Wilbraham Liardet facts for kids
Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet (born 17 July 1799 – died 21 March 1878) was an Australian hotel owner, artist, and historian. He played a very important part in starting and building up the area now known as Port Melbourne.
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Who Was Wilbraham Liardet?
Wilbraham Liardet was born in Chelsea, London, England, on July 17, 1799. His father, Wilbraham Liardet, worked for the Ordnance Department, which makes maps. His family originally came from Switzerland. His mother, Philippa Evelyn, was connected to a famous English writer and gardener named John Evelyn.
Liardet's Early Jobs
Young Wilbraham first joined the Royal Navy and served on a ship called the HMS Pelican. Later, he joined the Army and became a lieutenant in 1825. The next year, he received a large amount of money (about £30,000) as an inheritance. This allowed him to retire from the Army.
In 1821, he married his cousin, Carolina Frederica Liardet. Her father was a Royal Marines officer. Wilbraham and Carolina had eleven children, but only nine of them lived to be adults.
How Liardet Helped Port Melbourne Grow
In July 1839, Liardet and his family sailed to Australia on a ship called the William Metcalfe. They arrived in November of that year. The ship stayed for three weeks in Hobsons Bay, which is close to the new town of Melbourne. Liardet decided that this was where he wanted to live.
He chose an area called Sandridge, which is now Port Melbourne. Before Liardet arrived, a surveyor named William Wedge Darke had made the first path to the beach there. Darke even lived in a wooden caravan pulled by bullocks, which people called 'Darke's Ark'. He also put a barrel on a pole on high ground to show the way back to Melbourne. This is why the area was first called 'Sandridge'.
When Liardet first arrived, there were only two European residents, Storey and Davis, who were fishermen. They lived in a large sugar barrel! In January 1840, Liardet asked them to help unload supplies from his ship, but they said no. So, Liardet bought a small whaleboat from the ship's captain. With the help of his sons, he used this boat to unload his goods and also to pick up mail from other ships in the bay. By August 1840, he had a 'mail cart' that made three trips a day, carrying mail from the ships to the settlement of Melbourne.
Building a Home and a Hotel
The Liardet family first lived in tents they brought from England, and then in a small hut. In April 1840, an English poet named Richard Howitt met the Liardet family after he and his friends missed their boat.
Howitt wrote about how kind the Liardets were:
"A tall, good-looking lady, attended by two children stood, almost before we had perceived them, at our fire. In one hand was a glass of port wine, and in the other a wine glass. 'Here,' said she, 'Hector, hand around the wine.' He did so. The port was especially good; better for the unexpectedness and the courtesy. 'Now, children,' said the mother, 'kindle a good fire on the beach to guide your father from William's Town.' The father, it seemed, had a boat, and was three miles off, which distance he had to come over the water in darkness and often storms. With what alacrity did those children make a large beacon fire; waiting long silently, then shouting welcome as the father came. At our fire, too, the tall, well-made, military-looking father soon presented himself. These people had not been long in the colony, were evidently superior persons, and were industriously supporting themselves and nine children. There needed little apology on their part that want of room only prevented us from being in their hut comfortably accommodated."
Liardet built a simple wooden jetty (a small pier). Soon, he got a license to open a hotel called the 'Brighton Pier Hotel' in his cottage. Liardet wanted the area to be called 'Brighton', but it became known as 'Liardet's Beach' to many, while the official name stayed Sandridge. The hotel grew and was described as a 'magnificent house'.
However, Liardet faced money problems and was declared bankrupt in January 1845. Even though his family continued to run the hotel (the license was given to his son in 1841), Liardet didn't have enough money to buy the hotel land when it was first sold in September 1850. Parts of a larger jetty, also built by Liardet, could still be seen in the 1930s.
When the governor of Tasmania, Sir John Franklin, visited the Pier Hotel in the 1840s, Liardet gave him one of his paintings. It showed a wide view of Melbourne. This painting was later made into a print and sold in London.
Liardet's Later Years
In 1869, Liardet went back to England to try and get an inheritance, but he was not successful. His mother's ancestor, John Evelyn, had given land to the Royal Navy to build their dockyards. The agreement was that if the Navy ever stopped using the land, it would go back to his family. Liardet's son later tried to claim this land too.
For the next few years, Liardet traveled between New Zealand and Melbourne, where his children lived. He started working on a book about the history of Melbourne that would have pictures. He had finished over 40 sketches and made notes when he passed away in 1878 at his home in Vogeltown, Wellington, New Zealand. His wife died four years later in Wellington as well.
In 1913, a historian named A.W. Grieg used Liardet's pictures and notes to write three articles about the early history of Melbourne for a newspaper called The Argus. These articles talked about surveyor Darke's first camp, the 'barrel on a pole' that gave Sandridge its name, and other events from the 1840s.
In 1988, as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations (200 years since European settlement), a special memorial was put up for Liardet on Beach Road in Port Melbourne, near Station Pier. The memorial says that Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet was known as the first European settler and founder of Port Melbourne (Sandridge). It mentions that his family camped on 'Liardet's Beach' and helped by carrying people and mail to and from ships. It also notes that he built Liardet's Pier Hotel and was a water-colour artist who supported the growth of local government.
