Edward Henty landed at Portland Bay and began a permanent pastoral settlement, one of the earliest sustained European footholds in the future Port Phillip/Victoria region (outside later official settlement boundaries).
John Batman’s party sailed into Port Phillip and began reconnaissance that soon fed into attempted land acquisition and settler moves toward the Yarra River area.
Batman met Wurundjeri and Boonwurrung elders and signed a deed purporting to purchase a vast tract around Port Phillip—later treated by colonial authorities as invalid, but historically notable as a rare documented attempt at negotiated occupation.
A party from Van Diemen’s Land backed by John Pascoe Fawkner disembarked and began building and cultivation on the Yarra, marking the start of the Melbourne settlement that became the district’s main town.
In response to rapid, often unauthorized settlement, the New South Wales government established the Port Phillip District as an administrative division and appointed Captain William Lonsdale as police magistrate/chief agent.
Charles Joseph La Trobe was appointed Superintendent, becoming the senior resident official and a key figure in district administration and the later push toward separation.
The UK Parliament’s Australian Constitutions Act 1850 (also known as the Australian Colonies Government Act) received Royal Assent, providing the legal basis to separate Port Phillip from New South Wales and create the Colony of Victoria.
Confirmation that separation legislation had passed reached Port Phillip, prompting major celebrations and public holidays in Melbourne months before the legal commencement date.
Separation took effect on this date: the Port Phillip District was partitioned from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria under the 1850 Act.
James Esmond and party found payable alluvial gold near Clunes, widely treated as the first officially recognised Victorian discovery that helped trigger the colony’s gold-rush phase.
A discovery at Specimen Gully is memorialized locally as an early Mount Alexander goldfield find, part of the sequence of discoveries that soon made Mount Alexander/Castlemaine a major rush site.
Thomas Hiscock discovered gold near Buninyong, publicised via the Geelong press; prospectors soon fanned out, contributing to rapid escalation of gold-seeking in central Victoria.
Gold discoveries at Poverty Point (near today’s Golden Point) are commonly cited as sparking the Ballarat gold rush, which rapidly became central to Victoria’s gold economy and migration surge.
Port Phillip District, separation and Victoria's gold rush (1835–1855)
