Foundation of Melbourne - True Founder

True Founder

In later years Fawkner's enemies had their revenge, because they decided to credit Batman, long dead and safely forgotten, as the founder of what was by then "Marvellous Melbourne," the golden city of the British Empire. Batman's sentence, "This will be the place for a village," was widely quoted to show that Batman had envisaged a town on the site of Melbourne. In James Bonwick's 1856 history of the colony, Batman was given pride of place as the founder of Melbourne, and Henry Gyles Turner followed this in his 1904 History of the Colony of Victoria. In his 1979 biography of Batman, C.P.Billot again credited him as the founder of Melbourne.

In 1985, however, Billot changed his mind after reading Fawkner's papers in the State Library of Victoria and his diary in the National Library of Australia. In his book The Life and Times of John Pascoe Fawkner, he agreed that the idea and the fact of a town at the site of Melbourne should be credited to Fawkner, while Batman's chief intention was to establish a sheep-run, as the Hentys had done at Portland. A critical reading of Batman's journal showed that Batman probably did not visit the site of Melbourne, and that his map bears little resemblance to the actual site. Alistair Campbell's 1987 John Batman and the Aborigines also unfavourably reassessed Batman's reputation, arguing that his "treaty" was probably bogus as well as illegal. This shows that Melbourne's true founder was John Pascoe Fawkner but we can't prove it as there are not enough proofs to back up this argument. Of course some credit of foundation definitely goes to Fawkner.

In recognition of this reassessment, a section of Batman Park, along the north bank of the Yarra where the first settlement was established, was renamed Enterprize Park in 1997. Both Batman and Fawkner have many streets, parks and other things in Melbourne named after them. There is a federal electorate of Batman, and there was an electorate of Fawkner from 1913 to 1969. There is a suburb called Fawkner and Fawkner's estate at Pascoe Vale is now also a suburb.

According to the Melbourne Day Committee, Captain John Lancey, landed on the banks of the Yarra River on 30 August 1835. John Lancey was the captain of Fawkner's schooner Enterprize and the expedition leader, had been recognised by the Royal Historical Society and the Melbourne Foundation Day Committee as the city's European founder. Other members of the founding party included Launceston builder George Evans and his servant Evan Evans, carpenters William Jackson and Robert Hay Marr, ploughman Charles Wise and blacksmith James Gilbert and his pregnant wife Mary Gilbert.