The history of Victoria refers to the history of the Australian state of Victoria and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies.
Before British colonisation of Australia, many Aboriginal peoples lived in the area now known as Victoria. After the first Europeans settled there in October 1803, in September 1836 the area became part of the colony of New South Wales, known as the District of Port Phillip. In July 1851, the District of Port Phillip was established as its own colony, becoming the Colony of Victoria, with its own government within the British Empire. During the 1850s, gold was discovered in Clunes and Buninyong in Ballarat in 1851, which was the start of the Victorian Gold Rush. In 1901 it became a state of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Aboriginal history
The state of Victoria was originally home to many Aboriginal nations that had occupied the land for tens of thousands of years.Richard Broome, pp xviii–xxii, Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800, Allen & Unwin, 2005, , According to Gary Presland, Aboriginal people have lived in Victoria for about 40,000 years,Gary Presland, The First Residents of Melbourne's Western Region, (revised edition), Harriland Press, 1997. . Presland says on page 1: "There is some evidence to show that people were living in the Maribyrnong River valley, near present day Keilor, about 40,000 years ago." living a semi-nomadic existence of fishing, hunting and gathering, and farming eels, as is evident in the Budj Bim heritage areas.Gary Presland, Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People, Harriland Press (1985), Second edition 1994, . This book describes in some detail the archaeological evidence regarding Aboriginal life, culture, food gathering and land management.
At the Keilor Archaeological Site a human hearth excavated in 1971 was radiocarbon-dated to about 31,000 years BP, making Keilor one of the earliest sites of human habitation in Australia.Gary Presland, Keilor Archaeological Site, eMelbourne website. Accessed 3 November 2008 A cranium found at the site has been dated at between 12,000Peter Brown, The Keilor Cranium , Peter Brown's Australian and Asian Palaeoanthropology, Accessed 3 November 2008 and 14,700 years BP.
Archaeological sites in Tasmania and on the Bass Strait Islands have been dated to between 20,000 – 35,000 years ago, when sea levels were 130 metres below present level allowing Aboriginal people to move across the region of southern Victoria and on to the land bridge of the Bassian plain to Tasmania by at least 35,000 years ago.Hanna Steyne, Investigating the Submerged Landscapes of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria Heritage Victoria, Accessed 3 November 2008David Rhodes, Terra Culture Heritage Consultants, Channel Deepening Existing Conditions Final Report – Aboriginal Heritage , Prepared for Parsons Brinckerhoff & Port of Melbourne Corporation, August 2003. Accessed 3 November 2008
During the Ice Age about 20,000 years BP, the area now the bay of Port Phillip was dry land, and the Yarra and Werribee rivers joined to flow through the heads then south and south west through the Bassian plain before meeting the ocean to the west. Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands became separated from mainland Australia around 12,000 BP, when the sea level was approximately below present levels.Hanna Steyne, Investigating the Submerged Landscapes of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria Heritage Victoria, who sources (Lambeck & Chappell 2001) Accessed 3 November 2008 Port Phillip was flooded by post-glacial rising sea levels between 8000 and 6000 years ago.Hanna Steyne, Investigating the Submerged Landscapes of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria Heritage Victoria, who sources(Bird 1993, Bowler 1966, Holdgate et al. 2001). Accessed 3 November 2008
Oral history and creation stories from the Wathaurong, Woiwurrung and Boonwurrung languages describe the flooding of the bay, which they call Narm-Narm; it was previously covered in scrubby tea-tree and was a kangaroo hunting ground. Aboriginal creation stories describe how Bunjil was responsible for the formation of the bay, or the bay was flooded when the Yarra River was created.Ian Hunter, Yarra Creation Story , Wurundjeri Dreaming. Recorded 2004-5. Accessed 3 November 2008 Another story says that Balayang the bat created the oceans, rivers, and creeks.
Early European exploration Coming from New Zealand in 1770, Lieutenant James Cook in HM Bark Endeavour sighted land at Point Hicks, about 70 km west of Gabo Island, before turning east and north to follow the coast of Australia.
Ships sailing from Great Britain to Sydney crossed the Indian Ocean and Southern Ocean, sailing around Van Diemen's Land before turning north to their destination. Several captains viewed the expanse of water between Van Diemen's Land and the east coast of New South Wales and wondered whether it was a large bay or a strait. Survivors of Sydney Cove, wrecked in the Furneaux Group of islands, also thought it might be a strait.
To clear up the question, Governor John Hunter sent George Bass to explore thoroughly the coast in a whaleboat. After reaching Wilsons Promontory and Western Port in January 1798 bad weather and lack of provisions forced him to return to Sydney. Bass returned with Matthew Flinders in December 1798 in Norfolk and sailed through the strait, proving its existence.
In December 1800, Lieutenant James Grant in , on way from Cape Town to Sydney, sailed through Bass Strait from west to east. Governor King, disappointed at the vagueness of Grant's chart, sent him back to survey the strait more thoroughly. Bad weather prevented him from proceeding beyond Western Port, where he stayed for five weeks, planting wheat, Indian corn, peas, rice, coffee and potatoes on Churchill Island off Phillip Island.
