History
While the survey plan has proved, in time, to be far-sighted for public utility, serving Melbourne to this day, at the time Hoddle's instructions from Governor Gipps were more prosaic.
Land allotments for sale at public auction were to be produced as quickly as possible to deliver to the market. Gipps also insisted that all towns laid out during his term of office should have no public squares included within their boundaries, being convinced that they only encouraged democracy.
The grid was defined largely by the geography of the area. It was planned to span a gently sloping valley between small hills (knolls) (Batman's Hill, Flagstaff Hill and Eastern Hill) and roughly parallel to the course of the Yarra River. Elizabeth Street, Melbourne in the centre of the grid was built over a gully and has therefore been prone to flooding.
The wide main streets were also to accommodate the large number of bullock carts that would ride through the centre of town preventing them from holding up horse drawn traffic when making right turns.
In the 1860s, surveys extended the district, incorporating the region of similarly laid out streets bounded by Victoria Street, Dudley Street and the Queen Victoria Market.
Read more about this topic: Hoddle Grid
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“It is my conviction that women are the natural orators of the race.”
—Eliza Archard Connor, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 9, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)