History of Sorrento, 1803, The Collins Settlement

History in Sorrento around 1803:

The words on this commemoration monument, located at Sullivan Bay, in Sorrento, are as follows:

THE COLLINS SETTLEMENT - 1803-04

THE PEOPLE OF THE BUNERONG LIVED IN THE MORNINGTON PENINSULA REGION FOR MANY THOUSANDS OF YEARS.

On 9 October, 1803 HMS "Calcutta" under the command of Captin Daniel Woodriff entered Port Phillip Bay carrying David Collins the Lieutenant Governor to the proposed first official European settlement in Victoria. Collins was accompanied by 11 civil officers, 49 officers and men of the Royal Marines, 300 convicts with a total of 41 family members. A contingent of 54 free settlers including families also formed part of the expedition. Stores and provisions for the new settlement were carried on the ship "Ocean" which had arrived two days earlier.

The settlement was to be established to give a British presence in the newly identified Bass Strait, to relieve the pressure on convict numbers in Sydney and to forestall French intentions to colonise the region.

Collins chose the site here at Sullivan Bay for the settlement. Unloading of the supplies and personnel commenced on 12 October, 1803. The settlement lasted on 8 months due to the lack of fresh water and fertile land in the area and was transferred to Van Diemen's Land, the last of the settlement leaving on 20 May 1804.

While at Port Phillip some 11 convicts escaped of whom 4 were recaptured, 6 are presumed to have perished and one, William Buckly, remained at large for 32 years witht he Aborigines. Other than the convicts who perished after escaping there were 19 deaths; 15 convicts, settler John Careys Skelthorn, Private Thomas Hoge and babies Sarah Fletcher and Ann Wiggins. Most of these were burried by Rev. Robert Knopwood in a small cemetery somewhere near the settlement! William James Hobart Thorne was born 25 November, 1803, Elizabeth Ingle on 14 April 1804, and convict Richard Garrett married Hannah Harvey on 28 November, 1803.

This monument is to commemorate the bicentenary of that settlement and all of the people who landed here in the first attempt to colonize the Port Phillip District.

This plaque is also located at the Sullivan Bay site and has the following words:

A Sullivan Bay boy

Strange was the destiny of an 11 year old boy who arrived at Sullivan Bay in October 1803 on board the Calcutta with his convict father, his mother and his young sister.

With the rest of the settles, he and his family moved in 1804 to Van Diemen's Land, where he grew up and was himself convicted for helping convicts escape.

He married and became a businessman in Launceston.

In 1835, he bought the schooner Enterprise to cross the Bass Strait and settle on the Yarra River.

He was JOHN PASCOE FAWKNER, 'Father of Melbourne'.

Another plaque at the Sullivan Bay site.

The Wild White Man

Of the twenty seven convicts who absconded from the Sullivan Bay Camp, twenty returned. Of the seven escapees, who remained at large, presumed dead, incredibly one reappeared in 1835 at Indented Head on the Bellarine Peninsula, where Batman's party was encamped.

He was William Buckley, brick layer and former soldier in the King;s Own Regiment. Convicted in 1802 of stealing two peices of Irish cloth (8 shillings), he was transported for life.

Buckley had lived with the Wathaurung people for 32 years. From 1835, he acted as an intermediary between the white settlers and the Aboriginal people, before leaving for Hobart in 1837. He died there in 1856, aged 74.

The Australian phrase, "You've got Buckley's chance" (meaning "no chance") probably originated from the unlikely survival of William Buckley.