Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne and Victoria | Page 9

occupied as the Government offices by Mr. La Trobe, and this homely
tenement did such high duties for no small subsequent term. Down
hereabout was also a conspicuous line of five little wooden cottages,
called Roach-terrace, after Captain Roach, another very early colonist,
which were each let at 5 pounds a week, although they would not have
brought half that money by the year at home. Returning on the other
side was St. James's Church, in charge of the Reverend Mr. Thomson,
of most sociable memory, within its ample open area, and, further on,
the notorious Lamb Inn.
For the rest of Melbourne of 1840 I must be content with one general
sketch. Manton's Mills had arisen at the lower end of "the wharf," such
as it then was. Flinders-street had as yet but little in it. James Jackson,
afterwards Jackson, Rae and Company, was already there. About the
middle was the cottage of P.W. Welsh, prior to his removing to South
Yarra; and there, as the story goes again, Mrs. Welsh gave her "Five
Hundred Pound Party," but having unfortunately omitted Arden, the
editor of the "Gazette", in the invitations, he was left free to denounce
so bad an example of extravagance. Bourke-street had an incongruous
grouping, including the well-known Kirk's Bazaar, and the superb
cottage, for its time, of Mr. Carrington, the solicitor; and in Little

Bourke-street was Mr. Condell's brewery. At the far east end was Mr.
Porter's good cottage, and further on, Mr. La Trobe's bijou residence, in
its pretty grounds, which, although only of wood and of the smallest
dimensions, he stuck to until his final leave in 1854. The lanes, or Little
Flinders and Collins streets, were already fairly filled, as the land there
was much cheaper. In the former were Heap and Grice's offices, and
the Adelphi Hotel, approaching the Lamb Inn in noisy repute. The
latter had Bells and Buchanan, the Post-Office under D. Kelsh, and,
where Elizabeth-street crossed, G. Lovell and Company and Campbell
and Woolley. The Catholic Church in Lonsdale-street was under
construction, and on the western brow was Mr. Abrahams's good house,
with his two pretty girl children, one of whom was in succession Mrs.
Pike, Mrs. Gray, and Mrs. Williams, and is still alive, with a creditable
total of family. Beyond was the trackless bush, excepting the bush
tracks to Sydney, and in the Flemington and Keilor direction. But
outside the town were already several suburbs, of which Collingwood
was the largest, having the residences of John Hunter Patterson and
other leading early colonists.
I used to traverse not a few dreary empty allotments in the hot summer
sun to reach the stores of my friend the Honourable James Graham,
whose dwelling and business place in Russell, by Bourke street,
seemed then quite far out of the village, but is since in the very heart of
the great city. The course of values in the colony, early and late, is well
illustrated by this example. The allotment originally belonged to our
friend in common, S.A. Donaldson, of Sydney, who had bought for
some nominal price at the Government sale in 1837. He bought many
other lots thereabout, and towards Collingwood, further east and north;
and after the gold discoveries, he told me pathetically, oftener than
once, that his impatience to sell had lost him the status and
happiness--whatever the latter might be--of a millionaire. Donaldson
had let this place, with its house, stores, etc., good as these things went
then, to Graham, at 500 pounds a year. This was about 1838-9, when
everything in business ways was rolling jollily upwards. But some few
years afterwards the landlord's attorneys, William Ryrie and myself,
had to reduce the rent to either 100 or 50 pounds--I think the latter.
Some years later, Graham purchased at 2,000 pounds, and it is
understood has lately resold at something approaching a quarter of a

million. As these matters are all locally so well known, I feel that, as
with wills at Doctor's Commons, I tread upon no toes in such useful
illustrations.
I arrived just to witness the last glories of the famous champagne
lunches, which prefaced the auction sales of these early days, and
repeatedly I saw in his element Charles Williams, the earliest of his
trade. If such lunches cost 40 pounds, which was given me as a
moderate average, who suffered, argued their justifiers, if the
exhilaration they produced gave 400 pounds more to the net proceeds?
The brisk liquor appreciably blew up the prices, as the same lots, cut up
and rearranged, would come again and yet again under the hammer.
Many a bullock-drover would pull up on passing the auction room or
tent, and quaff off half a bottle to the good health of all concerned in
such liberality. One respectable