Further to our last newsletter (see Life on the Yarra/Birrarung) featuring the Yarra, Valerie Farley has contributed the following pencil sketch of the Yarra drawn by Port Phillip Pioneer Charles FORREST c. 1870 with the accompanying summary:
Charles was born in 1809 in India. He joined the British Army, the fourth generation of his family to do so.
While later serving in Mauritius he sold his commission and in 1839 married Augusta Alexander, daughter of the Governor of the Arsenal.
Charles and Augusta Forrest sailed for Sydney, but finding that land prices had gone up, they decided to buy in Melbourne.
In 1840 Charles purchased 17 acres and 3 roods for 29 pounds per acre on the corner of Toorak Rd. and Chapel St. down to the Yarra River. (The site of Melbourne High School)
Charles subdivided the land and had sold 6 blocks by 1853. (1)
Charles’ final years were spent at their property “Yarra Wars,” Hamilton’s Rd. Lardner. Charles is buried on the property.
Charles had two sisters in Port Phillip, Anne Levina (m. Rev. J. Cheyne) and Ellen (m. John Arthur Skinner.)
Anne and John Cheyne are my Port Phillip Pioneers.
1. Thanks to PPP member Ken Smith for the excellent maps of the subdivision
Contributed by Valerie Farley PPPG Member No. 551
Of further interest and to demonstrate the fragility of human life in those early days, an article titled ‘Founder of Forrest Hill’ stated the following about Charles and Augusta Forrest, … ‘seven children had been born by 1850, when a terrible blow fell. All the children, except the second son died of scarlet fever. Burial in a cemetery was not then compulsory and every day or so the unhappy parents had to inter a beloved child in the back garden. In 1859 a daughter was born. (The Argus 17 February 1945 page 12) –
Contributed by Dianne Wheeler PPPG Member No. 1505