Page:ChroniclesofEarlyMelbournevol.1.pdf/47

the Gardens, and though many favoured the notion, a majority of the City Council were adverse, and it fell through. T h e formation of a garden was in course of time decided on, and ultimately realized. This was w h y East Melbourne came to be laid out as it is. Very little land was sold in East Melbourne, after the place was offered for sale, but by degrees it grew in public favour. In 1850, Bishop Perry obtained a grant of the Bishop's-court site, where a tastyedifice was soon put up ; and as years rolled on, the quarter grew into m u c h d e m a n d for private residences. A s the quadrangle was select, it was only right and proper that its naming should be equally so, and therefore w e find it divided amongst a Prince, Lords, and C o m m o n e r s w h o did good service in their day, such as Albert, Clarendon, Gipps, H o t h a m , Grey, Powlett, and Simpson—whilst it is bounded on the north and south by Queen Victoria and the D u k e of Wellington, and east and west by the Marquis of Lansdowne and M r . Robert Hoddle. T h e last-named, too, obtained the longest street almost by accident, and h o w this happened is thus told by himself in his journal. H e so writes :—" In conversation with m e one day, M r . Latrobe observed that I had been very modest not to have had a street named after myself. I told him that unless a good, broad street was n a m e d after m e , I had rather be without one. H e jocularly observed, I must have a street; which street did I prefer? I told him if I must have a street, the continuation of Collins Street would do very well. H e wrote ' Hoddle Street,' accordingly. S o m e time after, in speaking about the streets, he remarked to m e , ' I suppose Judge AVillis must have a street, and, as he is a cross old fellow, he must have a cross street.' W h e n M r . Latrobe subsequently quarrelled with Judge Willis, he erased his n a m e from the street assigned to him on the map, substituting m y n a m e on the ' cross ' street, and erasing it from the continuation of Collins Street, and putting in its place the n a m e of 'Fitzroy,' in compliment to Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy, to m y annoyance and chagrin." A n d thus it was that poor Willis (afterwards removed from the Bench) was done out of his street, and Hoddle got it, which certainly ought to have satisfied him, especially as, on the principle of some topers going in for a long drink, he went in for a good broad street, and he had not m u c h reason to complain. A s it turned out, if his n a m e had remained d o w n for the continuation of Collins Street, he would have missed the mark, for that street was not continued, and for the proposed Fitzroy Street was substituted the Fitzroy Gardens. AValking across the longest and finest thoroughfare of the City, I a m in what wasfirstknown as Newtown, then Collingwood, and n o w Fitzroy. This was thefirstsuburb operated upon in the way of Public Land Sales, and was primarily submitted to competition in blocks of about twenty-five acres each —evidently intended as a convenient place for the private residences of such of the towns-people as might be able to live privately. T h e sale taking place so far away as Sydney, the Melbournians were, to a great extent shut out of the market, and the consequence was that the purchasers were, with few exceptions N e w South Welshmen. T h e land averaged about £1 per acre; and a remarkable instance of a great bargain (if kept until to-day) is the north east corner of Nicholson Street and Victoria Parade, twenty-five acres of which were knocked d o w n to Hughes and Hoskins, an old Sydney mercantile firm, for £6 10s. per acre. Fancy what a nugget could be now m a d e out of these twenty-five acres at so m u c h per foot ! T h e Sydney m e n speedily c o m m e n c e d to turn over the pennies, and in their anxiety to realise, the sacred allotments were very soon cut up piecemeal, and sold and farmed and rented in every possible manner for the putting up of tenements of every conceivable kind, from the two-storied brick to the shaky weatherboard; from the "wattle-and-daub" to the bark hut, or canvas, sometimes old blanket-covered, tent. T h e villa notion vanished, and with some exceptions, the supplementary settlement presented to the spectator one of the queerest conglomerations of habitations for m a n or beast that could be well imagined. It was called Newtown, and its early limits of location comprised the square from Nicholson Street to Smith Street and from Victoria Parade to M o o r Street. N e w t o w n was changed in n a m e to Collingwood, and so remained until that settlement began to advance d o w n to theflat,when the original quarter was constituted a municipal ward of Melbourne and styled Fitzroy, after Sir Charles Fitzroy, a Governor of N e w South Wales, Gertrude Street was called after the daughter of a captain, whose n a m e I forget. M r . Robert Russell writes m e that Napier Street was n a m e d in this way :—"Suburban 50, 25a, Fitzroy, was subdivided for Captain Cole by m e in August, 1849, and he, doubtless, thought of the illustrious Sir Charles, w h o had been nursed in the same cradle with himself, and after him named the street."