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(1840); a post office; a court house; three banks; five churches (two of which were
Presbyterian); a fire station; two theatres (the Victoria and the Theatre Royal); a Mechanics
Institute, an Oddfellows Hall, a customs house, a barracks, some small factories, mills, several
hotels, many
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church and private schools, and dozens of shops. A jetty and wharf were also built. Most of the
commerciai businesses congregated near Market Square, spreading up Yarra and Moorabool
Streets, and along Corio Terrace (later Brougham St), Corio, Malop and Ryrie Streets, and the
streets between.
Most of these streets were iil-defined as such, without pavements and denuded of trees. As in
all pioneer towns, dust flew about in summer, and in the winter, horse and bullock wagons and
drays bogged down in the mud.
As prosperity and the population increased in the 1840s so did prostitution and poverty. The
various churches and friendly societies tried to deal with the latter, while most of the towns-
people sought entertainment in hotels and at the theatres, at concerts, soirees and balls, at the
racecourse, at the regatta and the Corio Cricket Club. Sea-bathing was also popular.
On 9 February 1850, the newly elected Town Council of Geelong met for the first time, in the
Royal Hotel in Malop St, and Dr Alexander Thomson, aged 49, became the town's first Mayor.
Fred Champion's house in Corio St was rented for a year as Council Chambers for £50, after
which Captain Foster Fyan's house in Yarra Street was so used until the Town Hall was built in
1856.
There was much cause for congratulation at that first meeting of the Council in 1850. A town
now stood where none had existed 12 years before; Geelong's exports, mainly wool, sheep,
salted mutton, tallow and sheepskins, now exceeded Melbourne's in value by £100,000.
Proudly, the town's worthies hailed Geelong as The Commercial Capital' of Victoria. But it
would never become, as Captain Foster Fyans hoped, 'a place of vast importance' and 'as
beautiful a city as is in the world.'
The bar to this happening was exactly that - a sand-bar.
It stretched for three kilometres across the entrance to Corio Bay. There were two channels
through it, marked by buoys. But the deepest, at high tide, was only 13 feet, and large vessels
like clippers and wool ships were prevented from reaching town. They anchored at Point
Henry, at the southern end of the sand-bar. By the time a deeper channel was cut, in 1861, it
was too late. The railways had arrived, and Melbourne's ascendancy was well assured, with a
population more than five times that of Geelong.
Captain Fyans, writing a few years later, in 1854, had some interesting things to say about how
this ascendancy occurred, to the detriment of Geefong.
He said: 'We have four small steamboats between this and Melbourne daily, making fortunes for
their owners; large vessels lie at Point Henry, four miles across the bay; but small vessels, under
300 tons, come to the jetty and discharge. The chief trade of the town until the times changed so
much on account of the gold mania was wool, tallow, and hides. Wool was a considerable item
in the shipments. From 25,000 to 30,000 bales were embarked yearly at Point Henry, in large
ships from 700 to 2,000 tons. But the trade of this place compared with Melbourne is a mere
nothing; our merchants are few, but good honest sterling men; but, suffering as they do, great
discontent prevails. Our ships and our letters generally go first to Melbourne; the only obstacle
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