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to our shipping is the bar. For years and years application has been made by the inhabitants to
the government for assistance in clearing it away. Not one shilling has been expended,
excepting by the inhabitants, who have paid surveyors'
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expenses time after time. Their work hangs in an office, and the bar remains untouched, and is
very iikeiy to remain so for long and many a day. If this bar was removed, and shipping came up
to the town, Geelong must become a place of vast importance. It has a fine harbour, and great
advantages over Melbourne. That most excellent Governor-General Sir R Bourke, made a
choice, and placed Melbourne where it stands. He also visited Geelong. He was delighted with
the place and country; he remained fourteen days, and having confirmed the site of Melbourne, I
suppose he did not wish to alter it. This is to be lamented, for if Melbourne had been placed
where Geelong stands, it would become as beautiful a city as is in the world. The locality is
pleasing, cheerful, beautiful, and healthful, with a fine rising situation; the scenery grand and
magnificent. Melbourne does not possess one of these advantages, lying low, with bad
approaches on every side, Geelong increases but slowly. A few years ago the census gave a
population of seven thousand, but at the present time there must be a population of twenty-five
thousand, which daily increases from all parts of the world.'
It was increased by five on 3 September 1853, when Richard Honeycombs, his wife Elizabeth,
and their first three children disembarked from the Banker's Daughter near Geeiong.
Their ship was twice as big as the Sea Queen, weighed over 1,000 tons and carried 380
emigrants, mainly single women: there were 149 of them between the ages of 14 and 45. She
had sailed from Liverpool on 19 May 1853 and the voyage took 107 days. The Honeycombes
travelled steerage, in circumstances that may be imagined. Many of those who suffered with
them were Scottish: from Fife, Edinburgh, Ayrshire and the Borders. Some were Irish, and
there was a large contingent of servant-girls from Lancashire.
Eight passengers had died on the voyage out, and when the Banker's Daughter tied up at Point
Henry, she was put in quarantine for five days, on account of some fever on board. It could not
have been very bad, probably just the end of an outbreak, as immigration commissioners were
allowed to go on board at the end of that time to inspect the immigrants. Richard and his family,
whether affected or not, survived.
The shipping list notes that Richard was a mason, from Devon, and that he was 32, that his wife
was 30, and their children were 3, 1, and an infant. In fact, he would be 24 that month, his wife
was 31, and the children 4, 2, and seven months. The latter, George William, was born at Leith
in Scotland in February, three months before the ship left Liverpool.
The Banker's Daughter would have tied up among the small forest of masts and rigging at Point
Henry, unabie, like all the larger sailing-ships there, to cross the bar. Small boats could enter the
inner harbour, coming in to the jetty at the foot of Yarra Street or mooring at the new Steam
Packet Wharf, opposite Mack's Hotel, as did the little steamers, Aphrasia and Vesta, that
commuted between Melbourne and Geeiong. There was an insanitary immigration barracks in
Swanston Street. But Richard and his family would have had no need of such
shelter, having a home to go to - nor of the immigrants' tented village at Point Henry.
According to family legend, he already had a job lined up. If so, it must have been as a
stonemason and arranged for him by his father, William, who would also have found Richard
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