Name: Queenscliff.

Location: Victoria, Australia.

Map: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Victoria_in_Australia.svg

Population: 1,416.

 

Queenscliff is a small town on the Bellarine Peninsula in southern Victoria, Australia, south of Swan Bay at the entrance to Port Phillip. The Bellarine Peninsula is a peninsula located southwest of Melbourne. Queenscliff is a former 1880s seaside resort now known for its Victorian era heritage and tourist industry and as one of the endpoints of the Searoad ferry to Sorrento.

 

History

 

In 23 000 BC-1836 AD

Prior to European settlement, the area was inhabited by the Bengalat Bulag clan of the Wautharong tribe, a member of the Kulin nation. The Kulin nation was an alliance of five Indigenous Australian nations in central Victoria, Australia, prior to European settlement, that spoke related languages. The Wathaurong tribe lived in the area for at least the last 25,000 years. European explorers first arrived in 1802, Lieutenant John Murray (1775-1807) in January and Captain Matthew Flinders (1774-1814) in April. John Murray was a seaman and explorer. He was the first European to discover Port Phillip, the bay on which the cities of Melbourne and Geelong are situated. He is believed to be born in Edinburgh and began his naval career as an able seaman in 1789. Matthew Flinders was a distinguished navigator and cartographer, who was the first to circumnavigate Australia and identify it as a continent. He was born in Donington, England.

 

The first European settler in the area (Queenscliff) was convict escapee William Buckley (1776-1856) between 1803 and 1835, latterly in a cave beneath the Point Lonsdale Lighthouse, with the local Aborigines. William Buckley was an English convict who was transported to Australia, escaped, was given up for dead and lived in an Aboriginal community for many years. Buckley's improbable survival is believed by many Australians to be the source of the vernacular phrase "you've got Buckley's or none" (or simply "you've got Buckley's"), which means no chance.

 

William Buckley was born in Cheshire, England. He was apprenticed to a bricklayer, but left to enlist in the King's Foot Regiment. He was soon transferred to the King's Own Regiment. In 1799, his regiment went to the Netherlands to fight against Napoleon, under the command of the Duke of York where he injured his hand. Later, in London, Buckley was convicted of knowingly receiving a bolt of stolen cloth. He insisted he was carrying it for a woman and did not know it was stolen. He was sentenced to transportation to New South Wales for 14 years. Buckley left England in April 1803 aboard HMS Calcutta, one of two ships sent to Port Phillip to form a new settlement under Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins. They arrived in October 1803, and anchored off the south-eastern side of the bay, near modern day Sorrento. The new settlement, called Sullivan Bay, subject to drought and poor soils, soon ran into problems and they started to abandon the site in January 1804, with the remainder leaving in June. After hearing that the settlement was about to move to Tasmania, on 27 December 1803 at 9 pm, Buckley and several other convicts cut loose a boat and made their escape to the shore. They made their way around the bay, and the party split up in the vicinity of present day Melbourne. His companions went northeast, hoping to reach Sydney, which they thought was not far, although it was 622 miles away. Buckley, tired and dehydrated, continued alone around the bay.

 

During the weeks following his escape, Buckley avoided contact with Aboriginal people, travelling around Port Phillip Bay as far as the Bellarine Peninsula. He met a group of Wathaurung women, several months after his escape. Buckley had taken a spear used to mark a grave for use as a walking stick. The women befriended him after recognising the spear as belonging to a relative who had recently died and invited him back to their camp. Believed to be the returned spirit of the former tribesman, he was joyfully welcomed and adopted by the group. They treated him with great kindness. He also began to learn their language. For the next thirtytwo years, he continued to live among the Wathaurung people on the Bellarine Peninsula being treated with great affection and respect. By virtue of his age and peaceful ways, Buckley became a person of considerable respect among his people and his voice was influential in deciding matters of war and peace. Though despite this, he was banned from participating in tribal wars. He had at least two Aboriginal wives and almost certainly a daughter by one of them. According to Buckley, warfare was a central part of life among the Australian hunter-gatherers. He had often witnessed wars. This information was uniquely important as little is known about warfare among pre-agricultural peoples.

 

On 6 July 1835, William Buckley appeared at the camp site of John Batman's Port Phillip Association with a party of Aboriginal people who had told him about the sighting of a ship at Indented Head. The three European men at the camp were William Todd, James Gumm and Alexander Thomson. They fed him and treated him with kindness. Buckley showed them the letters "W.B." tattooed on his arm. Fearful of being shot, he told them he was a shipwrecked soldier, but a few days later he revealed his identity, to the amazement of everybody present. In September the same year, he was granted a pardon by Lieutenant Governor Arthur, in Tasmania. In 1836, Buckley was given the position of interpreter to the natives and as a guide for Captain Foster Fyans. His knowledge of the Aboriginal language was put to good use. By late 1837, Buckley had become disenchanted with his new way of life and the people around him. He therefore left for Tasmania. He remained there for the next nineteen years until his death in 1856. On 27 June 1840, he was married to Julia Eager, at St. John's Church, New Town, by the Reverend T. J. Ewing. Buckley died in 1856 at the age of 80, when he fell off his gig at Greenpond near Hobart.

