Codrington is a rural locality on Portland Bay in the south-west of Victoria, Australia, on the Princes Highway between Portland and Port Fairy. It is a sparsely populated area; at the 2016 census the district had a population of 52 persons, living in 15 dwellings. [1]
It is the site of Pacific Hydro’s Yambuk Wind Farm [2] and the adjacent Codrington Wind Farm.
Codrington is notable for its wind farms and for being the only township in Australia to be named after a bushranger.
On 29 June 1850 the Portland to Melbourne mail was stuck up by a man with a double-barrelled shotgun near Spring Creek, along Portland Bay between Portland and Belfast (now Port Fairy). The robber took possession of the mailman’s horse and pack-horse with the mail-bags and rode off. Chief Constable Frizzell from Belfast and a local landholder set off in pursuit; they managed to catch the man and locked him in the Belfast watch-house. The robber was described as a stout man, about 6 feet 10 inches in height, and gave his name as 'Codrington Revingstone'. [3] [4] The average height of men born in the United Kingdom in the early 1800s was about 5 feet 6 inches, [5] so a reported height of 6 feet 10 inches would seem to be a gross exaggeration.
Revingstone was committed for trial and on June 27 he was taken aboard the steam coaster Cecilia at Warrnambool for transfer to Melbourne Gaol. While the vessel was lying in Warrnambool Bay Revingstone broke out of his cabin and escaped. On August 8 Revingstone, now well-armed and mounted, bailed up the Portland to Melbourne mail once again, a few miles from the location of the first robbery. The robber told the mailman that the police force was “a set of applewomen”. [6] [4] [7]
On September 9 the following was printed in the Belfast Gazette: “Mr. Revingstone is reported to be quite composedly employed at a saw-mill in the interior convenient to the mail line of road, and says he is occupying his time until he thinks there may be something in the mail worth taking”. [4] On 20 November 1850 the Portland mail was once again robbed by “the notorious Codrington Revingstone”, this time further inland near Mount Sturgeon (north-east of Hamilton township). Revingstone told the mailman he had been waiting three weeks for his opportunity, as on previous occasions the mail-cart had been carrying too many passengers. [8]
The brazenness of Revingstone's taunts and criminal activities eventually prompted action by Government authorities. Charles La Trobe, superintendent of Port Phillip District, offered a reward of 30 pounds for the apprehension of Codington Revingstone. [4] Revingstone responded to this with a letter published in the Belfast Gazette in late November or early December. Calling himself “William Green alias Codrington”, the bushranger asked “does [La Trobe] think any man will be so mean as to inform for his paltry £30” and in turn offered 100 pounds “to any man or woman who will deliver into my hands Charles Joseph La Trobe, and by my word if I get hold of him, I will work the shine out of his ----- carcase”. The letter concluded that the writer was “ready for another turn of the Portland bags, but the beggarly rascals put nothing in them but love-letters; I could tell you some secrets – but honour amongst thieves”. [9]
The area along Portland Bay where Rivingstone committed his first two mail robberies was known locally as 'Codrington's Forest'. The settlement of Codrington that developed in the 1870s was the only township in Australia to be named after a bushranger. [10]
In the 1870s a township close to the coast named Codrington was surveyed on the projected road from Port Fairy to Portland (between Yambuk and Tyrendarra East). The proposed township was named after the surveyed parish in the County of Villiers which had earlier been named Codrington. [11]
A post office was established at Codrington on 19 August 1878. [12] [13]
A road was later built inland and the township of Codrington was never populated.
Codrington Post Office closed in 1966. [13]
Portland is a city in Victoria, Australia, and is the oldest European settlement in the state. It is also the main urban centre in the Shire of Glenelg and is located on Portland Bay. In June 2018 the estimated population was 10,900, having decreased slowly at an average annual rate of −0.03% year-on-year over the preceding five years.
Warrnambool is a town on the south-western coast of Victoria, Australia. At June 2016, Warrnambool had an estimated urban population of 35,214. Situated on the Princes Highway, Warrnambool (Allansford) marks the western end of the Great Ocean Road and the southern end of the Hopkins Highway.
Port Fairy is a coastal town in south-western Victoria, Australia. It lies on the Princes Highway in the Shire of Moyne, 28 kilometres (17 mi) west of Warrnambool and 290 kilometres (180 mi) west of Melbourne, at the point where the Moyne River enters the Southern Ocean.
The Mahogany Ship refers to a putative early Australian shipwreck that is believed by some to lie beneath the sand in the Armstrong Bay area, approximately 3 to 6 kilometres west of Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, Australia. In many modern accounts it is described as a Spanish or Portuguese caravel after the wreck was associated with the theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia by Kenneth McIntyre in his 1977 book The Secret Discovery of Australia. The most recent research has questioned this theory and provided other explanations.
The Portland wind farm is one of Australia's largest wind farms. Located on the coast of south-western Victoria near the city of Portland, it consists of four separate sites, all of which have been completed as of 2015. Completion of the entire 195 MW project was expected in 2011, at a capital cost of A$330 million.
Codrington Wind Farm is a wind farm near Yambuk on the coast of south-western Victoria, Australia. Completed in June 2001, the 18.2MW installation of 14 wind turbines generates 51 GWh annually, for a capital cost of A$30 million by Pacific Hydro being the first fully private investment in a wind farm in Australia. When opened it was Australia's largest wind farm and the first in Victoria.
Daniel Morgan was an Australian bushranger. Morgan has been described as "the most bloodthirsty ruffian that ever took to the bush in Australia" and “one of the most determined and bloodthirsty of colonial freebooters”. Many accounts of his activities, particularly in the years after his death, emphasise his brutality and erratic behaviour but Morgan had many sympathisers and informants in the districts where he carried out his activities. He was an expert bushman with superb horse-riding skills, a combination of abilities which enabled him to evade capture by the authorities for a significant period of time.
The Port Phillip District was an administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales from 9 September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria.
Francis McNeiss McNeil McCallum was a Scottish-born Australian notorious bushranger during the early part of the Victorian Gold Rush in Australia.
The Shire of Belfast was a local government area about 290 kilometres (180 mi) west-southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The shire covered an area of 5,190 square kilometres (2,003.9 sq mi), and existed from 1853 until 1994.
The Borough of Port Fairy was a local government area about 290 kilometres (180 mi) west-southwest of Melbourne, the state capital of Victoria, Australia. The borough covered an area of 22.72 square kilometres (8.8 sq mi), and existed from 1856 until 1994. Its area was surrounded by the Shire of Belfast and the Southern Ocean.
The Warrnambool railway line is a railway serving the south west of Victoria, Australia. Running from the western Melbourne suburb of Newport through the cities of Geelong and Warrnambool, the line once terminated at the coastal town of Port Fairy before being truncated to Dennington. This closed section of line has been converted into the 37 km long Port Fairy to Warrnambool Rail Trail. The line continues to see both passenger and freight services today.
Henry Beresford Garrett was a habitual criminal who served prison sentences in England, Tasmania, Victoria and New Zealand. Born Henry Rouse, he used a number of aliases including 'Long Harry' and Henry Beresford Garrett.
Mark Nicholson was a pastoralist and politician in colonial Victoria, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council.
Thomas Frederick Lowry, better known as Fred Lowry, was an Australian bushranger.
John Foley was a bushranger and associate of Fred Lowry. In July 1863 they robbed several mail coaches, including the Mudgee mail robbery which netted £5,700 in bank-notes. Foley was captured several weeks later with bank-notes from the Mudgee mail in his possession. He was tried at Bathurst and sentenced to fifteen-years hard labour. Foley was released in 1873; he settled in the Black Springs district near Oberon and led a respectable life until his death in 1891.
Lawrence Cummins, known informally as Larry Cummins, was a bushranger who operated primarily in the districts surrounding the Abercrombie River. In July 1863 he participated in the Mudgee mail robbery led by Fred Lowry and John Foley. Soon afterwards Cummins and his younger brother John carried out several robberies. They were identified and John Cummins was apprehended; he was accidentally shot and killed while being escorted by police constables. Three weeks later Cummins was captured with his associate Lowry, in an encounter with the police which resulted in Lowry’s death. Cummins was sent to Berrima Gaol in late 1863, from where he escaped in November 1866 with another prisoner. From December 1866 to April 1867 Cummins carried out a series of audacious robberies. In April, during an attempted robbery of Webb's store on the Fish River in company with John Foran, he received a wound in the face from birdshot. He was captured soon afterwards and sentenced to thirty years hard labour and sent back to Berrima Gaol.
The Eumeralla Wars were the violent encounters over the possession of land between British colonists and Gunditjmara Aboriginal people in what is now called the Western District area of south west Victoria.
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