Charles Joseph La Trobe was Superintendent of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales from 1839 to 1851 and then Lieutenant-Governor of the new Colony of Victoria from 1851 to 1854. ‘He was a man of a thousand occupations; a botanist, a geologist, a hunter of beetles and butterflies, a musical amateur, a sketcher […]
La Trobe Society Talks
These talks are available for presentation to your organisation. Click on a heading or picture for more information.
La Trobe’s Jolimont – a walk round my garden
Most Victorians are unaware that our first Lieutenant-Governor, Charles Joseph La Trobe, developed a beautiful garden around his 12½ acre Jolimont estate during the nearly 15 years he spent in Victoria. This talk takes you on a tour of the garden using detailed drawings by Edward La Trobe Bateman completed in 1853. The drawings, plotted […]
La Trobe’s First Immigrants: the 1839 Voyage of the ‘David Clark’
The David Clark arrived on 29 October 1839, carrying with it the very first assisted immigrants direct to Melbourne. The talk describes the voyage and the arrival of the vessel, as well as its relationship with Charles Joseph La Trobe who developed contacts with many passengers aboard David Clark. These included William and Agnes Bell […]
John Arthur: Melbourne’s first botanical gardener
In 1846, La Trobe appointed the Scottish horticulturalist John Arthur to establish Melbourne’s Botanic Gardens. Arthur and his family had arrived in the Port Phillip District in 1839 on the David Clark, and soon afterwards established a plant nursery at his leased farm on the Yarra River at Heidelberg, and a shop in Little Bourke […]
The Lady of St Kilda: a link between the Outer Hebrides and the Antipodes
This illustrated talk explains how the Schooner Lady of St Kilda connected La Trobe’s naming of St Kilda in Port Phillip with the amazing remote Scottish island of St Kilda. The early subdivision of the new township of St Kilda is explained and the National Trust property of Killerton in Devon is linked in the […]
Captain ‘Old King’ Cole: from Port Phillip Pioneer to Victorian Patriarch
The talk provides a view of early Melbourne life through Captain George Ward Cole, who arrived in 1840 following a career in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and in the merchant marine. He was prominent in early Melbourne society, controversially marrying into the McCrae family and building one of the first houses in […]