The City of Western Port - the name that never became

Cranbourne local government began as the Cranbourne Road District in 1860 and then became Cranbourne Shire in 1868.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Cranbourne

The original Cranbourne Shire Offices, on the corner of High and Sladen Streets

In 1994, Cranbourne Shire was moving towards gaining City status and as part of the process, a new name was being explored.

The first indication of the preferred name was reported in various newspaper articles, including in the Berwick Journal 12 October 1992.  In the article “Cranbourne to become a city” it was announced that the Shire of Cranbourne was to become a City on it’s 125^th anniversary in 1993. 

The name chosen for the new City Council was the City of Western Port. Cranbourne Shire Chief Executive Officer – Terry Vickerman - was reported as saying that the name was chosen to “….reflect the geographic location of the municipality rather than the present name which focused on one major town.”

In that same article, Mr Vickerman said “Council also seeks the views of surrounding councils, particularly in relating to the choice of name because neighbouring councils also have an affinity with Western Port.  Indeed some, like Cranbourne, have an actual frontage to Western Port.”

The support of Berwick Council to the new name was reported in that same article, as Council having “no objection" to the Shire of Cranbourne being named City of Western Port.

But this was no happily ever after.

In Berwick Journal of 19 October 1992, in the article “Dandenong unhappy with name choice”.
“Dandenong does not favour the name Western Port being used by Cranbourne Shire…….  Dandenong said that while it did not wish to interfere with what was a local issue, the name Western Port was already used to describe the region.”

In that same edition, in the article “Name change would be a ‘slap in the face’.”  Springvale Councillor Graeme Duggan was quoted as saying “The term Western Port refers to the whole region and I fear a name change would mean it would refer only to Cranbourne in future.  Cranbourne is a name residents should be proud of as it indicates a municipality that has a long history.”  Springvale Council was reported as having opposed the change.”

In the Cranbourne Independent of 11^th November 1992 article “It’s a no go for Western Port”, it was reported that Flinders Council and the Shires of Bass and Hastings also objected to the proposed name change.  Hastings Council reported that they had “previously considered changing its own name to Western Port” and that it felt “other councils which bordered the Western Port foreshore would see the move as “un-neighbourly.”

The protests were taken on board by the Shire of Cranbourne, as the decision was made to retain the Cranbourne name.  In the booklet released for the Proclamation of the City of Cranbourne, it was reported that Cranbourne Shire did celebrate its 125^th anniversary, but instead of with a name change, it celebrate by having an official opening of the Municipal Offices by the then Premier Jeff Kennett, on 24 February 1993.

Postcard released to celebrate the Shire of Cranbourne's 150th anniversary

Instead, the City of Cranbourne was officially proclaimed at the still relatively new Council Offices, by the then Governor of Victoria Sir Richard McGarvie, on Friday 22^nd April 1994.

City of Cranbourne logo

 

City of Cranbourne Coat of Arms

       

The City of Cranbourne had no time to settle in however, as on 15 December 1994, it was abolished and split into six portions, the largest part of which was merged with the City of Berwick to become the City of Casey.

Michelle McLean

For more of the history of the Shire of Cranbourne, please visit “Cranbourne Shire Sesquicentenary”.

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Dipping sheep on Quail Island, Western Port in 1866 by James H. Watson

On June 20, 1927, James H. Watson (1), the President of the Royal Australian Historical Society, Sydney presented a paper to the Historical Society of Victoria - Personal Recollections of Melbourne in the 'Sixties. It was a look at various events and activities of the 1860s including this story - Dipping Sheep on Quail Island. The story was published in the Victorian Historical Magazine, v. 12, June 1928 available on-line at the State Library of Victoria (2). It transcribed below.

The trip to Quail Island took place in 1866 (3). Of interest is a description of Cranbourne at that time and a confession that he was actually responsible for the first release of rabbits onto the Island. 

Dipping sheep on Quail Island by James H. Watson. 