 

In 1836-1889

Permanent settlement in Queenscliff began in 1836 when squatters arrived in the area known as Whale Head. The name was changed to Shortland's Bluff in honour of Lieutenant John Shortland, who assisted in the surveying of Port Phillip. Land sales began in 1853, the same year the name was changed to Queenscliff by Lieutenant Charles La Trobe, in honour of Queen Victoria. The Post Office opened on 1 May 1853 as Shortland's Bluff and was renamed Queenscliff in 1854.

 

Originally a fishing village, Queenscliff soon became an important cargo port, servicing steamships trading in Port Philip. A shipping pilot service was established in 1841 and its two lighthouses, the High and Low Lights, were constructed in 1862-63. Queenscliff also played an important military role. Fort Queenscliff was built between 1879 and 1889 and operated as the command centre for a network of forts around the port.

 

In 1879-1950

Queenscliff became a tourist destination in the late 19th century. Some visitors arrived from Melbourne after a two-hour journey on the paddle steamer, Ozone. The Ozone was a ship built in 1886 near Glasgow, in Scotland. She could exceed 17 kts and is regarded as one of the finest paddle steamers ever built. Ozone was commissioned by the Bay Excursion Company and relocated to Australia, where she became a great favourite on Port Phillip Bay, in Victoria, and remained in service there for many years. The Ozone's first bay excursion was on 18 December 1886, when she commenced a run between Melbourne and Queenscliff.

 

The opening of a railway line to Geelong in 1879 brought increasing tourists to the area. Numerous luxury hotels and coffee palaces were built to accommodate them. The Palace Hotel was built in 1879, later renamed Esplanade Hotel, the Baillieu Hotel was built in 1881, later renamed Ozone Hotel, the Vue Grande Hotel was built in 1883 and the Queenscliff Hotel was built in 1887.

 

The term Coffee Palace was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels which were built during the period of the 1880s although there are references to the term also being used, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom. They were hotels that did not serve alcohol, built in response to the temperance movement and in particular the influence of the Independent Order of Rechabites in Australia. James Munro was a particularly vocal member of this movement. Coffee Palaces were often multi-purpose or mixed use buildings which included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other function and leisure facilities.

 

The beginnings of the movement were in 1879, with the first coffee palace companies founded in the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide. The movement in particular flourished in Melbourne in the 1880s when a land boom that followed the Victorian gold rush created an environment in which it was the construction of lavish buildings and richly ornamental high Victorian architecture, often designed in the fashionable Free Classical or Second Empire styles to attract patrons. Many of the larger establishments were bestowed prestigious names such as Grand or Royal in order to appeal to the wealthier classes. Coffee palaces were popular in the coastal seaside resorts and for inner city locations attracting catering for families as well as interstate and overseas visitors. Ironically as the temperance movement's influence waned, many of these coffee palaces applied for liquor licences. Many have since been either converted into hotels or demolished, however, some significiant examples still survive.

 

In 1950-today

The advent of the car saw Queenscliff drop in popularity as a tourist destination, as tourists were no longer dependent on its role as a transport hub. The railway ceased weekly passenger services in 1950 and was closed in 1976. The 1980s saw a return in the town's tourist popularity. In 2005, the area previously holding the Fort Barracks was subdivided into residential blocks and renamed Shortlands Beach in honour of the town's prior name. The proposed redevelopment drew fierce criticism from some sectors of the community, who feared loss of an important heritage site. The original fort remains on site.

 

The Queenscliff Seafood Feast, a culinary festival using fresh seafood donated by local fishermen, is held annually on Good Friday to raise funds for the Royal Children's Hospital. Queenscliff is also home to the Queenscliff Music Festival, a popular annual music festival held on the last weekend of November, which attracts both local and international acts and is an important part of the town's tourist industry.

 

 

Maps

1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Swan_bay_map.PNG

2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bellarine_Peninsula_Map.PNG

3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portphillip.gif

 

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Sources:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenscliff,_Victoria

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellarine_Peninsula

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Murray_(Australian_explorer)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Flinders

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buckley_(convict)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_(paddle_steamer)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_palace

The owner of the image above is Airviewonline.com.

Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Queenscliffvic-airview-0508-26...

The image above is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Australia license.

Link: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/au/deed.en

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