She was the daughter of one John Duff, and was married to James Gilbert, blacksmith. The Gilberts were pioneer settlers who disembarked on the banks of the Yarra River and set up camp on 30 August 1835. The schooner Enterprize, owned by John Pascoe Fawkner, had brought them and other settlers from Launceston, Tasmania, where she had married James at the age of eighteen.
The initial landing party included Captain John Lancey, master mariner, the landing party's leader and Fawkner's representative; George Evans, builder; carpenters William Jackson and Robert Hay Marr; ploughman Charles Wise; blacksmith James Gilbert and his pregnant wife, Mary; and Evan Evans, George Evans' servant.
On 29 December 1835, Mary gave birth to her son, James Melbourne Gilbert, the first European child born in the new district. She was given 500 acres (200ha) of land and a town allotment. A life-sized bust of Mary Gilbert can be found at the Conservatory, in the Fitzroy Gardens. The sculpture was created by the Melbourne artist, Ailsa O'Connor (1921–1980).
On 30 April 1837, Mary gave birth to a second son, Charles Phillip Gilbert, also fathered by her husband, James. According to the transcription of her death, two other sons were John and William.
Although James (possibly later known as John) Melbourne Gilbert was not known to have any offspring, his younger brother Charles was known to have fathered at least eight children to his wife Amelia in both Victoria and New South Wales.[citation needed]
She was accidentally burnt to death in a bush fire at South Talbingo, Tumut River, New South Wales, on 20 February 1878, and buried on the Cumberland Range on 24 February that year.
The history of Victoria refers to the history of the Australian state of Victoria and the area's preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies.
The history of Melbourne details the city's growth from a fledgling settlement into a modern commercial and financial centre as Australia's second largest city, Melbourne, in the state of Victoria.
John Batman was an Australian grazier, entrepreneur and explorer, who had a prominent role in the founding of Melbourne.
John Pascoe Fawkner was an early Australian pioneer, businessman and politician of Melbourne, Australia. In 1835 he financed a party of free settlers from Van Diemen's Land, to sail to the mainland in his ship, Enterprize. Fawkner's party sailed to Port Phillip and up the Yarra River to found a settlement which became the city of Melbourne.
The topsail schooner Enterprize, also spelled and illustrated as Enterprise, was built in Hobart, Tasmania in 1830 by William Pender. It was used for coastal transport of cargo such as coal, livestock, and supplies.
Batman's Treaty was an agreement between John Batman, an Australian grazier, businessman and coloniser, and a group of Wurundjeri elders, for the purchase of land around Port Phillip, near the present site of Melbourne. The document came to be known as Batman's Treaty and is considered significant as it was the first and only documented time when Europeans negotiated their presence and occupation of Aboriginal lands directly with the traditional owners. The treaty was implicitly declared void on 26 August 1835 by the Governor of New South Wales, Richard Bourke.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, was a British Army officer, politician and colonial administrator who held governorships in several British colonies during the 19th century.
The city of Melbourne was founded in 1835. The exact circumstances of the foundation of Melbourne, and the question of who should take credit, have long been matters of dispute.
The Port Phillip Association was formally formed in June 1835 to settle land in what would become Melbourne, which the association believed had been acquired by John Batman for the association from Wurundjeri elders after he had obtained their marks to a document, which came to be known as Batman's Treaty.
The following lists events that happened during 1835 in Australia.
John Helder Wedge was a surveyor, explorer and politician in Van Diemen's Land.
Anthony Cottrell was a farmer and one of fifteen investors in the Port Phillip Association. The son of Ellen and William Cottrell, a farmer living in the South Esk County of Cornwall, Tasmania. He immigrated to Tasmania in 1824 on the 'Cumberland'. He was to later befriend John Batman and John Charles Darke, fellow Tasmanian investors and move to Port Phillip on the Yarra River in 1835 as one of the original settlers in what was to become Victoria. He later returned to Tasmania. He is officially remembered in the name of a hill and an outer western Melbourne suburb, Mount Cottrell, near Melton.
The Melbourne central business district is the city centre and main urban area of the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, centred on the Hoddle Grid, the oldest part of the city laid out in 1837, and includes its fringes. The Melbourne CBD is located mostly in the local government area of the City of Melbourne, which also includes some of inner suburbs adjoining the CBD, while a small section extends into the City of Port Phillip.
Melbourne Day is an annual celebration to mark the founding of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia, on 30 August 1835.
John Cotton was a British poet, ornithological writer and artist, who became an early pastoral settler in Victoria, Australia.
Ocean was an English merchant ship and whaler built in 1794 at South Shields, England. She performed two voyages as an "extra" ship for the British East India Company (EIC) and later, in 1803, she accompanied HMS Calcutta to Port Phillip. The vessels supported the establishment of a settlement under the leadership of Lt Col David Collins. Calcutta transported convicts, with Ocean serving to transport supplies. When the settlers abandoned Port Phillip, Ocean, in two journeys, relocated the settlers, convicts and marines to the River Derwent in 1804.
Joseph Potaski, or John Potaskie, was the first Pole to settle in Australia, and one of the first convicts to arrive in Van Diemen's Land on Ocean. Joseph Potaski worked hard to establish himself as a successful farmer in colonial Hobart. This was, however, undone by the exploits of his family. Joseph Potaski reflects the attitudes of those convicts who never progressed beyond their criminal past. Potaski is seen as representing the auspicious beginning of the Polish community in Australia.
Agnes Busby was an early European settler in Australia and New Zealand married to James Busby, the first British Resident of New Zealand.
Ailsa Margaret O'Connor was an Australian artist specialising in sculpture and painting in the style of realism. Following her belief that art and artists cannot be separated from questions of society and politics, she was an activist against social injustice in Australia and abroad, and particularly against suppression of the rights of women.
Fawkner's Hotel was the first hotel in Melbourne, Australia. It was built and run by John Pascoe Fawkner, one of the founders of Melbourne. The business operated, from two successive locations, between 1835 and 1839.
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