Portland Guardian (Vic. : 1876 - 1953), Thursday 17 March 1932, page 3


Historical Committee. A meeting of the Historical Com-mittee was held on Monday even.-ing, the president (Cr. Wyatt) in the chair. Messrs. A. H. Wilson, Hogan and E. Couch were welcomed its new members. Correspondence. From Mr. H. H. Hoare, conveying the thanks of the members of the family of the late Mr. Benj. Hoare for kind messages of sympathy. Members were sufficiently aware of the great love his father had for Portland, and, in particular, interest in the Historical Committee. His children derived great, consolation from the numerous tributes paid to his memory, and amongst these none was more appreciated than that from the Committee,-As a mark of respect, all stood in silence after the letter had been read. From E. McKenzie, stating that his son would, as requested, search for information required at, Can-berra.-The secretary. (Mr. N, F. Learmouth) stated that he had not yet received any word. From, Mr. W. H. Ifould, principal librarian, Public :Library of N.S.W., intimating that he had files of the "Portland Gazette" and: "Belfast Advertiser" from .1844 to 1849.--The secretary said they were the years of which they previously had no record the files of the "Guard ian" covering that period being missing. The editor, printer, and publisher of the "'Gazette" was Thomas Hamilton Osborne. The missing files of the "Guardian," he stated, had been used for papering the walls of old buildings at North Portland From Mr. Ernest Scott, Middle. Brighton, in answer to enquiries. First, Captain Campbell, of the "Harrington" was not the whaler of Portland Bay in 1836. The man was Alexander, .and the skipper of the boat was William. He did not know if they were related otherwise than by membership of the great clan Campbell. .There were several Campbells' connected with shipping in the first half; century of Austra-lian history, including, of course, Robert Campbell, who built Dun troon and was the second land-holder of what is now :the F.C.T., Canberra. He did not think that Grimes made a. survey of Portland Bay, and could not: say who made the first survey. Baudin's log. has not been published, but he thought; there was a transcript of it in, the Mitchell Library, Sydney. He. be-lieved the library employed a copy-ist to make copies of the logs of Bau-din, Dentrecasteaux, 'and other French navigators, ,preserved in the, 'Depot de la' Marine, Paris, but he was not certain if the :work was far enough advanced to include Bau-din's notes on.Portland. Bay. The latter's cartographers , must. have: made a survey of the Bay and the original drawing--which was not re-produced in the atlas, accompanying Peron's narrative of the voyage-must be in the Depot de la Marine, It might be possible to have a photo-graph made and forwarded on--The secretary said that in 1802 the, first detailed map of Portland Bay was made-two years after Grant.. From Mr. W,. J. Williamson, M.L.C., stating he would peruse the early records of marriages, etc., in charge of the Government Statist. From Mr. Geo. Clark, Fairfield stating that he had access to the earliest records of land dealings re-gistered in the Titles Office, and would be willing to obtain any in-formation desired. - A glance through showed that perhaps the earliest dealing of the Hentys - af-ter they received the Crown grants - was a mortgage from Stephen George Henty to Charles Nicholson, dated 5/11/42, for £270 on an area of 25 acres 3 roods 20 perches on Wattle Hill Creek. Another early one, dated 8/8/44, was a lease for three years from Edward Stephen George Henty to William Tulloh of a capital brick-built dwelling house, portion of which property had been occupied by James Mayne Conelly. The premises were situated in Ben-tinck street and the property on the north formed the corner house of Julia and Bentinck Streets (London Hotel site). On the southern boun-dary was a property owned by the Hentys and occupied by Cecil Pyb no Cooke - rent £85 per. year, pay-able quarterly for Tulloh's lease. GENERAL The secretary said he had written to the NS.W. Public Library with regard to the :names of; Eckersley" and "Hurd" As regards the first, the reply was that Major: Mitchell, in his "note book" named Mt. Ec-kersley after Major, Nathanial Ec-kersley in 1811. Concerning the latter, in an old "Portland Gazette"' of 1844 there appeared the name of George Hurd in a list of un-claimed letters at the post office. Hurd street was named in 1840, so evidently the George Hurd referred to was in the town before it was laid out, and presumably the street .was named after him. A letter dated 1928 from a pub-. lshing firm in Melbourne, quoting 1000 copies of the history of Port-land at 4/- each was read, but 'it was decided to allow this matter to stand over for the present.-The Mayor asked the secretary what sal-ary he was receiving, and the latter replied that he was the same as a man trying to make money out of sheep.-he got nothing -The chair-man suggested that the question of raising funds should be seriously considered, in which Mr. W F. Hed-ditch (treasurer) agreed, stating that there were only a few shillings in the bank. The secretary said he had pre-pared a voluminous amount of mat-ter for editing, but most of it would have to be re-written, as owing to

