1837 Governor Richard Bourke visits from Sydney and names the settlement on the Yarra River, Melbourne. |
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1837 Robert Hoddle is appointed surveyor for the Port Phillip District of New South Wales and commences the planning of Melbourne. |
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1839 George Augustus Robinson becomes Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales. |
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1840 Miss Anne Drysdale arrives from Scotland to become a sheep farmer; the town of Drysdale near Geelong is named after her. |
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1841 Georgiana McCrae arrives with her children from London; after four years in Melbourne the family moves to Arthurs Seat |
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1841 John Walpole Willis becomes the first Supreme Court judge in Port Phillip District, only to be dismissed two years later. |
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1845 |
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1846 Charles Joseph La Trobe lays the foundation stone of Prince’s Bridge. |
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1846 The Melbourne Hospital is founded with La Trobe as patron. 1848The Melbourne Hospital opens on the corner of Swanston and Lonsdale Streets. |
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1851 |
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1854 Melbourne’s first Town Hall opens; it proves to be inadequate and is replaced by the present building within sixteen years. |
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1854 The first Australian electric telegraph line opens between Melbourne and Williamstown. |
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1856 The Melbourne Public Library, now the State Library Victoria, opens. |
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