Melbourne, named after British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, was first settled by a group of settlers led by John Batman and John Pascoe Fawkner, Batman had earlier explored Port Philip Bay and landed near the Yarra River and decided “this will be a place for a village” on the 10th of May 1835.
Batman negotiated a land deal with the local aborigines that had previously lived around the area for an estimated 40000 years and within a few years the CBD’s grid layout took place. The discovery of gold in Central Victoria in the 1850s coincided with the Victorian colony being separated from New South Wales to become the State of Victoria.
It was the gold rush that also propelled Melbourne forward as people from all around the world travelled to Melbourne to make their way to the gold fields, by the 1880s Melbourne was the second-largest city in the British Empire.
When Australia became a nation at Federation on the 1st January 1901 Melbourne become the new nation’s temporary capital with the first federal Parliament being conduction in the Royal Exhibition Building. It was not until 1927 that parliament transferred to the new city of Canberra, which was purposely built to become the nation’s capital.
Melbourne grew steadily during the early 1900s and the new immigration policy of the Australian government of the time that promoted Australia across Europe to help boost the population worked wonders.
Melbourne was home to the 1956 Olympics Games, the first to be held in the Southern Hemisphere, and it was around this time until the 1970s that Melbourne’s population began to stabilise as Sydney was recognised as Australia’s largest city.
Building Booms in the 1980s followed by a short recession has led Melbourne in to another building boom that started in the late 1990s and continues until today. Areas that were once docklands and factory sites are now being transformed into apartments and entertainment complex’s that will see the Melbourne CBD area almost double once complete.