The writer starts the story that he was offered a plantation on a small island in Fiji, but he turned the offer down due to his lack of experience. He then continues the story -

Another island, however, came into view a little later, and one that was nearer home. On it I put in some hard work for six months, and all I got out of it was experience. The fellow passenger that I came ashore with (who has been dead for fifty years and left neither kith nor kin) some little while after our arrival leased Quail Island in Western Port, and put some sheep on it. He had had no experience of stock, and on a visit to me, explained that, if he had a mate, he thought he could make a good thing of it for both of us, my stock-in-trade being youth, strength, and willingness. I agreed to go. I well remember the day, for it was the day the news of the loss of the London (4) reached Melbourne in March, 1866.

We took coach at an hotel in Queen-street, the route being along the St. Kilda-road, turning into the Dandenong-road, passing through Dandenong to the termination of the journey at Cranbourne. I do not know whether the township, as it was called, has grown since the railway went to it, but, when I last saw it, 60 years ago, it consisted of the hotel (a long low weatherboard house, the host being named Duff (5)), the central point of the district. The next was the store, where anything that was wanted could be purchased. Then there was the Presbyterian Church, the minister of which was a brother of the landlord of the hotel (6). Two or three small cottages, and the ruins of another with a big stone bush chimney still standing, completed the town of Cranbourne. The ruined cottage is mentioned because in it lived, or rather existed, the local doctor - a clever man, but one who had the habit that many an otherwise good man has fallen a victim to. The minister kept his books and instruments, and, for special cases, he was sobered up for a couple of days, the hotel being tabooed to him till he had completed the case in hand.

  

The Grantville coach at the Cranbourne Hotel established by Robert and Margaret Duff. This was the hotel which James Watson visited on his way to Quail Island in 1866.

Photograph scanned from The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire by Niel Gunson.

Having arrived at the hotel, where horses to take us on had been left in the paddock, they were rounded up, and we set off to do the 11 miles which lay between the town and Quail Island, passing the fences of Mr Cameron's run (7), skirting the town, and following a track through the thick scrub over low hills down to the bight of Western Port. This island is directly behind, or north of, French Island, which stood up about 2 miles away. As the shores of the inlet at the crossing-place are low flats and treacherous to walk on, a thick track of tea-tree had been laid, so that the horses got safely to a sapling bridge that connected the island to the mainland. The total acreage was about 1,500 acres of flat open land on the south and timbered low hills on the north, with two good-sized water-holes or lagoons, which were the haunt of water-fowl and ducks. Mud flats lay all round the shore, covered with mangrove.

On this most unsuitable place were about 800 or 900 ewes, with a fair percentage of lambs, and 300 wethers. There were no fences, as there was no necessity for them. I soon learned that the wethers, which had been bought "stores," had brought the squatters' curse - scab - with them, and the whole flock was infected, and it was to help to eradicate this that my services were required. Preparations had been made by having a dip dug out, about 25 feet x 15 feet x 3 feet, on the margin of which several 400-gallon iron tanks were placed on stone foundations, and under which fires were made to boil the water. For several days water was carted in hogsheads on drays and sledges, till the dip was partly filled and the tanks were filled. This was very hard work, as the water had to be hand-loaded by bucket and the tanks filled from the drays in the same way. The dip was easily supplied direct from the hogsheads by pulling out the plug. The water was procured from the water-holes by backing the drays to a sapling jetty and filling the casks by a bucket and funnel. All this was most laborious work, and occupied half a dozen of us from morning till night, but the weather was fine and bright.

Before the dipping commenced, every sheep and lamb on the place had to be "dressed." We rounded them up from all parts of the island where they would be hidden away in the scrub. Our dogs had unfortunately been poisoned by the bait that had been set for eaglehawks which took the lambs, so we had to keep shouting to get them on the run and into a race at the stockyard, when, one by one, they were passed through our hands and dressed with spirits of tar.

The Swan, which transported the wool from Quail Island to Melbourne.

