CHAPTER XLII.
PORT SHIPPING.
SYNOPSIS:— Batman and Fawkner the Founders of Victorian Commerce. —Fawkner the First Ship-owner. —Harbour Nomenclature. —Fawkner's First Lighter. —The First Custom House. —Arrival of H.M.S. "Rattlesnake" with Governor Bourke. —Arrival of H.M.F. "Conway" with Bishop Broughton. —Captain Fermaner's Reminiscences. —The First Yarra Steamer. —Despatch of the First Wool and the First Mail for London. —Early Ship Signalling. —The Pioneer Steamers. —The Port Phillip Steam Navigation Company. —Visit of Captain Sir Everard Home. —Launch of the "Jane Cain." —Postscript. —An Old Colonist's Maritime Reminiscences.
B ATMAN and Fawkner were the founders of our commerce, the schooners (the "Gem" of the one and the "Enterprise" of the other) being the first two crafts laid on in the port, so, as Fawkner purchased the "Enterprise," he was our first ship-owner. Batman and Fawkner were also our first traders, because from the beginning they were engaged in trade or traffic of some sort. Batman became an importer, and was for some time the principal merchant or storekeeper, whilst Fawkner was a kind of "Johnny All Sorts," and dabbled in everything. Batman's establishment was a substantial shed-like construction, erected on portion of the site of the now Western Market, where he carried on the affiliated avocations of wholesale and retail storekeeper, shipping agent, bill discounter, broker, and money-lender, in addition to some squatting speculations. His town business was attended to by one or more of his seven daughters, efficiently aided by Mr. Willoughby, his son-in-law. The other earliest merchants were Messrs. W. F. Rucker, S. Craig, J. Hodgson, J. F. Strachan, P. W. Welsh, F. Nodin, and J. M. Chisholm. What the settlement most feared in its babyhood was a dearth of flour. But the shadowy spectrum of an incoming schooner, when descried some miles off Williamstown, would cheer up the drooping spirits of the fistful of a populace to a state of jubilation, and the messenger of plenty was always accorded a heartfelt welcome.
Grimes made the first survey and prepared the first chart of the Bay; but in 1836, Captain Hobson, whilst on a trip from Sydney to Melbourne in H.M.S. "Rattlesnake," instituted a more thorough examination.
It may be as well to state here that the whole of the harbour was named Port Phillip, after Captain Arthur Phillip, the first Governor of New South Wales; and its upper portion or head Hobson's Bay, after the Captain Hobson just mentioned. Two well known localities at the Heads were designated Points Nepean and Lonsdale, the first in compliment to Sir Evan Nepean, of the Admiralty, and the other to William Lonsdale, the first Police Magistrate and Commandant of Port Phillip. The nomenclature of Queenscliff has undergone some amusing nominal alterations. It was first called Whale's Point by Captain Woodriff Commander of the "Calcutta," the principal ship of the Collins Convict Expedition of 1803, in consequence of its formation resembling the head of a whale. It was also known as Shortland's Bluff, after Lieutenant John Shortland, a naval officer, who in 1788 accompanied "the first Fleet" to Sydney as Government Agent. Sorrento, when it formed the infant penal settlement of Collins, was officially known as Sullivan Bay and Sullivan Camp, after Mr. John Sullivan, an Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Williamstown was in the first instance named Point Gellibrand, after the Van Diemen's Land lawyer of that name, who figured conspicuously in the land-grabbing negotiations of Batman with the natives, and was the first to perish a supposed victim of Aboriginal assassination.
Williamstown, which would unquestionably have been selected as the chief township but for a want of anything approaching fresh water, was for a brief period a place of more importance than
