Retrospective and Perspective
On 1 July 1851, the Port Phillip District was separated from the Colony of New South Wales under provisions of the Australian Colonies Government Act 1850, and became the Colony of Victoria. The 1851 Census, taken on 2 March, showed the inhabitants of the Colony of Victoria as 77,345 and Melbourne as 12,374.
In retrospect, we are all indebted to the First Nations people who were already here, to those immigrants who crossed the seas and to those born here, who all made Victoria their home in the last 170 years.
Source: wikipedia.org
The growth of our State can be partly attributed to the early pioneers for their foresight and determination to improve their living standards through agriculture and trade. The gold rush, beginning in the 1850’s, ushered in a more multicultural society here and the ensuing riches built ‘Marvellous Melbourne,’ Whilst some squatters prospered, others fought and lost their battle with nature, during events like The Black Thursday bushfires in 1851, which occurred only months before our secession from New South Wales. An article from the Geelong Advertiser on 14 February, page 2, described the horrific conditions people endured where temperatures reached 120° Fahrenheit (or nearly 49° Celsius) in the sun.
“….. the fiery projectiles which were swept through the air, and which carried devastation to stations and homesteads that were thought to be secure. The violence of the wind, the intensity, breadth, and volume of the fire, the combustible condition of grass, trees, fences, huts, and houses, formed a combination that baffled both calculation and any means of resistance.”
Victorians’ have suffered the deprivations of droughts, bushfires, floods, cyclones and pandemics before and since our inception as a Colony in 1851. We are still enduring these challenges today, and despite Melbourne being one of the ‘most locked-down cities in the world’ during the 2020/21 Covid pandemic, we can reflect on the past 170 years of Victoria as a State, with faith in our resilience and confidence in our prospects for the future as our forebears did.
Contributed by Dianne Wheeler, PPPG Member No 1505, Editor