Geelong. The Geelong Baths Swimming Club group on the pier. Artist Jan Mitchell transformed 100 old waterfront bollards into stunning bollard figures in 1995.
Image by denisbin
In 1836 the first pastoralists moved into the Geelong region with David Stead and John Cowie on the Moorabool River and Alexander Thompson on the Barwon River (Kardinia estate meaning sunrise in local Aboriginal language). By 1837 there were enough pastoralists and their workers in the region for Magistrate Foster Fyans to be stationed at the Barwon River and Constable Patrick McKeever to be the first police officer there. Geelong was surveyed in October 1838 with the first land sales in 1839. The first general store, the Wool Pack Inn and a wool store opened around his time and by 1841 there were 82 houses and over 400 residents and the town had its own newspaper. The main streets were named after places and people mainly who were early settlers– Moorabool, Yarra, Bellarine, Corio, Gheringhap, Swanston and Malop, Ryrie, McKillop, Myers, Brougham, Fenwick and etc. The name of Geelong came from a local Aboriginal languages meaning either “white sea bird” or “cliff” or “going up”. Within a short time there was a saddler, Wesleyan place of worship (not quite a church), a post service etc. In 1848 Geelong was declared a port for exporting wool, grain, hides, tallow etc. A year later (1849) it was officially proclaimed a town with its own Town Council and a mayor. The Industrial Revolution in England and the great demand for wool for woollen mills boosted the town’s growth and the discovery of gold in Ballarat added to it. Geelong was able to supply needed goods for the goldfields etc. In 1851 Geelong had 8,291 inhabitants but by 1853 it had 22,000 thanks to gold from Ballarat being received and exported from here. The basalt and sandstone Customs House was built in 1856 in Brougham Street when exports began from here rather than at Williamstown near Melbourne and immigrants landed directly in Geelong. The first Town Hall was built in 1855 and a telegraph connection with Melbourne was established in 1854. The fine sandstone Telegraph Station with a timeball for shipping on its roof was built in 1858 and still stands next to the former Post Office. The first railway in Victoria linked Melbourne and Geelong in 1854. A private company began building the railway in 1854 but it was not completed until 1856. The first railway station was replaced with the current one between 1877 and 1881 hence the polychromatic brick work which was popular at that time. A new railway line was built from Geelong to Ballarat starting in 1858 with completion in 1862. A short tunnel was cut through the hill beyond the railway station in 1875 to allow trains to travel to South Geelong and on to Colac. By the mid-1850s Geelong was the third biggest town in the Australian colonies and it continued to greatly significantly in the 1860s.
Building a city. Churches and schools were important structures for the early citizens as they signified civilisation. In 1855 Geelong Grammar School opened as an Anglican boarding school for boys. Its prestige grew as a boarding school for the wealthiest of the Western District pastoralists. It moved to its present location on Corio Bay in 1914 from 55 Maud Street Geelong. This is the school Prince Charles attended in the 1960s. The Church of England Girls’ Grammar School only opened in 1906. Yet another important educational milestone was the opening of the Gordon (named after General William Gordon from the Siege of Khartoum 1884-5) Technical College in 1888. This grand Scottish baronial style building was extended in 1891 and the matching northern wing was added in 1916. It makes a dramatic statement in Fenwick Street. Part of the campus incudes the Bostock Memorial textile laboratories and the Edward Lascelles wool laboratories. One of the city’s wool broker was T E Bostock who was also Mayor of Geelong 1905 to 1908. When he died in 1922 a public subscription fund was started to build a memorial to him. He was a founder of Strachan Bostock and Co a leading wool firm and employer in the city. The foundation stone for Gordon Institute textile laboratories was laid in 1928. The architects were Laird and Buchan. About the same time (1921) a public subscription fund was started as a memorial to Edward Lascelles another Geelong leader of the wool industry. The new Lascelles building in Art Deco style with strong vertical lines was to be joined to the Bostock Laboratories. Building started in 1944 and was completed in 1951. The architect of this Art Deco masterpiece was Percy Everett who also designed the old Courthouse into a Spanish Mission Art Deco building around 1930. Nearby is the Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary School which was established in 1856 and known as the Flinders National School for boys. It was named after the first white explorer to visit Corio Bay in 1802. It was the first state school in Geelong and became the first state school to offer high school studies. From 1864 it was also a primary school for girls and in 1939 it became a girls’ secondary school. Although the main building dates from 1856 it was extended, remodelled and given its current Italianate appearance with a three storey tower in 1880.
