Convicts or Pirates?

The first half of 1851 was an unsettled time in the Port Phillip District. As the date for separation from New South Wales approached the newspapers carried stories about gold discoveries as well as many reports of highway robberies, forgeries, burglaries, and other...

State Library Manuscripts

and the Fawkner Diaries Shona Dewar has worked in the Australian Manuscript Department at the State Library of Victoria for 19 years and at present is co-ordinator of the Port Phillip Papers Digitising Project. Since the 1990’s, building renovations have...

Robert Dodd

The Ship’s Carpenter who Fell in Love As long as I can remember I knew that I would research my family genealogy. It was never mentioned by my parents or their families. I just knew it would be so. Like most children I met many of my relatives of both my...

Old Colonist Festivities

A meeting was held in Melbourne on 3 August 1853 to consider what was believed to be a very general feeling being manifested for a re-union of the Colonists of the “olden time.” At this preliminary meeting chaired by the Town Clerk, William Kerr, it was...

Graham Berry

M.L.A. for Geelong, Premier of Victoria Peter Mansfield outlines the Career of Sir Graham Berry Born in Twickenham, near London in 1822, Graham Berry became an apprentice draper after completing his primary school education. He married Harriet Blencowe around 1848 in...