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Introduction

 

Dates are in red.

Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.

Headlines of the history of the Lythe are in brown.

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Contextual history is in purple.

 

This webpage about the Lythe has the following section headings:

 

 

Matthew Farndale and his family

 

We do not know what it was that made Matthew Farndale (FAR00225) and Hannah decide to emigrate to Australia. Perhaps they had been thinking of this for some time, but whatever the reason it was a major undertaking to look for a new life at the age of 57 and to leave his family and all that he knew. Before leaving Kildale their eldest daughter Mary Ann married William Martin of Kildale who had been a butler at Ingleby Manor.

The Argo left Liverpool on 8 October 1852. Onboard were Matthew (59), Hannah, his wife (45), Elizabeth (19) their youngest daughter and Mary Ann (23) and her husband William Martin (23).

The Argo was a chartered American ship on its first voyage to Melbourne. The voyage lasted 100 days arriving in Melbourne of 19 January 1853. It departed Melbourne on March 25, 1853, for Callas

They must have first spent some time in Melbourne, first renting a house, hut or tent; there were only a few permanent buildings. Here they would enquire after land.

They would have heard much of gold - the gold rush was in full cry. However they decided against it. Someone advised them to move west to Western Victoria around Colac.

There was not much there; it was a risk; but they took it. It was a land of bush, huge gum trees, scrub, native wattle huts and bracken. There were no roads so they must assemble stores, equipment and prepare to move. They would probably have had a large wagon hauled by bullocks and a few horses. They would have found their way across country, crossing rivers where they could, until they came to Geelong - perhaps 60 miles the way they would have to go - this would have taken about a week. They would camo outdoors listening to the starnge sounds of a strange land., particularly the birds. The most unusual would be the kookoburra with its hearty laugh, but magpies would remind them of Yorkshire. The land and the sky, with the southern cross would all be new, strange and different. They would see signs of aborigines who still lived in the area and were not always friendly to the white invaders. The heat of the day would be much more than anything they had ever experienced before and the terrible insects and flies. They would have been dirty and weary, the women in their long skirts sweeping the ground when they rested at Winchelsea. Then on to Colac where they must have stayed sometime looking for land.

They eventually settled at Birregurra.

Melbourne

 

Melbourne  (Boonwurrung, Woiwurrung, Narrm or Naarm) is the capital of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia, after Sydney. Its name generally refers to a 9,993 km2 metropolitan area known as Greater Melbourne.

 

Melbourne Timeline

 

40,000 BCE

Indigenous Australians have lived in the Melbourne area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. 

When European settlers arrived in the 19th-century, under 2,000 hunter-gatherers from three regional tribes, the WurundjeriBoonwurrung and Wathaurong, inhabited the area. It was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and a vital source of food and water.

1803

The first British settlement in Victoria, then part of the penal colony of New South Wales, was established by Colonel David Collins in October 1803, at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento.

The following year, due to a perceived lack of resources, these settlers relocated to Van Diemen's Land (present-day Tasmania) and founded the city of Hobart. It would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted.

1835

In May and June 1835, John Batman, a leading member of the Port Phillip Association in Van Diemen's Land, explored the Melbourne area, and later claimed to have negotiated a purchase of 600,000 acres (2,400 km2) with eight Wurundjeri elders. Batman selected a site on the northern bank of the Yarra River, declaring that "this will be the place for a village" before returning to Van Diemen's Land. 

A group of people standing around a campfire

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A late 19th-century artist's depiction of John Batman's treaty with a group of Wurundjeri elders

In August 1835, another group of Vandemonian settlers arrived in the area and established a settlement at the site of the current Melbourne Immigration Museum. Batman and his group arrived the following month and the two groups ultimately agreed to share the settlement, initially known by the native name of Dootigala.

Batman's Treaty with the Aborigines was annulled by Richard Bourke, the Governor of New South Wales (who at the time governed all of eastern mainland Australia), with compensation paid to members of the association. 

1836

In 1836, Bourke declared the city the administrative capital of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales, and commissioned the first plan for its urban layout, the Hoddle Grid, in 1837. 

1837

Known briefly as Batmania, the settlement was named Melbourne on 10 April 1837 by Governor Richard Bourke after the British Prime Minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, whose seat was Melbourne Hall in the market town of Melbourne, Derbyshire. That year, the settlement's general post office officially opened with that name.

Between 1836 and 1842, Victorian Aboriginal groups were largely dispossessed of their land by European settlers. 

1844

By January 1844, there were said to be 675 Aborigines resident in squalid camps in Melbourne. The British Colonial Office appointed five Aboriginal Protectors for the Aborigines of Victoria, in 1839, however their work was nullified by a land policy that favoured squatters who took possession of Aboriginal lands. 

1845

By 1845, fewer than 240 wealthy Europeans held all the pastoral licences then issued in Victoria and became a powerful political and economic force in Victoria for generations to come.

1847

Letters patent of Queen Victoria, issued on 25 June 1847, declared Melbourne a city. 

1851

On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District separated from New South Wales to become the Colony of Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital.

The Victorian gold rush

A group of tents in a field

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South Melbourne's "Canvas Town" provided temporary accommodation for the thousands of migrants who arrived each week during the 1850s gold rush.

