclusion Kerr was made convener and he was not long in convening us only Kerr and myself responded we may take a mitigated view of the others that everyone was busy over something in those days so for a single so for want of servants who had bolted to the diggings while most of the committee had had legislation and incessant deputations and public meetings to look after besides as to myself I had vainly tried to find 15 consecutive minutes for the subject when Mr Kerr asked me for my paper I excused myself by stating that it was so mega that I would rather first hear his thereupon in his deliberate way he drew forth a sheet of Phil's cap and read to me the convict's prevention act such it was for with a few comparatively unimportant mitigations secured by the ability and influence of attorney general stall highly appreciating and determined to have the measure promptly passed it by a large majority this was Kerr's culminating public service and I am the more pleased to have this opportunity to say so as my name was rather unduly attached to the bill from its having been committed to my charge his prompt remedy I doubt not many a colonist not only as to life limb and property but from outrage in some cases worse than death his scathing measure introduced indeed a new principle for we unceremoniously clapped people into prison who held up to our courts the Queen's pardon Her Majesty's representatives at home did not at all like it the home government indeed refused to confirm the temporarily enacted measure but by that happy safety valve understanding which has perhaps saved some explosions it was renewed and re-renewed as long as required the letter of imperial law was doubtless violated that Her Majesty's government violated the spirit by authorizing men unfit for England to go to Victoria William Nicholson Mayor of Melbourne and Premier of the Colony an honest man so is able to speak for himself when a naïve is not as you like it in one of our colonial municipalities which of them I have forgotten as I heard my story so long ago a working furniture maker who had secured an order from the Mayor for his official chair was observed to be a particular pains over its construction and on being asked the reason replied that he intended someday to occupy it himself if the subject of this sketch had been of that particular trade this would have been a very likely story to fix upon him not that he was of inordinate ambition for on the contrary he looked quiet and contented beyond most around him that he was always ready and willing to respond to the many opportunities of the new Colony and from his great natural gifts usually able to do them justice nature had given him all she could to make him a good and useful colonist but there was one thing he had not had from her because not within her power and that was the school he was probably not altogether uneducated but he could not have had many chances in that direction otherwise the facility with which he himself in life's practical work after he had reached manhood would have told for him as a school boy as well in business in public speaking and debating and in public life in general he took successfully a first part but when he had to condescend to such schooling products as writing and spelling he made confessedly but again a defect of this kind is much less of an obstacle in new colonies than in old societies because for generations in the former the hand is relatively more important to progress than the head and the man of work that the man of thought in colonies men of great natural parts if ambitious good positions even if but little educated at home this is hardly possible and the consequent social distemper is there a danger to the state a danger however which our education acts since 1870 must be steadily removing I happened on one occasion to meet Nicholson's home employer in Liverpool he had been foreman if indeed so high as that in a warehouse when he told his employer that he had made up his mind to go to Port Phillip with his family there was regret to part with so quiet and trustworthy a servant but as he said to me not the least idea that the unpretending individual before him would within a few years position considerably in advance of his own he set up a grocery shop in Melbourne and was soon on the road to success then he stood for the municipality which was hardly yet out of infancy was duly elected councillor and in a very few years became mayor of Melbourne then gliding easily onwards and upwards of the young colonial legislature of 1851 as member for the Metropolitan County North Burke he had previously as I have told tried unsuccessfully for the capital itself getting some compensation however in the next first but with all this rising importance he was ever the plane unassuming and when mayor or mlc both he and his wife would be found in their shop as usual so far at least as the other crowding duties would permit when he formed his first and very brief ministry under constitutional government prior to my definitely leaving the colony in 1857 he did me the honour to have a place in his cabinet if our young colonies may use the grand imperial term as his commissioner of customs with regret I was compelled to decline for from experience a few years before I had found that if a man has business of his own which he must attend to he cannot possibly at the same time attend to that of his own premiers came in thick and fast succession in those days for there was no small doing and undoing and no little of general up turning when an exclusively representative assembly took the place of the crown system in its proceeding complete or subsequently still partial condition the land question was ever the chief difficulty for whereas in previous times the people had been directed to conform themselves to land laws now the new fancy all was that the land laws should conform to the needs of the people ministries rose and fell mainly on this question when the second time premier I think in 1860 Nicholson left the land to a land act as did O'Shaughnessy Gavin Duffy and others and there is a ringing of the changes even yet upon that fertile subject William Nicholson has passed to his rest and Burns might have fitly awarded him his high palm an honest man's the noblest work of God Charles Hudson ebden I think but I thought there was more in him than I could think Karelianist me thinks there is much reason in his sayings Julius Caesar all work and no playing makes Jack a dull boy the subject at this sketch might put in a claim for at least something towards redeeming Jack's dullness and a fertile turn for epigramatics some of them not bad he boasted of having though brummels antipathy to certain vegetables during the early but brief allotment mania he said that he feared he was to become disgustingly rich one of his epies which became a byword and scored him a decided success when some colonists hearing him called by the name of ebden asked him if he was related to the great Mr. ebden his humorous lead delivered response to the effect that he was himself that happy individual scored him another perhaps smaller success I have often seen him score yet another which perhaps in his own view was not at all the least of that sort of thing when after writing in a rather neat and most distinct hand the pen seemed suddenly under perilous and a sadly delipidated signature was the result he always signed his name in that fanciful way ebden's name was so well known in the earlier years indeed his gate and ways his sayings and doings were so marked throughout that to admit him from my list would leave a decided blank that if the man had consisted of these little oddnesses just alluded to whether first class or second little would have survived of him as business like john bull fails to appreciate people who have no more solid backing than that underneath all this very gauzy surface ebden as all who had his intimacy were aware was with all a man of ability and good common sense and what was practically more he was reputed to rank high in the role of success in the early allotment rig indeed in the rapid fortune making of that time he contemplated a residence for himself upon an ample frontage to collin street next above the bank of australia two back offices had been built towards the full idea but the allotment game had already turned air he got further and nearly incomplete work stood the offices were readily sold all that and from intended rose to be the places of business of two early firms of solicitors meek and clerk on the one side and Montgomery and McCray on the other the spacious frontage remained long unbuilt upon that it has since been taken as part of the temple not however of the gods that are very different people the lawyers he and I were on opposite sides of the political hedge at least in the times when we were together in public life both in Sydney and Melbourne during the pre-constitutional era he belonged almost beyond any others the exceptions being perhaps limited to William Forlong and my friend A. R. Crouchank to the anti-popular and pro squatting party although subsequently when there was the fact accomplished and no help for it he accepted fully and cheerfully as his election addresses put it the reigning democratic platform that he was not unkindly with all and he helped my comparative legislative inexperience at Sydney when we were both there to represent Melbourne and Port Phillip he had done me a great favour also in making himself most serviceable for the German immigration which I had started from Hamburg in 1849 he was quite a German scholar having finished his education at Karlsruhe a name which he transferred to his pastoral station in the Port Phillip District Abden, like most others in it did not bring much out from the allotment mob when he returned afterwards to represent the district along with me in Sydney I heard that a draft of cattle from the station was needed for expenses these were still the reactionary times of such small things for all of us but in after years he went on and prospered and he left behind him what might have been called a large fortune in any place where there were not a WJT club and Henry Miller and perhaps some few others besides in the rival category End of section 10