Social Reformers of Old Melbourne

A Saint in the Slums When Robert Hoddle surveyed Melbourne he didn’t want a repetition of ‘The Rocks’ area in Sydney which had become a slum with its narrow lane ways, so he didn’t include lanes in his plan. However after gold was discovered in...

Pre-European Aboriginal Culture in the Port Phillip District

D Gary Presland, historian, archaeologist, and author is an authority on Pre-European aboriginal life in the Melbourne area having studied this topic for 30 years. He discovered it was impossible to study the aborigines in the Melbourne vicinity alone because of the...

Andrew Love – First Presbyterian Minister Geelong

The first minister of the Presbyterian Church in Geelong was the Rev. Andrew Love. He ministered there for twenty-seven years from 1840 until his death in 1867 at which time it was estimated that, amongst his other duties, he had performed over four thousand...

Beginnings: Book Review

A map on the wall of his parent’s shop in country Victoria is what got Frank Hutchinson interested in the geography and early settlement of Victoria. He later moved to Ballarat where he spent most of his working life. Whilst there his interest in the early...

Melbourne’s Mystery Man George McKillop

In Melbourne’s early days there were two McKillops, one named Alexander, the other George. Both were from Edinburgh, Scotland but were not related. Alexander was a Roman Catholic and in his earlier days had studied at the Vatican for the priesthood. However he...