The discovery of gold in Victoria in mid-1851 sparked a gold rush, and Melbourne, the colony's major port, experienced rapid growth. Within months, the city's population had nearly doubled from 25,000 to 40,000 inhabitants. Exponential growth ensued, and by 1865 Melbourne had overtaken Sydney as Australia's most populous city.

1853

Matthew Farndale (FAR00225) and his family arrived in Melbourne.

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Melbourne, 1853 from below Princes Bridge

 

An influx of intercolonial and international migrants, particularly from Europe and China, saw the establishment of slums, including Chinatown and a temporary "tent city" on the southern banks of the Yarra.

1854

In the aftermath of the 1854 Eureka Rebellion, mass public-support for the plight of the miners resulted in major political changes to the colony, including improvements in working conditions across mining, agriculture, manufacturing and other local industries. At least twenty nationalities took part in the rebellion, giving some indication of immigration flows at the time.

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A large crowd outside the Victorian Supreme Court, celebrating the release of the Eureka rebels in 1855

With the wealth brought in from the gold rush and the subsequent need for public buildings, a programme of grand civic construction soon began. The 1850s and 1860s saw the commencement of Parliament House, the Treasury Building, the Old Melbourne Gaol, Victoria Barracks, the State Library, University of Melbourne, General Post Office, Customs House, the Melbourne Town Hall, St Patrick's cathedral, though many remained uncompleted for decades, with some still not finished as of 2018.

The layout of the inner suburbs on a largely one-mile grid pattern, cut through by wide radial boulevards and parklands surrounding the central city, was largely established in the 1850s and 1860s. These areas rapidly filled with the ubiquitous terrace houses, as well as with detached houses and grand mansions, while some of the major roads developed as shopping streets.

1855

In 1855, the Melbourne Cricket Club secured possession of its now famous ground, the MCG.

1859

Members of the Melbourne Football Club codified Australian football in 1859, and in 1861, the first Melbourne Cup race was held.

1861

Melbourne quickly became a major finance centre, home to several banks, the Royal Mint, and in 1861 Australia's first stock exchange. 

With the gold rush largely over by 1860, Melbourne continued to grow on the back of continuing gold-mining, as the major port for exporting the agricultural products of Victoria (especially wool) and with a developing manufacturing sector protected by high tariffs. An extensive radial railway network spread into the countryside from the late 1850s. Construction started on further major public buildings in the 1860s and 1870s, such as the Supreme Court, Government House, and the Queen Victoria Market. The central city filled up with shops and offices, workshops, and warehouses. Large banks and hotels faced the main streets, with fine townhouses in the east end of Collins Street, contrasting with tiny cottages down laneways within the blocks. The Aboriginal population continued to decline, with an estimated 80% total decrease by 1863, due primarily to introduced diseases (particularly smallpox[25]), frontier violence and dispossession of their lands.

1864

Melbourne acquired its first public monument, the Burke and Wills statue, in 1864.

1880

A large building with domes and a garden

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Lithograph of the World Heritage-listed Royal Exhibition Building, built to host the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880

The decade of the 1880s saw extraordinary growth: consumer confidence, easy access to credit, and steep increases in land prices led to an enormous amount of construction. During this "land boom", Melbourne reputedly became the richest city in the world, and the second-largest after London in the British Empire.

The decade began with the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880, held in the large purpose-built Exhibition Building.

In 1880 a telephone exchange was established, and in the same year the foundations of St Paul's, were laid.

1881

In 1881 electric light was installed in the Eastern Market, and in the following year a generating station capable of supplying 2,000 incandescent lamps was in operation. 

1885

In 1885 the Melbourne Tramway Trust built the first line of the Melbourne cable tramway system, which became one of the world's most extensive systems by 1890.

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Federal Coffee Palace, one of many grand hotels erected during the boom

In 1885 visiting English journalist George Augustus Henry Sala coined the phrase "Marvellous Melbourne", which stuck long into the twentieth century and which Melburnians still use today. 

1888

Melbourne's land-boom reached a peak in 1888, fuelled by consumer confidence and escalating land-value. As a result of the boom, large commercial buildings, grand edifices, banks, coffee palaces, terrace housing and palatial mansions proliferated in the city. 

The establishment of a hydraulic facility in 1887 allowed for the local manufacture of elevators, resulting in the first construction of high-rise buildings; most notably the APA Building, amongst the world's tallest commercial buildings upon completion in 1889. This period also saw the expansion of a major radial rail-based transport network.

In 1888 the Exhibition Building hosted a second event, even larger than the first: the Melbourne Centennial Exhibition. This spurred the construction of numerous hotels, including the 500-room Federal Hotel, The Palace Hotel in Bourke Street (both since demolished), and the doubling in size of the Grand (Windsor).

1890s

A brash boosterism that had typified Melbourne during this time ended in the early 1890s with a severe economic depression, sending the local finance and property industries into a period of chaos, during which 16 small "land banks" and building societies collapsed, and 133 limited companies went into liquidation.

The Melbourne financial crisis was a contributing factor in the Australian economic depression of the 1890s and in the Australian banking crisis of 1893.

The effects of the depression on the city were profound, with virtually no new construction until the late 1890s.

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