The founding of Sandridge (which later changed its name to Port Melbourne) began one November day at the place where Bay Street now meets the beach, with the arrival on this shore of one of history’s most unusual families, the Liardets. It was 1839. Melbourne’s booming settlement two miles to the north beyond the Yarra River was four years old. Hobsons Bay was already busy with ships, but although this ‘dazzling white’ beach was popular as a landing place for arrivals planning to walk overland to Melbourne, no one had actually settled here. (Two fisherman of dubious character, camped in a hogshead on the beach when the Liardets landed, have never been classed as settlers.) Pitching tents fashioned in London for use in the colonies, adventurer Wilbraham Liardet, his wife Caroline and their nine children set about creating a home on the Beach, and serving their fellow pioneers. Within a year they had: constructed a jetty, a watchtower and a rough road to Melbourne; dug a well; established a ferry service between the Beach and William’s Town and a daily mail run between the town and the ships; and built their bayside resort, the timber Pier Hotel, a forerunner of the one that took its place on the site in 1856.
by PMHPS on April 29, 2016Please login to comment on this item