Heritage Citation Report – Portland Foreshore Heritage Citation Report Name Portland Foreshore Address Lee Breakwater Road, Portland Place Type Recreation / Civic Citation Date 14 June 2016 Heritage listings Victorian Heritage Inventory (VHI) Portland Pier Railway Station (H7221-0195), VHI Cliff Street Tunnel (H7221-0279), Heritage Overlay (HO) HO129 Phoenix Canariensis, HO128 Norfolk Island Pine, Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register (VAHR) Portland Foreshore 1 (VAHR 7221-0860), Portland Foreshore 2 (VAHR 7221-0870) Recommended heritage protection Glenelg Shire Planning Scheme (PS) Heritage Overlay (HO) Figure 1 : Portland Foreshore, view to the north from Cliff Street Portland Foreshore Hermes No XXXX Place Citation Report Page 1 Heritage Citation Report – Portland Foreshore Figure 2 : Portland Foreshore, view north Figure 3 : Proposed HO extent Portland Foreshore Hermes No XXXX Place Citation Report Page 2 Heritage Citation Report – Portland Foreshore History and historical context Indigenous background As noted by other researchers, information which relates to the Aboriginal occupation of the Portland area is derived from publications and other surviving forms of documentation which were compiled by early non- Aboriginal settlers, missionaries and government officials who went to the region during the mid to late nineteenth century (Barwick 1984). The following information was compiled from a number of written sources based on language research and ethno-historic observations. It should be noted that the information provided here does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Gunditj Mirring people regarding their tribal affiliations and boundaries. Aboriginal occupation of the Portland region has been dated to at least 11,000 years ago, with use of the coastal regions demonstrated by the presence of recorded shell middens and artefact scatters (Freslov 1992; Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Climatic change over the past several thousand years, however, has impacted the coastline of Victoria, and the date ranges may not reflect the full timeline of use (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). According to Freslov (1992), the last 1,000 years of Aboriginal occupation became more focused on coastal and inland regions, with stable settlements established. This enabled ‘an increasingly specialised use of coastal marine and terrestrial resources’ (Freslov 1992; Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Prior to the non-Aboriginal arrival and settlement of Victoria, the Portland region was occupied by the Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) people. The Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) language group extended west from Warrnambool (Hopkins River), north to Mount Napier and just south of Hamilton, to just south of Casterton, and along the Glenelg River south to the coast (Clark 1990, p 54). According to Clark (1990, p 54), there were 59 different Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) clans. The Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) language was comprised of eight dialects, on a continuum (Clark 1990, p 23). Population estimates for the Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) range from 3,500 to 7,000 people at the time of non-Aboriginal settlement (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Clans comprised the basic 'land owning' group in Aboriginal society (Clark 1990: 8; Stanner 1965). In Victoria, clans were generally patrilineal descent groups with territories defined by ritual and economic responsibilities, however, the Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) were of matrilineal descent (Clark 1990, p 28). Clark (1990, p 55) has listed the [Ng]Ure gundidj clan for the Portland area. The Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) had two moieties, the Grugidj (white cockatoo) and the Gabadj (black cockatoo); however, it is unknown which clan belonged to what moiety (Clark 1990, p 28). Clan chiefs were known as Wung’it (Clark 1990, p 28). The Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) language group shared 48 per cent common vocabulary with the nearby Djab wurrung, 37 per cent with the Gulidjan, and 30 per cent with the Wembawemba (Clark 1990, p 28). It is thought that the Aboriginal people of western Victoria were in contact with whalers and sealers from the early nineteenth century (at least 1810, according to Clark (1990, p 33)). The arrival of non-Aboriginal fishermen and traders brought violence and disease, although due to their seasonal occupation, contact was not continuous (Clark 1990, p 32; Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). However, Aboriginal lifestyles were soon subject to a different set of constraints: the arrival of the Hentys affected Aboriginal land tenure arrangements (Clark 1990, p 33). Initially, Aboriginal people practised burning-off to drive away the intruders. Robinson, however, noted that the few surviving members of the Portland Dhauwurd Wurrung (Gundidjmara) clans had joined with the Gard gundidj clan of Mount Clay. By 1841, it was said that the Gard gundidj had banned Aboriginal people from going into Portland (Clark 1990, p 33). The Hentys claimed to have an excellent relationship with the local Aboriginal people, however, reports of violence within the region exist (Clark 1990, p 33). In addition, members of