Image: Western Port Wrecks and Maritime Mishaps by Arthur E. Woodley (Lock Haven books, 1992)

I may here say, as I remarked previously, that the island was a most unsuitable place; this was so, because the flat damp ground on the shores gave the sheep foot-rot, and great numbers of them had to be treated for that before being "dressed" and dipped. I have overlooked the fact that all these had been shorn previous to the dip, the wool baled and sent by the regular Western Port trading cutter Swan, owned and sailed by a man named Lock (8), to Melbourne. The fires were made up and burning for the two days the dressing was being done. When that was over, the boiling water was run into the dip, with the result that there was a tepid bath, knee-deep, ready for the sheep, which were put through the race and seized by us who were standing in the water and thoroughly soused and rubbed and placed in a draining race at the opposite end to which they had entered. This took two days, the fires going to keep up the tepid heat. After this was completed and some weeks passed to allow the shear-marks to grow out of the wool and the colour of the dip to disappear (as the American Essence of Tobacco, which was the scab cure used in the dip, had discoloured it), a permit to travel was issued by the inspector (which was necessary before they could go on the roads), they were all sent to the Melbourne yards and sold. Then my days as an embryo squatter (as all kinds of graziers in those days were misnamed) came to an end, and I returned to town to take up again a business life.

I should have stated earlier that an incident occurred shortly after my arrival on the island which at the time was considered most laudable, but, if perpetrated now, would bring the strong arm of the law down on any who did it. It was the receipt of several cases of pairs of rabbits. They were purchased in Melbourne and came from Barwon Park, the station near Geelong of Mr. Thomas Austin (9), and were the offspring of some he had had sent to him in 1859 by the ship Lightning, his importation by that vessel consisting of 56 partridges, 4 hares, and 26 rabbits. As I knocked the lids off the cases, the rabbits scampered off into the scrub. I cannot remember how many there were, but I think about ten pairs. The result of the experiment I do not know.

I may add that Messrs. Herbert Power (10) and Reginald Bright (11) took up the island and had placed a big Highland Scot in charge before we left, as gamekeeper, the intention being to stock it with pheasants, partridges, &c. What success attended it I am unable to say.

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Footnotes
(1) James Henry Watson (1841-1934). Read his Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here.

(2) State Library of Victoria https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/popular-digitised-collections

(3) Mr Watson wrote a letter to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald  of February 19, 1926 on the subject of rabbits and said they released the rabbits on Quail Island in September 1866. Read letter here. See also Footnote 8.

(4) The London foundered in the Bay of Biscay with 220 drowned and 19 saved.  Most of the passengers were Australians returning from England. Read accounts in The Argus of March 16, 1866, here and the Sydney Morning Herald of the same date, here.

(5) Robert Duff  (1827 - 1861). Robert and his wife Margaret (c.1832 - 1902) established the Cranbourne Hotel, around 1860. It was in High Street, where Greg Clydesdale Square is now and was demolished around the 1970s. Read more, here.

(6) Reverend Alexander Duff (1824-1890), read more here.

(7) Alexander Cameron (1815 - 1881) took over the Mayune lease in 1851. At later land sales he purchased 592 acres, the Pre-emptive Right, on the corner of what is now Cameron Street and the South Gippsland Highway and renamed renamed the property Mayfield, read more here.

(8) The cutter Swan and Captain Lock. The following information comes from Western Port Wrecks and Maritime Mishaps by Arthur E. Woodley (Lock Haven books, 1992) Captain John Lock was one of Phillip Island's pioneer settlers, who for a good many years contributed greatly to the early development of the Western Port area. In 1897 Captain Lock was presented with a bravery medal from the Royal Humane Society for rescuing  the sole survivor of a boat upset, off Mornington. The Swan,  built about 1815 as a French cutter, arrived  in Tasmania about 1837 and traded between Tasmania and Victoria until Captain Lock purchased it in Hobart and converted it into a ketch. It was run down by the steamer Queenscliffe, off Cape Schanck in October 1906, fortunately with no loss of life. Interestingly, Arthur Woodley says that Captain John Lock did not commence trading to and from Western Port with the Swan until late 1868 or early 1869 which does not tally with Mr Watson's date of 1866. John Bamara Lock died August 8, 1908 aged 75 (death notice in The Leader August 15, 1908, see here).

