This earliest amongst the early of Port Phillip, whose active form
flitted about its shores ere the memorable year 1835 had expired, might
have come in for a full separate sketch had I been thrown more with him,
so as to have sufficient personal data. But, although I met him at
times, he lived at Geelong, fifty miles away from Melbourne. I have put
him under this sub-heading, in the Batman interjecta, because, as his
daughter, Mrs. Henry Creswick, told me, it was Batman's representations
to him of the land of promise to the north that induced him to follow
the early tide with his flocks and his family--the latter consisting of
his wife and one only child, the daughter above alluded to. She still
survives, in her pleasant residence, situated in the fitly named
Creswick-street, Hawthorn.
The doctor was one of the most active of the colonists, both politically
and generally. He was chiefly concerned in establishing the Geelong
Corporation, of which he was several times Mayor, and he was most
actively interested in the early representation of the district in the
Sydney Assembly. He sat there as one of the district members prior to
the "separation" session of 1851, and it was at his instance that the
House made an exhaustive inquiry into the condition of the aboriginal
natives. In the separation session elections his party was outvoted by
the squatting or anti-democratic element; but none the less the former
in Geelong deputed the doctor to accompany the elected members, in order
to keep a watch upon their doings. The case had its comic aspect, but as
the doctor and I were on the same side of the politics of the day, he
was most useful to me in our common effort to secure a due share of
representation for the mass of the people, as intended by the Imperial
Government. The aim of the reigning regime was to continue their power
by means of an electoral distribution which was to secure a majority of
Crown nominees and Crown tenants in the two future sections of the old
colony.
The doctor, as I said, went over with the earliest from the Hobart side
of the island, quitting his land grant, which was the last under that
system, and was got for him by his friend Governor Arthur--a privilege
for which, as I have said, the Henty family arrived just too late.
Amongst the live stock he took over was Miss Thomson's pony, which was
the first of the equines landed at Port Phillip. Its owner was then a
very young girl. She and her mother landed towards the end of 1835, and
were the first ladies of "the settlement." The family pitched a tent
almost under a magnificent gum tree, whose stump, covered with ivy,
still exists close to the Cathedral at Prince's Bridge. But shortly
after several of the young men of the settlement, in order to provide
them better accommodation, collected some boards and built them a hut
lower down the river bank. With the two places the Thomsons were able to
dispense hospitalities, their guests including Messrs. Gellibrand and
Hesse, Mr. James Smith, and Mr. Mackillop. It used to be said that "the
settlement" was in the habit of going to tea with Mrs. Thomson.
This brings us into 1836. The next year came the officials in charge
from Sydney, who included Mr. R.S. Webb, as Collector of Customs, whose
daughter, Annie, was the first white child born in the settlement (with,
however, some dispute as to a blacksmith's child having been the first),
and who was afterwards married to my late friend, Colin Mackinnon,
younger brother of the better known Lauchlan. Dr. Thomson used to read
prayers to the little settlement in a rude structure upon the ground now
occupied by St. James's Church. Afterwards he removed to Kardinia,
Geelong, as his live stock had been landed there, and this place he
finally made his home.
From these lively and mixed events of our early society, let me now turn
to another subject, which is neither less lively nor less mixed than its
predecessors--the subject, namely, of: