In the early s the colony's first political party, the Australian Patriotic Association and their London lobbyists Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer MP and Charles Buller MP, were working to amend the colonial constitution to make government more representative and ensure that emancipists had the same political rights as free settlers.
This was an unworkable solution as few members could afford to spend long periods in Sydney when the legislature was sitting. And with only a quarter of the representation, they were easily outvoted by the northern district members. The New South Wales colonists, however, resented the fact that the new constitution was in essence a reworking of the unsuccessful model the Colonial Office had tried to introduce in New Zealand.
In he used this report as the basis for a Bill that was introduced to the British Parliament without waiting for comments from FitzRoy or the colonists. It took more than a year and required some amendments but the Australian Constitutions Act received royal assent on 5 August News reached Melbourne on 11 November and celebrations coincided with the opening of the new Princes Bridge over the Yarra River, the finance for which had been an ongoing point of contention between the district and the New South Wales legislature.
There was an official four-day holiday to celebrate the birth of the colony. It took the New South Wales Parliament another seven months to establish the Legislative Council for the new colony, which came into existence on 1 July , a date celebrated with an annual holiday in Victoria until supplanted by Federation in and later by the celebration of Australia Day.
By 30 June the Gold Discovery Committee had received mineral specimens from the towns of Clunes and Castlemaine that were confirmed to be the precious mineral, and the Victorian gold rushes that would transform Victoria had begun.
With astonishment, they watched as men disembarked - typical gold-seekers, complete with blankets, miner's pans and spades and firearms; and it is estimated that within a few weeks, over 20, had landed. The gold rush was on in earnest and the quiet of Victoria shattered forever. Overnight, as it were, a city of tents sprang up around the fort and quickly spread out over both sides of James Bay.
While the great majority of these people were only transients, the rush of gold-seekers on the way to the diggings on the Fraser River suddenly transformed "Fort Victoria" from a sleepy village into a bustling commercial centre. With the discovery of gold on the Fraser and Thompson Rivers on the mainland, and in consequence of the ensuing "rush," the Crown Colony of British Columbia was inaugurated at Fort Langley on November 19, , with the subsequent decision to "lay out and settle the site of a city to be the capital of British Columbia on February 14, , at New Westminster.
In , government buildings were constructed at James Bay, south Fort, and christened "The Birdcages. The formal opening took place on February 10, , when Lieutenant Governor R. MacInnes drove up in his carriage to open the first session of the Provincial Legislature to be held in the new buildings. With the waning of the gold excitement, the continued separate existence of the Crown Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia became costly and impractical.
It became effective at noon on November 19, , when it was proclaimed simultaneously in the two capitals. In Victoria, there was no rejoicing, and in New Westminster only a "small knot of people" gathered in front of the government offices to hear the Acting High Sheriff of British Columbia, J.
Homer, read the proclamation. Not a cheer was raised. There were treaties and agreements with neighbouring Mobs and Clans who lived in a generally peaceful, well-functioning and stable society. They arrived in the Bay on October 3rd but were immediately disappointed in the landscape. He was soon discovered by a group of Wadawurrung people who took him in and cared for him.
Image Source: Culture Victoria. In , Major Thomas Mitchell led an expedition to the region from Sydney arriving at Portland in August , when he arrived he found a small but prosperous Gunditjmara community living off the fertile land.
Colonists launched a war against local Mob in order to invade their Country. There were representatives of the Crown and there were also a group of powerful and wealthy businessmen who wanted to steal and exploit Aboriginal lands in order to make money in the colony.
They were often allied with squatters, who were people who occupied Aboriginal or Crown land to graze livestock without a legal claim to that land. This alliance of businessmen and squatters became a powerful force in the 'Victorian' colony, forming political parties and having a strong voice in the media. Their jobs however were insignificant as the squatters and farmers were encouraged by the government and powerful figures in the colony to take whatever land they wanted from the Aboriginal people in spite of what these 'protectors' said.
This led to dispossession and a lot of violent conflict as the Aboriginal people fought back to keep their traditional lands from the invaders.
Victoria's first vineyard was established at Yering Station near Yarra Glen. Gold was discovered in Clunes which sparked discoveries elsewhere in Victoria, resulting in a gold rush and a period of huge population growth and prosperity as immigrants arrived from all over the world to search for gold. As Melbourne was the country's largest city at the time, it became Australia's temporary capital while a new national capital city was planned and built.
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