(9) Thomas Austin (1815-1871), of Barwon Park, Winchelsea is 'credited' with introducing the rabbit into Australia. His wife Elizabeth (nee Harding, 1821-1910) was a philanthropist, who established the Austin Hospital in 1882. Read Thomas' Australian Dictionary of Biography entry, here, and Elizabeth's here.

(10) Herbert Power - The son of Thomas Herbert Power (1801-1873) who took up the Eumemmerring Run in 1864 - the run went from  around the Dandenong Creek all the way to Berwick. Power Road is named after him. Herbert Power died in 1919, aged 83. You can read his obituary in the Australasian of June 7, 1919, here.

(11) Reginald Bright - a partner in the firm of Gibbs, Bright & Co. He arrived in Victoria in 1852 and died in London in 1920. There is a short obituary in the Darling Downs Gazette of September 17, 1920, see here.

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Coastal guide to nature and history 2: Mornington Peninsula's ocean shore, Western Port, Phillip Island & French Island

Graham Patterson has recently published his second Coastal Guide Book and this one covers Western Port, Phillip Island, French Island and Mornington's Peninsula ocean shore. Graham has walked the entire 320 kilometre shoreline from Port Phillip Heads to San Remo then Phillip Island and French Island and this naturally includes parts of the City of Casey and the Cardinia Shire. The local section starts at Quail Island, covers the coastal towns of Cannons Creek, Warneet, Blind Bight, Tooradin then around the Bay to Lang Lang and Jam Jerrup.

Graham covers local history, coastal fauna and flora and land forms. You don't need to actually walk the 320 kilometres to get the most of this book - there are maps to get to places of interest. It's a great book - lots of illustrations, maps and information and well worth reading if you have an interest in the local and natural history of the Western Port region.

It's called Coastal guide to nature and history 2 : Mornington Peninsula's ocean shore, Western Port, Phillip Island & French Island and is a companion volume to Coastal guide to nature and history : Port Phillip Bay ,

This is Graham's website, www.coastalguidebooks.net.au if you want to purchase a copy. other wise click on the titles above and it will take you to our catalogue. Graham is an electrical engineer and has taught science at a secondary school level and is a keen bush walker.

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Western Port - a short history of early European activity

Both the Cardinia Shire and the City of Casey have Western Port as part of their border. The Bay has been a popular recreation spot for many of us over the years - for instance, we used to go to the beach at Tooradin when I was young; Dad and my uncle had a boat so they used to water ski down there, and Dad used to go fishing there as well. These activities would have been repeated by many local families since the European settlement of the region. Further afield, Phillip Island continues to be a holiday destination for many locals. The Bay has also been used commercially by fishermen. What follows is a short history of the Bay since the arrival of  the Europeans.

Western Port Bay was 'discovered' by George Bass (1771-1803)  on January 5, 1798. Bass had left Sydney (Port Jackson) on December 3, 1897 with the purpose of discovering whether a strait existed between Tasmania (Van Diemen's land) and the mainland. As we know the Strait did exist and it was named after him. Bass named Western Port thus as it was the most westerly port that was known at the time - or as he wrote in his journal I have named the place, from its relative situation to every other known harbour on the coast, Western Port. Bass navigated around what was to be called Phillip Island, but did not realise that the land mass that became known as French Island, was indeed, also an island. They were also unaware of Port Phillip Bay - I wonder what Western Port would have been called if they were. The journey was a remarkable feat of navigation and enterprise, the party was away for eleven weeks, had eked out the original six weeks of supplies they took with them, they sailed 600 miles of uncharted coast line all in an open boat that was only 28 feet, 7 inches (8.7 metres) long.

After Bass, the next official  European activity was carried out in the Lady Nelson, under Lieutenant James Grant (1772-1833) - they arrived  at Western Port on March 21, 1801. The crew planted a garden on Churchill Island and they charted the Bay. The Lady Nelson returned in December 1802 under First Lieutenant John Murray (1775-1803) and harvested the wheat crop planted by Grant the year before, and on January 5,  1802 they 'discovered' Port Phillip Bay. In April 1802, the French Captain Hamelin in the Naturaliste reached Western Port and circumnavigated  and mapped French Island. Hamelin was part of a French expedition, under the command of Thomas Nicholas Baudin, whose mission was to map the Australian coast and undertake scientific studies. Baudin was in the Geographe.

