CHAPTER IV.
PRIMARY POPULATION: ITS EXTENSION AND PROGRESS.
SYNOPSIS:— Mrs. Gilbert's Baby and Her Cat. —Convicts from Sydney. —First Official Census. —First Marriage in the Colony. —First White Marriage in Melbourne. —First White Child Baptised. —Melbourne 1838-1888. —Fawkner's Original Groggery. —The Wants of Melbourne. —Arden, Author of the First Pamphlet. —Brichnaking as an Industry. —A Protracted Drought. —General Fast and Humiliation. —An Amusing Prayer Difficulty. —Labour Famine. —Memorial to Home Government for Immigrants. —First Fire in Melbourne. —First Gunpowder Explosion. —Mrs. Clarke's Soirees. —"Servantgalism." —Collins Street "Block." —"Lady's Letter to the 'Lords of Creation.'" —First Private Brick Building. —"Hodgson's Folly." —Population and Property Value in 1839. —"Deaf Adamson's" Sketch.
WHEN Fawkner's schooner, the "Enterprise," sailed from Melbourne, on her return to Launceston, she left behind as the first white population the following individuals, viz.:— Captain Lancey, George Evans, his servant (Evan Evans), James Gilbert (a blacksmith) with his wife (Mary) and Charles Wise (a ploughman), five men and one woman. Except Lancey and the two Evans, the others were engaged by Fawkner, who considerately allowed the blacksmith, as the hardest worker, the solace of his "better half," and for the lady herself, he generously provided a cat, as a pet or familiar; but Mrs. Gilbert in due time (19th December, 1835), supplied herself with a more agreeable companion, under the acceptable semblance of a baby, the first white child born in Melbourne. Lancey and the two Evanses struck out for themselves, and the Fawkner party settled down sedulously to work until joined by their master soon after. They worked for six days in the week and prayed and "kangarooed" on Sunday. They enclosed and planted with wheat some five acres of land, near the Spencer Street Railway Station, where they put up a sort of half-tent, half-hut, wherein to find lodgings for themselves and their belongings. Whether the future fared well or ill for all of them, I know not, but George Evans afterwards became a very wealthy man, by sheep-keeping, farming, and public-house speculations. He died some years ago, at a very advanced age, in Queen Street, and his children were well provided for.
By degrees this half dozen of inhabitants swelled into the round dozen, and on to the score, the hundred, and the thousand. Additional new-comers appeared by every vessel arriving from Van Diemen's Land—owners of, and persons in charge of, sheep and cattle, and others looking out for employment as shepherds or stockmen. Few of them remained in the township, as the chief, and for a time the only demand, was for bush hands; but very soon rough carpenters, builders, and handy and generally useful men grew into request. Wages for shepherds were at first about £20 a year with rations; but the rate soon went up to £40, and such was the desire to submit to no reduction that the following elegant Lynchlaw proclamation was placarded in more than one prominent place —"He wot hires to any settler under forty pounds a year will get summot for his pains;" what the "summot" meant deponent sayeth not. Possibly it might be translated as "something hot;" but whether so or not it terminated as harmlessly as most of the hoarding literature of later days. Shortly after the arrival of Captain Lonsdale, as Commandant in 1836, a gang of thirty convicts was shipped from Sydney, for employment in Government works and private assignment; but the place being so distant from head-quarters, the Executive evinced a disinclination to encourage to any large extent a distribution of the prisoner element through the province. Settlers who desired to procure cheap labour from this source were deterred from so doing by the imposition of special restrictions upon convict employment. It so continued until 1838 when a Sydney Government Gazette notification was issued, directly discouraging persons in Port Phillip from applying for assigned servants; on 1st January, 1839, convict assignment in towns was discontinued and in August all male domestic prisoner-servants were disallowed in town and country. And so the incipient plague was
