All That Taz – the Beginning of Melbourne in Tasmania

The convicts could have never imagined Tasmania today. But then again, even with the wonderfully preserved historic sites, we can hardly imagine Tasmania back then.

On our arrival in Launceston we checked into the Batman Fawkner Inn. I had not known that the Batman Fawkner Inn was itself a historic relic.  The owner John Pascoe Fawkner built the Batman Fawkner Inn, formerly known as the Cornwall, in 1824.  John Fawkner was the son of a convict.  He and his family accompanied his father’s transportation to Australia, and ended up settling down in Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) in 1804.

Fawkner experienced some difficulties in his early life.  He received lashings and a sentence of hard labor for an offense.  He then made his way to Launceston. There Fawkner gradually developed successful businesses in hotel, coaching services, newspaper publishing, sawyering and horticultural nursery. In 1835, he sailed to the southern coast of the mainland looking for a new settlement. He moored in Port Philip, in what is now Melbourne. Thereafter he also discovered the Yarra River.

On the other hand, John Batman was born in Australia and he started out as a grazer in Tasmania. When the land of Tasmania no longer yielded the pastures he needed for his livestock, he looked to the southern coast of the mainland for another settlement.

Also in 1835, he sailed to Port Philip. Although historians contested this account, it became known that he signed a treaty with the Wurundjeri Aboriginals to acquire land for his own settlement. Some would say that this was the first  (and only) documented account of the European settlers negotiating for occupancy of Aboriginal lands. Batman died, however, in 1839, and that left Fawkner to rise and become the earliest preeminent citizen of Victoria.

Fawkner and Batman negotiated some of the settlement arrangements in Melbourne at the Cornwall in 1835. The hostel proudly displays this fact at its reception area, “A meeting held here resulted in the foundation of the City of Melbourne.”

The Batman Fawkner Inn remains the oldest hotel that is trading at its original site in Launceston. The site acquired its current name in tribute to both Batman and Fawkner in 1981.  Now it markets itself as a budget accommodation. Finally, just a fun point to note, the Inn is said to be haunted as well.

Works Cited:
Cornwall Hotel, The Companion to Tasmanian History.
Foundation of Melbourne, Wikipedia.
History Behind the Haunted – Batman Fawkner Inn.