Journal of the C. J. La Trobe Society Inc. Vol 16, No 3, November 2017 ISSN 1447‑4026 La Trobeana Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Inc Vol 16, No 3, November 2017
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Journal of the C. J. La Trobe Society Inc. Vol 16, No 3, November 2017 ISSN 1447‑4026 La Trobeana Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Inc Vol 16, No 3, November 2017 ISSN 1447‑4026 The C J La Trobe Society Inc was formed in 2001 to promote understanding and appreciation of the life, work and times of Charles Joseph La Trobe, Victoria’s first Lieutenant‑Governor. www.latrobesociety.org.au La Trobeana is published three times a year: in March, July and November. The journal publishes peer‑reviewed articles, as well as other written contributions, that explore themes in the life and times of Charles Joseph La Trobe, aspects of the colonial period of Victoria’s history, and the wider La Trobe family. La Trobeana is kindly sponsored by Mr Peter Lovell LOVELL CHEN ARCHITECTS & HERITAGE CONSULTANTS Editorial Committee Helen Armstrong and Dianne Reilly (Honorary Editors) John Botham, Loreen Chambers, Susan Priestley, Fay Woodhouse Designer Michael Owen [email protected] For copies of guidelines for contributors and subscription enquiries contact: The Honorary Secretary: Dr Dianne Reilly AM The C J La Trobe Society P O Box 65 Port Melbourne Vic 3207 Phone: 9646 2112 Email: [email protected] FRONT COVER Thomas Woolner, 1825‑1892, sculptor Charles Joseph La Trobe, 1853 Bronze portrait medallion showing the left profile of Charles Joseph La Trobe, diam. 24cm. Signature and date incised in bronze l.r.: T. Woolner Sc. 1853: / M La Trobe, Charles Joseph, 1801‑1875. Accessioned 1894 Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria, H5489 2 • Journal of the C J La Trobe Society Contents 4 A Word from the President Reports and Notices 5 La Trobe Society Fellowship 47 Book review Robert Russell: Articles Artist of Early Melbourne 6 Fay Woodhouse 48 Forthcoming events Surveying the Landscape: Robert Russell, Robert Hoddle and the 50 Members talk to Members program First Plan of Melbourne — call for papers 15 Tim Gatehouse 51 Biography ‘Our First Class Light’: La Trobe and the La Trobe: Traveller, Writer, Governor Cape Otway Lighthouse 52 Contributions welcome 28 John Botham Captain ‘Old King’ Cole: Port Phillip 53 Gift membership pioneer to Victorian patriarch 39 Sylvia Whitmore La Trobe, Lord Kingsborough and the nine magnificent volumes of the ‘Antiquities of Mexico’ Vol. 16, No. 3 • November 2017 • 3 A Word from the President t is with great pleasure that we offer our lighthouse, following enormous loss of life congratulations to member Professor John as ships foundered due to lack of a beacon as IBarnes on the success achieved by his recent they entered Bass Strait near their Port Phillip biography La Trobe: Traveller, Writer, Governor. In destination. the Victorian Community History Awards for 2017, he received the History Publication award John Botham has shed new light in his recognizing ‘the most outstanding non‑fiction research on the remarkable career of merchant publication on Victorian history’. This handsome George Ward Cole in his paper ‘Captain “Old publication, featuring many of La Trobe’s King” Cole: Port Phillip pioneer to Victorian sketches and water‑colours, will ensure that patriarch.’ Beginning his career as an adventurous La Trobe’s legacy is appropriately acknowledged seaman, Cole was to go on to make a name for and appreciated in the community. himself as one of the leading businessman in Melbourne with interests in shipping, banking The La Trobe Society is once again in and squatting, holding seats at various times in 2017‑2018 sponsoring a Fellowship under the the Legislative Council. umbrella of the State Library Victoria Creative Fellowships Program. Dr Monique Webber Dr Sylvia Whitmore’s paper ‘La Trobe, was the successful applicant. Her project, titled Lord Kingsborough and The Antiquities of Mexico’ La Trobe’s garden city and the lost sculptures of Fitzroy was a highlight as the La Trobe Society Lecture Gardens, will explore La Trobe’s vision of creating in the 2017 Rare Book Week. Her meticulous formalised spaces in Melbourne as a means to research has revealed hitherto unknown facts appreciate European heritage. Monique will about one of the treasures held in few libraries meet members when she speaks at the Annual in the world, one copy being held in the State General Meeting next year, if not before. Library Victoria collection. Three of the lectures given during the year Amazing as it seems, 2017 is rapidly as part of the Members Talk to Members program drawing to a close. I draw your attention to the are published in this edition of La Trobeana. Society’s Christmas Cocktails which will be held this year at the Royal Society of Victoria, Dr Fay Woodhouse, further to her editing the State’s oldest learned society, located in a and publication earlier in