the missing files, he had omitted a great deal. He suggested having copies type written when completed, in case anything happened to the or-iginal. The proposed contents of the book would be:- Chapter 1 Geology of Portland, written by Mr. R., A.. Keebles. Chapter 2-Early navigators and explorers. Chapter, 3-Sealers and whalers and tales of the sea, including the history of Dutton and Wishart, . accounts of shipwrecks, etc. Chapter 4-The Hentys and .the. first permanent white. settlement. Chapter 5--Interesting history ; penal settle-ment in 1822 ; original survey work, by C. J. Tyers and those following him ; first land sales, etc. . Chapter 6-Government activities. Chap-ter. 7-Businesses and professions,, history of. the4 wool trade, Chapter 8--Social activities. Chapter 9 Story of the Press. , Chapter 10-Hotels .and early roads. Chapters 11 and 12 Sport and general items of interest. Chapter 13--Environ-:ments of Portland, including Bridge-water, Heywood,. Narrawong : and Tyrendarra. . At the request of the chairman, the secretary gave an interesting account of the first work carried out, at the botanical gardens. In 1862, he said, the gold fields were In full. swing, and there was a :tax of £10 a head on every Chinaman in Victoria.: Some 110 tried to evade the law by,; landing on the coast of South Aus-tralia, and set out for the Ballarat. gold fields. When about eight miles past Hamilton the police rounded. them up, and they were brought be-fore Mr. Featherstonehaugh, who fined them £10 each. They' could only muster £40 between them, which released four, and the re-malnder were sent to the Portland gaol, where they were '"eating their heads off." One evening the head gaoler and Mr. Allitt (curator) met over a friendly glass at the Port-land Bay Inn, and talking on the subject the latter suggested that the Chinese should be sent to work at the gardens. As a result, the next day they were sent under guard for a fortnight, laid out a lot of the paths, and planted many of the old trees which were there to the present day. The chairman referred to old post marks around the coast at Bridge-water, below Mr. D. Kennedy's, and

was informed "by Mr. Heidditch that a road was made there in the 80's, costing £220. Mr. Wilson said the Progress As-sociation had in. hand the matter of recoveririg the old whaling boilers in the sea off, the north shore The secretary produced a cutting from the :("Guardian" (reprinted), where it stated' that a deep,trench, filled with broken limestone, orig.-inally marked the boundary between the two States.He was anxious to locate the spot and: had commun-icated with: the writer, of the article, The secretary` said, in. company with Mr. Hedditch, he had visited the old cemetery,, and found the tomb stone marking the grave of John Wiggins (1846) to be the. ear-liest; A lot of the head stones had fallen flat and . were not readable, while the lettering on some of the others. was quite indecipherable ; the cemetery, however, was not there until 1848--Mr. Hedditch said the grave of Wm. Wheeler, born in 1776, was there.-The secretary said that in 1848 bodies were re-moved from a site proclaimed as a burial ground at Clergy Rest, in Percy Street, to the old cemetery, .the work being let by contract.---Mr. Couch informed, the meeting that there were no identification pegs in ..the old cemetery till the Trust was formed in .1867, taking over both this and the south burial grounds, Miss Curtis, aged 18 years, was the first to be buried in the latter. The chairman announced that Mr. Kenyon,. president of the Victorian Historical Society, would be visiting Portland shortly, and during his stay a meeting of the Committee would be called, to which he would be invited.