In 1801 Harbinger, under John Black, was the second vessel to sail through Bass Strait en route to Port Jackson. She reached the coast near Cape Otway on 1 January 1801, then veered sharply south-west to the north-western tip of Governor King's Island (now King Island), which Black named after the Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King. She then sailed easterly towards Wilsons Promontory. Proceeding around the tip of the promontory, Black discovered the Hogan Group, which he named after the ship's owner Michael Hogan. Harbinger arrived in Port Jackson on 12 January 1801.
In January 1802 Lieutenant John Murray in Lady Nelson visited Western Port and entered Port Phillip on 14 February. He named Arthur's Seat, explored Corio Bay and formally took possession of the bay (which he named Port King) for Britain. The bay was then known as Narm-Narm by the people of the Kulin Nation, and Murray called the bay Port King after the Governor of New South Wales, Philip Gidley King. On 4 September 1805, King formally renamed it Port Phillip, in honour of his predecessor Arthur Phillip. Murray chose to base the Lady Nelson off what is now known as Sorrento Beach.
During this voyage, Murray records in his journal his first encounter with local Aboriginal peoples in the eastern Melbourne region. This initially friendly encounter started with trading, eating, and gifting, and was suddenly interrupted by a violent ambush by another group of Aboriginal people. The crew in response shot at the Aboriginal people, and continued to shoot at them as they fled, inflicting likely mortal wounds on two of them. Murray then ordered the ship carronades to be fired at the fleeing Aboriginal people. "They were all clothed in opossum skins and in each basket a certain quantity of gum was found. ... if we may judge from the number of their fires and other marks this part of the country is not thin of inhabitants. Their spears are of various kinds and all of them more dangerous than any I have yet seen."Three weeks later the French explorer Nicolas Baudin sailed through the strait from east to west and was the first to properly survey the coast to the west. In April 1802, a French expedition ship Le Naturaliste under Jacques Hamelin explored the area around French Island, as part of the Baudin expedition to Australia. It named the island Ile des Français, since Anglicised as French Island.
On 26 April 1802, Flinders, unaware of Murray's visit, entered Port Phillip in , climbed Arthur's Seat, rowed to Mornington and across to the Bellarine Peninsula and climbed the You Yangs.
In January 1803 Acting-Lieutenant Charles Robbins in the schooner sailed right around Port Phillip. With him were acting surveyor-general Charles Grimes, Mr James Meehan and gardener James Fleming. At the head of the bay they found a river and followed it upstream where it soon divided. They followed the western branch and named it the Saltwater River (the present Maribyrnong) to what is now Braybrook, and then the eastern fresh-water branch (the Yarra) to Dights Falls. They had a friendly meeting with local Aboriginal people and returned to their ship via Corio Bay. They concluded that the best site for a settlement would be on the freshwater at the northern head of the bay, but were unenthusiastic about the soil and its agricultural potential.
1803 British settlement
With Britain involved in the French revolutionary wars, Governor King was concerned that Bass Strait could harbour enemy raiders, and that in peace time it could provide an important trade route and trading base. The appearance of Baudin's ships served to reinforce the concern that France was interested in the area. King was also looking for an alternative settlement for the increasing number of convicts in Sydney and to reduce the pressure on food resources. Port Phillip, with a favourable climate and rich fishing and sealing resources, seemed an ideal location for another settlement.
A full description of Murray's and Flinders' discoveries, together with King's thoughts on settlement, but not Grimes' report, reached England just as was being prepared to send a shipload of convicts to Sydney. In February 1803, Lord Hobart the Secretary of State changed the destination to Port Phillip. On 24 April 1803 HMS Calcutta, commanded by Captain Daniel Woodriff, with Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins as commander of the expedition, left England accompanied by the store-ship Ocean. The expedition consisted of 402 people: 5 Government officials, 9 officers of marines, 2 drummers, and 39 privates, 5 soldiers' wives, and a child, 307 convicts, 17 convicts' wives, and 7 children. One of the children was the eleven-year-old John Pascoe Fawkner, later a founder of Melbourne, who accompanied his convicted father and mother.
The party entered Port Phillip on 9 October 1803 and chose a site at Sullivan Bay near present-day Sorrento.
Collins was soon disappointed with the area. Reports from exploring parties led by Lieutenant James Tuckey and surveyor George Harris described strong currents, sandy soil, poor timber, swampy land and scarce fresh water. They also clashed with the Wathaurung people near Corio Bay, killing their leader – the first Aborigines known to have been killed by settlers in Victoria.
Collins reported his criticisms to Governor King, who supported him and recommended moving the settlement. On 18 December Calcutta departed for Port Jackson, and the party was prepared for evacuation. This was achieved in two voyages of Ocean in January and May 1804, assisted by which had been surveying Port Dalrymple on the north coast of Van Diemens Land. The party was transferred to the fledgling settlement of Hobart, founded by Lieutenant John Bowen as a penal colony at Risdon Cove in September 1803.