the year of Patricia heritage‑listed building at 8 La Trobe Street, Hawkins’ biographical sketch of Robert Russell, Melbourne. A part of Australia’s intellectual Melbourne’s first surveyor, has revealed in life promoting science since 1854, and formerly her research that there was little collaboration named the Philosophical Society of Victoria, between Russell and Robert Hoddle, the man Charles Joseph La Trobe was its inaugural Patron who replaced him as Surveyor‑General. Hoddle, before his departure from Melbourne later that generally considered the creator of Melbourne’s year. We are fortunate to have Dr Tom Darragh, grid system, had in fact used Russell’s contour Curator Emeritus at Museum Victoria, and plan, drawing up the allotments to form the Former Councillor and Honorary Librarian of central business district as we know it today. the Royal Society, as our guest speaker. I hope to see many of you there. Tim Gatehouse, in his paper ‘‘Our First Class Light’: La Trobe and the Cape Otway Diane Gardiner AM Lighthouse’, illuminates in fascinating detail Hon. President the leading role of La Trobe to blaze a trail to C J La Trobe Society Cape Otway in search of a site for the necessary 4 • Journal of the C J La Trobe Society N J Caire, 1837-1918, photographer Fitzroy Gardens — central roundel, c.1880 Albumen silver photograph Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria, H87.269/21 La Trobe Society Fellowship 2017 he La Trobe formalised spaces in Melbourne as a means to Society offers appreciate European heritage. Ta biennial Fellowship under Fitzroy Square (now Fitzroy Gardens) the umbrella of State was reserved in 1848, and although La Trobe’s Library Victoria’s governorship came to an end before the gardens Creative Fellowships were completed, the influence of his ideals is Program. Australian evident in their design and in the abundant historians, scholars classical statuary that ornamented its walks. and writers who These statues, now lost, were not only a defining wish to research Victoria’s colonial history feature of the early gardens, but they also revealed during Lieutenant‑Governor Charles La Trobe’s how the lifestyle of leisure and education that administration, or the effects of his tenure after La Trobe envisioned for a settlement where ‘the his departure from Victoria may apply for this arts and sciences [were] unborn’ was made a part prestigious award. of Melbourne’s fabric. This year, the La Trobe Society Fellowship Recovering this sculptural ornament was awarded to Dr Monique Webber who through the Library’s archives, Monique’s project has a BA (Hons) in Art History and Classics, will reveal both a lost chapter in Melbourne’s a Diploma of Modern Languages and a PhD garden history, and will demonstrate how which focused on visual culture and the analysis La Trobe’s vision informed the city’s cultural of Roman art and architecture. and physical landscape. Her project is titled La Trobe’s garden Monique will produce a work suitable for city and the lost sculptures of Fitzroy Gardens. publication as a special issue of La Trobeana, and Monique will explore, using State Library we can look forward to a presentation from her Victoria resources, La Trobe’s vision of creating about her intriguing project in 2018. Vol. 16, No. 3 • November 2017 • 5 Surveying the Landscape: Robert Russell, Robert Hoddle and the first plan of Melbourne By Dr Fay Woodhouse Fay Woodhouse is a professional historian who has written histories for the university, public, community and private sectors. She has recently edited and published Robert Russell: Artist of Early Melbourne, by Patricia Hawkins. Her latest biography, The Enterprising Mr MacGregor: Stockbreeder & Pioneer Pastoralist was published in 2016 and reprinted in 2017. Fay is a Fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, University of Melbourne, and is the Victorian researcher for the Australian Dictionary of Biography. This is a revised version of a paper given in the Members Talk to Members program, 11 June 2017. n my last article, ‘Power, Politics and illegal settlement had already taken place and Passion: Port Phillip before the Gold wrote frankly to Glenelg that the Government Rush’,1 I sketched the early days of the was unable to prevent it.3 So, ‘bowing to settlement on the banks of the Yarra the inevitable’, on 13 April 1836 Glenelg IRiver, the careers of both William Lonsdale authorised Bourke ‘to unleash “the spirit of and Robert Russell, and the arrival in the Port adventure and speculation” while maintaining Phillip District of Robert Hoddle. the Crown’s basic authority over the land, the law and the inhabitants’.4 Bourke quickly As we know, the Port Phillip District was issued a proclamation opening the District for illegally settled in 1834 by escaped convicts and lawful settlement and formally announced the whalers before the Henty family arrived from appointment of Captain William Lonsdale as Tasmania and settled in the Portland area.