City of Melbourne history

Growing pressure for pastoral land to graze cattle and sheep finally brought Surveyor General Thomas Mitchell overland from Sydney in the north to Port Phillip Bay in 1836.

Bourke named it Melbourne after the British prime minister at the time and ordered the land to be surveyed and an official land sale to be held on June 1, 1837 so settlers could get valid title to their township blocks.

Merchants and bankers flooded into the town and by 1838 four banks had opened and major public buildings were being erected.

On 12 August 1842, Melbourne was incorporated as a "town" by Act 6 Victoria No.

12 (19 December 1844) extended from Point Ormond in Elwood up Barkly Street and Punt Road to the Yarra River, along the river to Merri Creek at Abbotsford, then west along Brunswick Road to Moonee Ponds Creek, then south past Flemington Bridge to Princes Pier in Port Melbourne.

Since the system of free public hospitals was started in 1846, it has grown to encompass numerous special facilities, which deal with either particular ailments or categories of patients, as well as general hospitals.

The town of Melbourne was raised to the status of a city by Letters Patent of Queen Victoria dated 25 June 1847, five years after its incorporation as a town.

The Port Phillip District gained independence from New South Wales in 1850.

Ironically 1851 marked the start of the Gold Rush in Victoria and New South Wales.

By 1861, just 25 years after John Batman set up the township, it was home to 125,000 people.

He died in Melbourne in 1869 after a rewarding career in which he established hotels, a newspaper, and a bookselling business, acquired large areas of land, and held a seat on the Legislative Council for 18 years.

In 1877 the Melbourne Harbour Trust was created, and the Coode Canal was cut in the soft alluvial sediments of the lower Yarra River to provide a more direct course free from silting problems.

Now included in the City was the Borough of Flemington and Kensington which had been formed in 1882 when it broke away from the City of Essendon.

In the decade before 1891 the population of Melbourne had increased by 200,000; in the following decade it rose by only 6,000.

Australia became a commonwealth, and Melbourne served as its federal capital until 1927, when Canberra was established.

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1949 and has toured North America, Japan, and New Zealand, as well as major Australian cities.

6, 1963, Melbourne), Roman Catholic prelate who became one of Australia’s most controversial political figures during the first half of the 20th century.

By 1966 the population of the Melbourne area had exceeded two million, and the city limits were rapidly being pushed eastward.

However, in 1982, with the election of a new Labor government under John Cain, the Act establishing the commission was repealed, and the Melbourne Corporation (Election of Council) Act 1982 established six wards, for which an election was held on 4 December 1982.

The revitalization of central Melbourne continued after 1990 as the residential population grew and the massive Docklands development project began to transform the long-neglected waterfront area into a spectacular urban showplace.

In 1993, the City of Melbourne Act specified changes to the boundaries which saw Melbourne gain Southbank and the Victorian Arts Centre on 18 November 1993, and the city was resubdivided into four wards – Flagstaff, University, Hoddle and Domain.

The first major facility, Colonial Stadium, a sports and entertainment venue, opened in 2000.

In 2005, the council announced the construction of a new 6-star environmental office building, Council House 2, in Little Collins Street.

On 2 July 2007, the City of Melbourne almost doubled in size when the suburb of Docklands was re-added to its jurisdiction.