the Dhauwurd Wurrung fought a guerrilla-style war against the settlers from the Stony Rises landform between Port Fairy and Mount Rouse (Clark 1990, p 33). By 1842, Aboriginal people had driven off 4,000 sheep, killed four Europeans and wounded two more (Clark 1990, p 34). Attacks were focused on land that had been host to traditional meeting places and scared sites near Mount Napier, Lake Condah and Port Fairy (Clark 1990, p 34). The attacks later became termed the Eumeralla War. By 1846, the Aboriginal resistance was broken. Portland Foreshore Hermes No XXXX Place Citation Report Page 3 Heritage Citation Report – Portland Foreshore There are also records of whalers attacking and massacring clans of Aboriginal people. A site now known as the Convincing Ground – approximately 10 km north west of the Portland Foreshore, at Allestree – was the location of a massacre. Whalers murdered almost the entire Kilcarer gundidj clan, in a dispute over the butchering of a beached whale carcass, potentially in 1833-1834 (Heritage Victoria 2006; Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). The [Ng]Ure gundidj were said to have been reduced to one man, Wor.rup.mo.un.deen/Wor-up-mo-un-deen and his five year old son by 1841. According to Clark (1990, p 80): ‘This clan united with the Borne conedeet, Kilcarer conedeet, and Cart conedeet at Mt Clay, when dispossessed of their land in the mid-1830s. Robinson noted in his 1841 journal that Aborigines had not been seen in the township of Portland for some years; they never visited the town because the Cart conedeet would not allow any person to go near the place.’ Two Aboriginal Places – Portland Foreshore 1 (VAHR 7221-0860), Portland Foreshore 2 (VAHR 7221-0870) – have been recorded at the Portland Foreshore and comprise physical remnants of previous Aboriginal use of the landscape. The Foreshore area would have provided an ideal camping/resource procurement zone for Aboriginal people prior to the non-Aboriginal occupation of Portland. Early non-Aboriginal settlement The non-Aboriginal use of Portland Bay extends back into the early nineteenth century, where the bay was named by Lieutenant James Grant, RN, (Captain of the Lady Nelson) in the year 1800, after the Duke of Portland (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002; Turton 1968; Wiltshire 1984). The bay was said to be ‘large enough to anchor all the navies of the world in perfect safety’, however, sealers and whalers were the first non-Aboriginal to operate in the Portland Bay area during the late nineteenth century (Wiltshire 1984). Sealers hunted Australian and New Zealand fur seals for their pelts, which they then traded. Sealers were recorded as working in Bass Strait from 1891-1892, with ships from England, France, and the United States purported to have used the area. Portland Bay was also suggested to have been used to shelter smaller vessels (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). After seal numbers rapidly declined due to over-predation, international sealers abandoned the area, which allowed ‘colonial gangs’ to continue sealing (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Evidence of sealing at Portland dates back to 1822, with a sealer’s grave on Lady Julia Percy Island dated to the same year (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). As discussed in the previous section, whalers were present in Portland Bay from the 1820s when ‘shore-based whaling was the most profitable means of exploiting the great marine mammals, especially the Southern Right whales, which wintered each year in the bays of south-western Victoria’ (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Blubber from whales was boiled down on the beaches, with bone collected for use in women’s fashion accessories, such as corsets (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Trading vessels would then collect the oil and bone each season. Over 700 tons of oil were shipped in 1836 (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). William Dutton was the first to establish a shore-based whaling station at Portland in 1833, at Double Corner (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). By 1836, almost 100 whalers were operating from Portland and Port Fairy, with over seven whaling stations present at Portland by 1838 (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Whaling stations employed a variety of workers year round, despite the seasonal nature of the industry. Aboriginal people may also have been used as whale spotters at the Convincing Ground, where smoke signals would be sent after a whale was sighted (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). The Hentys, famous for being some of the first pastoralists in the Glenelg Shire, were also involved in the early whaling business (Kellaway and Rhodes 2002). Edward Henty arrived in Portland in 1834 – landing at the Portland Foreshore – with the goal of undertaking a range of activities, including whaling and farming (Heritage Victoria 2006; National Trust nd-a; Tucker, Falvey and Hyett 2010). The Hentys were the first family to permanently settle Victoria, and were ‘for their number and quality: a father and seven educated sons experienced in farming and trading, occupations of prime importance to a new colony, and importers of unusually substantial capital in money, skilled workers and thoroughbred stock’ (Bennett cited in Kellaway and Rhodes 2002).