Live at Queen Vic Market – Melbourne

Daily Photo – Melbourne’s Queen Vic Market

When one of Melbourne’s founding father’s, John Batman died in May of 1839, he was 38 years old and buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. While his name would forever be linked with founding the city of Melbourne, his death wasn’t so heroic. In fact, it was rather tragic. Having contracted syphilis, the disease quickly took over his body, he became disfigured, crippled and in the final months of his life, the disease was so advanced that his nose had rotted away, he became incapacitated and had to be pushed around in a wicker carriage. He died in debt, estranged from his wife and alone. His funeral was a modest, yet well attended affair, after which he was buried in the Old Melbourne Cemetery. In the coming years he would be joined by merchants, Ministers and many other of the city’s earliest settlers until the cemetery was closed for burials in 1854. 

Throughout this time, Melbourne grew at a lively pace and small wholesale and retail markets started popping up to serve the rapidly growing population. One of which surrounded the Old Melbourne Cemetery. As the market encroached on the cemetery, the public outcry became furious and proved unpopular with market gardeners and  traders who refused to use the space – fearing disease and the disrespect of selling food over graves. 

That was until 1876 when everything changed. The Victorian Government passed an Act officially gazetting the Old Melbourne Cemetery site as land to be reserved and developed into markets. A year later as bodies and skeletons were exhumed and re-interred at the Melbourne General Cemetery – things got a little messy. You see, back in 1864, a fire at the lodge belonging to the Old Melbourne Cemetery gatekeeper destroyed most of the burial registers. This meant when it became time to exhume most of the bodies, officials had absolutely no idea who was buried and where. So while identified graves were shifted, some 6,000 to 9,000 graves remained buried as the new market space was developed and officially opened as The Queen Victoria Market on the 20th March, 1878.

Daily Photo – Tram on Elizabeth Street in Melbourne

I was flying to Melbourne, a city that was settled twice, in two different decades, in two separate locations, by two different groups of people. The first attempt took place in late 1803 and was a spectacular failure. Led by a man named Lieutenant-Governor David Collins, a British army officer, colonial administrator and newly appointed Governor of the intended settlement, the expedition set sail from England on 27 April 1803 aboard the HMS Calcutta. The purpose of the trip was to establish a penal colony and secure the southern coastline of Australia for the British, before the French laid claim to it. Accompanying Lieutenant Collins in his wee fleet was a dozen Civil officers and administrators, 50 Royal Marines, 50 free settlers and their families, 300 male convicts and around 16 convict wives who had come along for the ride. 

The party arrived at the chosen site of Sullivan Bay on the Mornington Peninsula in late October 1803 and set about clearing land, constructing shelters, storehouses, developing a parade ground and completing other tasks vital to their survival. However, within a month it became clear the site was poorly chosen at best. The sandy soil was difficult to work with, there was a lack of fresh water, the timber unusable for building, crops struggled and morale quickly dipped. By January they’d decided to abandon the settlement and in February the expedition packed-up and sailed for Van Diemen’s Land, landing on the banks of the Derwent River – thus establishing what is now known as the city of Hobart. The entire experiment had lasted 14 weeks and was a complete failure in establishing a British presence on the intended coastline. 

Thirty years later, in June 1835 colonial settler and part time explorer John Batman returned to Van Diemen’s Land, having completed what can only be described as a short, brief trip. Traveling with a group of likeminded Tasmanian settlers, they’d been tasked with looking for new land, suitable for grazing and one of the areas they explored was beyond the abandoned Sullivan Bay site in a place called Port Phillip. Here Batman claimed to have negotiated a treaty with local Aboriginal and recorded in his diary: “This will be the place for a village.”  It was by no-means a long, drawn-out expedition. Batman had crossed Bass Strait, explored quickly, made his claim, and returned within a month.

Things progressed quickly! In August settlers arrived on the banks of the Yarra River and began establishing a permanent camp – a mere 60 kilometres from the original 1803 site. Unlike the attempt made by Collins, the northern banks of the Yarra River proved much more suitable. It supplied a reliable source of fresh water, better soil, shelter and was much more practical. From there, the settlement took off with surprising speed. Within a year rough streets were beginning to form, basic buildings replaced tents and the population had grown to some 200 people. By 1837 land sales had begun, the population had sprung to nearly 1000 people and the location was officially given the name – Melbourne.