Outside the city centre are two other prestigious schools in Geelong from late in the 19th century –the Catholic Sacred Heart College in Newton and the former Presbyterian Geelong College. The main two storey Gothic buildings and chapel in Talbot Street Newton were designed by architects Davidson and Henderson in 1871 next to an 1860 building. Additions in 1873 and later have produced an outstanding college campus. The college began as a boy’s boarding school in 1861 and now offers co-education boarding. Presbyterian Girls College opened in 1920 in a grand house called Morongo in Newton which was built in 1860. This college amalgamated with Geelong College in 1994. Sacred Heart College for girls is in Retreat Road Newton. It was established in 1860 by the Sisters of Mercy from Dublin. The early school and chapel remained largely unchanged. The architect was T Kelly.
Early church services for Catholics, Methodists and Presbyterians were held in private homes and it took a few more years to build churches. The first church in Geelong appears to have been St Andrews Presbyterian Church in Yarra Street which for many years has been a Lutheran Church. Its foundation stone was laid in March 1841 and the simple Georgian style church opened as Scot’s Presbyterian in July 1842. It was changed to St Andrews Presbyterian in 1858. The current two storey classical façade was added in 1912 after it closed as a Presbyterian Church in 1911 and became a Scots Hall. It was purchased by the Lutherans in 1946. This heritage listed church is the first Presbyterian Church in Geelong and the oldest still standing in Victoria and the oldest Victorian church outside of Melbourne. The Catholics built an early church also in Yarra Street in 1842 which was demolished in 1872 when the nave of the current St Mary’s Church was completed. Work began on St Mary’s in 1854. Work continued on the current St Marys Basilica Church until it was completed in 1937. This grand cathedral like church with three towers and a huge rose window is befitting of Victoria’s second city. A fine two storey Catholic Presbytery is next to the church. Below the Catholic Basilica towards the harbour is the old Wesleyan Methodist Church which is now the Uniting Church and the two storey Methodist manse. This Wesleyan Church was built in 1845 but there is little of the early church visible from the street except the four partition mullion window on the street facing gable of the nave. There are several late 19th century additions around this 1845 nave. The oldest continuously used Anglican Church in Victoria is Christ Church Anglican Church in Moorabool Street. An early chapel school room was built around 1840 and it still stands on the site but the architect Edmund Blacket of NSW had work start on the church proper in 1843. It opened in 1847 with a nave and tower. It was enlarged with a transept which was completed in 1855. The spire on the tower was added later. Much of the sandstone, especially the buttressed are weathered in places.
Surprisingly Geelong also had a break away or Reformed Church of England congregation which built the magnificent Trinity Church on la Trobe Terrace in 1858. The church closed around the turn of the century and in 1907 it became the Churches of Christ Church, which it still is. It is the only independent Anglican Church known in Victoria and possibly in Australia. Almost next door to it in La Trobe Terrace and Myers Street is yet another Free Presbyterian Church built in 1858 which is now painted blue. Next to it is an earlier church and later church hall built in 1854. The Free or Reformed Presbyterians built quite a few churches in Geelong including a small church in 1862 in Fenwick Street. Almost next door to that church the Baptists built their early church around 1860 (with a raised roof) and a
later church in 1911. But the biggest Free Presbyterian Church in Geelong was built in 1861 in Gheringhap Street in basalt with sandstone quoins which are now badly weathered. Next door they began a Presbyterian school in 1854. Two school rooms of that early school remain. The church closed in 1977 with the formation of the Uniting Church but its magnificent mullion stained glass window in the gable by Ferghuson and Urie has been preserved. The main Presbyterian Church, St George’s in La Trobe Terrace was built in 1861. Behind it is a superb basalt two storey manse. The church closed in 2011 and is now vacant. By 1900 there were six Presbyterian churches in central Geelong including the Ryrie Street church of 1858 which is now incorporated into a modern building façade at 12 Ryrie Street. The Jewish community acquire land for a synagogue in 1851 in Yarra Street but they did not build a synagogue on it until 1861. It closed as a synagogue in 1984. There were Baptist, Congregational, Primitive Methodist and other Presbyterian churches in the town. Many have now been demolished but several (Catholic, Presbyterian and Anglican) still exist near the railway station. Although not a church the Protestant Hall erected in 1888 at 61 Yarra Street is worthy of mention. Conflict between Protestants and Irish Catholics in Victoria was always an issue and a lodge purely for Protestants was seen as appropriate in those times. In 1882 a Protestant Hall was built in Melbourne for the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society with the support of Orange Lodges. The Protestant Hall in Geelong survived until closure in 2013. It was basically a pro-British Empire association run by the Protestant Alliance Friendly Society which provided insurance for funerals and the like with an emphasis on loyalty to the Crown and Empire. Other lodge organisations including the Loyal Corio Lodge used the Geelong Protestant Hall for their meetings and the Protestant Alliance raised funds for the Geelong hospital and other charitable organisations. By the 1920s there were Protestant Halls in Mildura, Shepparton, Ballarat and several Melbourne suburbs.
