History & Heritage
The Peninsula enjoys a long and colourful history that took a radically different course with the start of white exploration and the subsequent colonisation and development that ensued. Today there is ample evidence of the early days of white settlement with many historic buildings dotted around the Peninsula’s villages. Remnants of Aboriginal civilisation are much harder to find.
Koori connection
Indigenous Australians lived in The Bellarine region for tens of thousands of years before white exploration and settlement eventually displaced them. The original inhabitants were from the Bengalat Balug clan of the Wathaurong tribe. They had many camps across The Bellarine and moved around on land and along the Barwon River in search of food.
Lady Squatters
Anne Drysdale and Caroline Newcomb - two of the region's most famous pioneering women - formed a partnership to run a large property on The Bellarine, Coriyule in the mid 1800s. Anne Drysdale came to Australia from Scotland in March 1840, for health reasons. She had owned land in Scotland and took up a squatter's licence on property in the Geelong region, at Breakwater. The huge spread covered an area from Connewarre and the Barwon River to Corio Bay. Anne Drysdale soon went into partnership with Caroline Newcomb. The Breakwater property was sold and they purchased the lease on Coriyule in 1843. They went on to buy it and another parcel of property - 1357 acres (550 hectares) in total - in 1848.
Known as the "Lady Squatters", the two had a stone homestead built in 1849. It is still standing today. Anne Drysdale died four years later, at the age of 61, and she was buried in a vault on the property. In 1861, Caroline Newcomb married a Methodist minister, the Rev James Dodgson, and left the area with him three years later when he went on his ministering rounds. Caroline Newcomb died 10 years later, in 1874, in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. She, too, was buried in the vault at Coriyule. When the Rev Dodgson decided to sell the property in 1887, the vault and the women’s bodies were relocated to Geelong’s Eastern Cemetery. Their pioneering efforts are recognised in the naming of the peninsula town Drysdale, and the Geelong suburb of Newcomb.
Batman leads settlement
Early Port Phillip explorers soon noticed its potential for development. That meant farming the land and producing rich clips of wool and other produce, mainly to be exported to England. Lt John Murray sailed into Port Phillip in 1802 in the Lady Nelson and noted its potential. Explorer and navigator Matthew Flinders turned up a few months later on his wide-ranging mapping expedition, landing first at Indented Head on The Bellarine. Flinders and Murray both reported to Governor King in Sydney the suitability of the area for agriculture. King sent a survey party led by Charles Grimes in 1803. Later that year, a settlement, including convicts and free settlers, was tried at Sullivans Cove, on the other side of Port Phillip. It lasted four months, but did become famous for one convict who managed to escape.
William Buckley has gone down in history as the "Wild White Man". After his escape, Buckley wandered over to The Bellarine and spent the next 32 years living with Aborigines. In 1835, Van Diemen's Land grazier John Batman and a bunch of like-minded men led the charge to develop Port Phillip. Desperate for new land, Batman’s expedition landed at Indented Head. He made a treaty of sorts with local natives for most of the land around the bay. Batman met a fellow Van Diemen's Land resident camped near the Yarra River, John Pascoe Fawkner. Fawkner had similar ideas about a new settlement. They managed to agree on who had land rights, even though the government initially refused to recognise their claims. Both have gone down in history credited with founding Melbourne, Victoria's capital city.
Bellarine history
The Bellarine Peninsula name was derived from the town by the same name. Bellarine is a rural locality on the northern side of the Bellarine Peninsula, between Clifton Springs and Portarlington. During the nineteenth century Bellarine was more extensive than today, probably including today's Drysdale. During the 1860s it had an estimated population of 350 persons, and the reduction of its area produced a population figure of around 50 in the 1890s.
A Presbyterian church and a school were established in about 1854. Later there were a Wesleyan church and school (1865) and a mechanics' institute (1858). Mount Bellarine is east of the village.
On 18 September, 1865, the Bellarine Shire was proclaimed. It extended from Boundary Road, Geelong and along the east side of the Barwon River to Ocean Grove, occupying all of The Bellarine except Queenscliff. Other coastal townships included Clifton Springs, Indented Head, Portarlington and St. Leonards. Inland are the Drysdale township and farmlands with good soil for agriculture. The shire's area was 332 square kilometres.
The Bellarine Peninsula's agricultural statistics for 1891-2 are illustrative of its farm crops for several decades to come -
Hay 4,764 acres
Onions 1,984 acres
Peas/Beans 880 bacres
Potatoes and root crops 669 acres
Wheat and barley 643 acres
Market gardens and orchards 141 acres
The Bellarine's industries included creameries, wattle liquor factories and boiling-down works. Cereal crops were phased out when the north Victorian wheatlands were developed.
The Bellarine Shire became a rural city on 12 December, 1989, and Drysdale remained the municipality's administrative centre. On 18 May, 1993, Bellarine Rural City was united with five other cities and parts of two shires to become the City of Greater Geelong.