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And what would now transpire? For a moment, thinking of England and home, they would have
remembered the Lady McNaghten and the Sea Queen, so long their home, their last link with
home, the latter now bereft and empty, benighted and silent out on Hobson's Bay.
Outside, on Flinders Street and Coilins Street and Bourke Street, unfamiliar sounds assailed the
new arrivals, unknown voices in a foreign land.
Many men had already made of nothing a new reality, and given every aspect of the new world,
every piece of nature and of their own creations a name - like Flinders, Collins and Bourke.
These names and others would be commemorated in cities and towns and hamlets as yet
undeveloped and now nothing more than a stretch of native bush.
William and his family, alone in Melbourne that night, wouid never have dreamed, in a hundred
years, that in a hundred years a street many miles away to the north would one day bear their
name.
11. Melbourne and the Three Elizabeths
Although we have no knowledge of the activities of the Honeycombes in their first months in
Melbourne, we know that they were living there until at least the end of 1852.
We also know what the Rev Mereweather was doing, some of the time. And as his views,
impressions, and brief descriptions coincide with the Honeycombes' stay, his diary entries may
still pertain to them.
The day after he left the Sea Queen and settled into the Prince of Waies Hotel, he Galled on the
Anglican Bishop, and the Governor, but found neither at home. He noted that they lived in
'pretty cottages surrounded by grounds and gardens, on the banks of the Yarra.'
Two days later, on 11 July, he was invited to become an honorary member of the Melbourne
Club and dined there that night with a man, unnamed, who introduced him to the club, and six
others. Mereweather was impressed - with the-Club and the town, with where he-was, and
with himself.
He wrote: 'We sat down at six o'clock at a well-appointed tabie, Sighted by many wax-lights,
and we were waited upon by two menservants, one in dress livery and the other out of livery.
At night, as I lay in an excellent bed at the hotel, I couid not help making the following
reflections. Here am I, after a voyage of 13 or 14 thousand miles through the great ocean,
arrived on a vast continent, the existence of which was unknown to the world until 200 years
ago, and which was not inhabited by white men until 62 years ago. More than that, I have been
partaking of an excellent repast, served in a way which would be considered creditable in
London or Paris, in the society of educated and wealthy men, in. a portion of that continent
which was only discovered 17 or 18 years ago, and in a city which 16 years back was a savage
waste, trodden by savage men in chase of the emu and the kangaroo. In this city there are
25,000 inhabitants, surrounded by ali the necessaries and comforts of life; there are well-built
houses; shops filled with everything one can require; two churches, besides chapels; active
ministers of all demoninations; a well-managed custom house, gaol, and post office; numerous
colonial trading vessels clustering at the river quays; whilst at the mouth of the Yarra, by
Williamstown, lie at anchor fourteen or fifteen full-rigged ships. What wonderful civilising
tendencies the Anglo-Saxon race seems to have! Instruments are they of an all-wise providence
to substitute in the remote extremities of the world humanising Christianity for savage paganism,
a pure code of morals for abominable impurities, government for anarchy, peace for bloodshed,
industry for idleness, the certain fruits of agriculture for the precarious yield of the chasei An
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