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Geelong
The town which served early Farndale migrants to south Australia
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The Farndale Family and Geelong
Matthew Farndale and his family (FAR00225)
settled at Birregurra – see also the Birregurra
(Australia 1) Line, the Australian
Farndales and the Martin
Family.
Geelong was the centre from where the
Farndales and the Martins and their descendants bought
supplies.
Geelong
Geelong is a port city
located on Corio Bay and the Barwon River, in
the state of Victoria, Australia. It is 75 km south-west of Melbourne
and the second largest Victorian city, with an estimated urban population of
192,393 in 2016.
Geelong runs from the
plains of Lara in the north to the rolling hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with Corio Bay to the east
and hills to the west. Geelong is the administrative centre for the City
of Greater Geelong municipality, which covers urban, rural
and coastal areas surrounding the city, including the Bellarine Peninsula.
Geelong was named in 1827,
with the name derived from the local Wathaurong Aboriginal name
for the region, Djillong, thought to mean
"land" or "cliffs" or "tongue of land or
peninsula". Geelong City is also known as the 'Gateway City' due to
its central location to surrounding Victorian regional centres
like Ballarat in the north west, Torquay, Great
Ocean Road and Warrnambool in the
southwest, Hamilton, Colac and Winchelsea to the west,
and the state capital of Melbourne in the north east.
The area was first
surveyed in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne. The post office was open by June
1840 (the second to open in the Port Phillip District). The first woolstore was erected in this period and it became the port
for the wool industry of the Western District.
During the gold rush,
Geelong experienced a brief boom as the main port to the rich goldfields of
the Ballarat district. The city then diversified into
manufacturing, and during the 1860s, it became one of the largest manufacturing
centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks, and paper mills.
Geelong was proclaimed a
city in 1910, with industrial growth from this time until the 1960s
establishing the city as a manufacturing centre for the state, and the
population grew to over 100,000 by the mid-1960s. During the city's early
years, an inhabitant of Geelong was often known as a Geelongite, or a Pivotonian,
derived from the city's nickname of "The Pivot", referencing the
city's role as a shipping and rail hub for the area.
The 1850s Gold Rush
Gold was discovered in
nearby Ballarat in 1851, causing the Geelong population to grow to
23,000 people by the mid-1850s. To counter this, a false map was issued by
Melbourne interests to new arrivals, showing the quickest road to the goldfields
as being via Melbourne. The first issue of the Geelong
Advertiser newspaper was published in 1840 by James Harrison, who
also built the world's first ether vapour compression cycle ice-making
and refrigeration machine in 1844, later being commissioned by a
brewery in 1856 to build a machine that cooled beer.
A paddle steamer
approaches Geelong Harbour in 1857
The Geelong
Hospital was opened in 1852, and construction on the Geelong Town
Hall began in 1855. Development of the Port of
Geelong began with the creation of the first shipping channel in
Corio Bay in 1853. The Geelong to Melbourne railway was built by
the Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company in 1857.
Rabbits were introduced
to Australia in 1859 by Thomas Austin, who imported them from England
for hunting purposes at his Barwon Park property
near Winchelsea.
One of Geelong's
best-known department stores, Bright and Hitchcocks,
was established in 1861, and the H M Prison Geelong built using
convict labour, was opened in 1864.
In 1866, Graham
Berry started a newspaper, the Geelong Register, as a rival to the
established Geelong Advertiser. When this proved unsuccessful, he bought
the Advertiser and made himself editor of the now-merged papers. Using
the paper as a platform, he was elected for West Geelong in 1869. In
1877, he switched to Geelong, which he represented until 1886, and served
as Victorian Premier in 1875, 1877 to 1880, and 1880 to 1881. On
the Market Square in the middle of the city, a clock tower was
erected in 1856, and an Exhibition Building was opened in 1879.
Geelong in 1856
1860s: The 'Sleepy Hollow'
Exhibition Building and
Market Square Clocktower in 1879 (both since demolished)
The gold rush had
seen Ballarat and Bendigo grow larger than Geelong in terms
of population. Melbourne critics dubbed Geelong 'Sleepy Hollow', a tag
that recurred many times in the following years. A number of
industries became established in Geelong, including Victoria's
first woollen mill at South Geelong in 1868. In 1869,
the clipper Lightning caught fire at the Yarra Street pier and was cast adrift in Corio Bay to burn
before finally sunk by artillery fire. Improvements to transport saw
Geelong emerge as the centre of the Western District of Victoria,
with railway lines extended towards Colac in 1876, and to Queenscliff in 1879. Construction of
the Hopetoun shipping channel began in 1881 and completed in 1893.
The Geelong
Cup was first held in 1872, and Victoria's first
long-distance telephone call was made from Geelong to Queenscliff on 8 January 1878, only one year after the
invention of the device itself. Geelong was also the home of a prosperous
wine industry until the emergence of the grapevine-eating
insect Phylloxera vastatrix in 1885,
which killed the industry until the 1960s. Between 1886 and 1889,
the central business district's major banks and insurance companies
erected new premises in a solid and ornate character. The
existing Geelong Post Office was built during this time and
the Gordon Technical College was established. Further industrial
growth occurred with the Fyansford cement
works established in 1890.
The town became known as
'the Pivot' in the 1860s owing to its being a central rail and shipping hub to
Melbourne, Ballarat, and the western district.