The Honorary membership was a clever ruse to secure the good wishes of the Fourth Estate (then consisting of only three branches), for the distinction was confined to the Editors of the Patriot and Herald and the Editor and Assistant Editor of the Gazette.
This Committee met every Wednesday in the long room of the Royal Exchange, Collins Street, westward of Alston and Brown's recent fashionable emporium.
The Commercial Exchange was an organism of not much vitality, and in truth it would be unreasonable to expect it could be otherwise under the circumstances. However, it came to no violent or unnatural end, but half slept through a peaceful listless life until it quietly passed from the world with hardly anyone noticing the event. And so matters went on until 1851, a year eventful as the "separation" and "gold-finding" epoch, when the Melbourne merchants suddenly woke up.
The First Chamber of Commerce.
A preliminary meeting of the instigators of the movement was accordingly held on the 12th March, 1851, at the counting-house of Mr. Octavius Browne, where twenty of the principal merchants attended, and a resolution was passed recommending the establishment, by subscription, of a Chamber of Commerce, and a Provisional Committee, of Messrs. Octavius Browne, J. B. Were, David Benjamin, Samuel Bawtree, and James Rae, was appointed to prepare Rules and a Report for submission to a future meeting. The Committee accomplished their work, secured a place of temporary accommodation, and in the following July their action was confirmed, the Chamber regularly initiated, and the following office-bearers elected:— Chairman, Mr. William Westgarth; Vice-Chairman, Mr. J. B. Were; Treasurer, Mr. J. G. Foxton; Committee, Messrs. J. Rae, S. Bawtree, G. P. Ball, John Gill, W. F. Splatt, R. Turnbull, James Graham, and J. A. Burnett.
Things again fell into a languishing condition during the absence, in England, of the first Chairman (Mr. Were), who, on his return to the colony during the stirring times of the gold revolution, infused some new life into the Chamber. At the annual meeting, on the 8th June, 1875, Mr. R. J. Jeffray, the then Vice-President, in the course of his address, thus referred to the somewhat obscured cradledom of the Chamber:—
"By the kindness of Mr. J. B. Were, whose experience reaches back to the earliest period of commercial life in Melbourne, I have ascertained that the first attempt at the formation of a Mercantile Chamber took place in 1841, when the Commercial Exchange was established; and from Kerr's Melbourne Almanac of 1842, it appears that in that year Jonathan Binns Were, Esq., was Chairman of the body, and James Graham, Esq., Treasurer. This institution existed for a few years, and was revived in 1851-2, when Mr. William Montgomerie Bell was Chairman. From that date the records of the body, under the title of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, proceed with little interruption to the present time. The most cursory glance at the successive Reports makes it manifest that during a period of well nigh a quarter of a century, the Chamber has deliberated upon an immense variety of important topics, has from year to year contributed to the discussion of all questions of moment, and has been influential in securing many practical benefits for the community."
The First Mercantile Muster Roll.
In Kerr's Port Phillip Directory for 1841, is printed a schedule of names, which must be undoubtedly taken as representing the pioneers of our now (1888) wealthy and thoroughly established system of Melbourne Commerce. To some, the re-publication of such a document at the present day may seem an act of tedious uselessness; but it appears to me well worth while (even at the risk of gently boring certain readers) to include it in a chapter such as I am now inditing, for, on due consideration, I believe, if not adding to its interest, it will in no small degree contribute to the completeness of the contrast that makes the present condition of "The Queen City of the South" one of the wonders of the Colonial world. I have, therefore, presumed to transcribe it:—