Oyster breeding park, Rutherford Creek, Western Port Bay

State Library of Victoria Image A/S22/09/84/15

The French interest in this region prompted the British Government to establish, in 1803,  a settlement at what is now Sorrento, under Lieutenant Governor David Collins (1756-1810). In Western Port, enterprising sealers had moved in - seals were hunted for their skins and their oil. Sealers also abducted Aboriginal women, to act a sex slaves and to exploit their hunting knowledge. In 1826,  the British sent the Dragon, under the command of Captain Samuel Wright and the Fly, under the command of Captain F. Wetherall to Western Port, they landed at what is now Rhyll and claimed formal possession on December 3, 1826 and on December 12 they claimed formal possession of a site near Corinella. At Corinella, a settlement was soon established - gardens, roads, wells, buildings including Government House, military barracks, storehouse, hospital, blacksmiths, stables etc - most of the labour was supplied by the 21 convicts. This was a short lived settlement and was abandoned in January 1828.

Captain Wetherall's 1826 map of Western Port

Source: Western Port Chronology 1798-1839: Exploration to Settlement by Valda Cole (see below)

Later on pastoral settlements took place - in 1835 Samuel Anderson (1803-1863) and Robert Massie settled on the Bass River.  Moving  around to the Bay, to the area now covered by Casey and Cardinia - in 1839 Robert Jamieson and Samuel Rawson settled at the Yallock Station, on the Yallock Creek. Frederick and Charles Manton took up Manton's Old Station in 1840; the Balla Balla run was taken up by Robert Innes Allen in 1839; Thomas Rutherford took up the station (Bourbinandera) based around what was to be known as Rutherford Inlet in 1842; the Lang Waring run was taken up in 1843 by William Willoby. Later on, from around the 1850s,  all these  large runs were broken up and sold and other European settlers arrived.

These are aerials of the top section of Western Port, taken January 22 1970 - not exactly what the early Europeans would have seen, but I can never resist using an aerial photograph! You could only imagine what these early explorers and cartographers would say if they could see the land they charted today, from an aerial or satellite image. The township is Warneet. The land mass on the left is Quail Island, Rutherford Inlet separates Quail island from Chinamans island. Quail island was originally known as Harris Island, it was named for Surgeon John Harris, member of the N.S.W Corps. Chinamans Island was so named as Chinese fishermen were said to live on the island.

This is Warneet, again, and Cannons Creek. We also see the top of Quail Island and Rutherford Inlet.

The land mass on bottom right is Quail Island, with Watson Inlet to the left. From the middle top, there is an L-shaped road - this is Craigs Lane. The road running down to a creek/inlet on the right is Vowell Drive.

This connects to the aerial above - on the right is Vowell Drive. On the left is Tyabb-Tooradin Road and Callanans Lane, this forms a triangle, where the Pearcedale Conservation Park and  Moonlit Sanctuary is located. There is Watson Inlet, part of the Yaringa Marine National Park, again. The inlet is named after  John Watson, whose property 'Freehall', was near to the Inlet.  John Watson was the owner of considerable property in the Parish of Tyabb, a prominent citizen and a member of the Mt. Eliza District Road Board. A Mornington Peninsula Shire  Council Ward is named after him (Personal correspondence from historian, Valda Cole)

Sources:

• Western Port Chronology 1798-1839: exploration to settlement by Valda Cole (Shire of Hastings Historical Society, 1984)  The book looks at the European activity at Western Port prior to the establishment of Melbourne. 
• The Western Port Settlement and it leading personalities by Keith Bowden (South Eastern Historical Association, 1970) The book looks at the Western Port settlement at Corinella in 1826. It includes a full list of the 21 prisoners with personal details and has information about many of the military personnel.

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