OLD MELBOURNE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 298, 11 August 1932, Page 3

OLD MELBOURNE

SOME PAGES FROM EARLY HISTORY OF THE CITY. Melbourne has more than once suffered the growing pains of "boom-and-bust'? periods. tiuch a one was described recently at a Melbourne Legacy Club luncheon by Dr. W. A, Sanderson. After convict transportation had been discontinued and free migration 1 had sent the aspirations of early Melbourne soaring, there was a boom in real estate. The crash came in the "forties"; a fall in the price of wool accentuated it, and ihe newly-fledged Town Council was unahle to collect its rates. "Something like modern times," said the speaker, with a rueful smile. The city was named, Dr. Sanderson went on, after the then Prime Minister of England, Lord Melbourne, for it was intended merely as a suburb of the busy port round the Bay, which the wiseacres said would one day he a great city. This port, the hub of all activities, was loyally designated "Williamstown, after the reigning King William IV. Dr. Sanderson repeated the story of the first land sale held in Melbourne. The top price for a block was £95, the bid of a speculator who took a chance on half an aere of land at the corner'of William and Collins Straets. A progenitor of a present wealthy family recklessly bid £18 for the half-acre which now contains the Collins Street "block." Dr. Sanderson did not attempt to assess the value of that half-acre to-day, but more than one of his hearers sigbad with envy of the luck of some people in choosing their progenitors.