History of Melbourne - European Exploration

European Exploration

In 1797, George Bass, in an open whaleboat with a crew of six, was the first European to enter what came to be called Bass Strait, the passage between the Australian mainland and Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). He sailed westwards along what is now the coast of the Gippsland region of Victoria, as far west as Western Port. In 1802, John Murray in the Lady Nelson entered Port Phillip, and he was followed shortly after by Matthew Flinders.

In 1803, Charles Grimes, the deputy surveyor-general of New South Wales, was sent to Port Phillip to survey the area. Sailing on Cumberland, under the command of Acting Lieutenant Charles Robbins, the party entered Port Phillip on 20 January 1803. On 30 January, Grimes and his party landed at Frankston and met around thirty of the local inhabitants. A plaque at the site marks the event. On 2 February, he entered the mouth of the Yarra River. On the next day, Grimes rowed up the river in a boat and explored what is now the Maribyrnong River for several miles. Returning to the Yarra he explored the river for several miles until he reached Dights Falls on 8 February. The journal of another member of the party, James Flemming, has been preserved, and in it he several times refers to finding good soil. Although it was evidently a dry season Flemming, who was described by King as "very intelligent", thought from the appearance of the herbage that "there is not often so great a scarcity of water as at present". He suggested that the "most eligible place for a settlement I have seen is on the Freshwater (Yarra) River". Grimes returned to Sydney on 7 March 1803 and, in spite of Flemming's opinions, reported adversely against a settlement at Port Phillip.

Later in 1803 the British Governor of New South Wales, fearful that the French might try to occupy the Bass Strait area, sent Colonel David Collins with a party of 300 convicts to establish a settlement at Port Phillip. Collins arrived at the site of Sorrento, on the Mornington Peninsula, in October 1803, but was put off by the lack of fresh water. In May 1804 Collins moved the settlement to Tasmania, establishing Hobart. The northern shores of Bass Strait were then left to a few whalers and sealers. Among the convicts at Sorrento was a boy called John Pascoe Fawkner, who would later come back to settle in the Melbourne area.

In 1824 Hamilton Hume and William Hovell came overland from New South Wales, failing to find Western Port, their destination, but instead reaching Corio Bay, where they found good grazing land. But it was another ten years before Edward Henty, a Tasmanian grazier, established an illegal sheep-run on crown land at Portland, in what is now western Victoria, in 1834.

John Batman, a successful farmer in northern Tasmania, also desired more grazing land. He entered Port Phillip Bay on 29 May 1835, landing at Indented Head. Over the next week, he explored the area around the Bay, first at Corio Bay, near the present site of Geelong, and later moving up the Yarra and Maribyrnong rivers at the north of the Bay. He explored a large area in what is now the northern suburbs of Melbourne.