Timeline

1837

Early attempts to establish a Native Police Corps under the command of Christiaan de Villiers.

1838

Aboriginal Protectorate established by the British Government in London.

1839

De Villiers's Native Police force disbanded. Five Aboriginal constables recruited by the Protectorate to assist in 'controlling' the Aboriginal people they were to administer.

1840

Port Phillip District population estimated at 100,000.

28 December

Newspaper reports that a white woman is being held captive by Aboriginal people in Gippsland. Rumours of sightings continue until 1846, at which time the Native Police are deployed to search for her, unsuccessfully.

1841


Map of the Westernport District
produced for the purposes of the Aboriginal Protectorate by Assistant Protector William Thomas.

1842

January
20 troopers commanded by Henry EP Dana enrolled in the new Native Police Corps.
August
Native Police search for missing woman and two children. They find them wandering in bush near Nerre Nerre Warren.

Two Aboriginal men are the first people hanged in Melbourne.

1844

Two Native Police troopers escort Chief Protector George Augustus Robinson on a seven-month journey in the east of Port Phillip District.

1847

The first overland delivery of mail to Alberton in Gippsland, carried by Native Police. The service expands to include Cape Otway and the Goulburn Valley.

1848

The Native Police search for a shipwreck between Point Nepean and Wilson's Promontory.

1849

The Native Police deployed to patrol the new gold finds.

1850

Native Police assigned to act as guards at Pentridge.

1851

During the early 1850s, colonial artist William Strutt records the Native Police Corps in a series of drawings.

CJ Latrobe sworn in as Superintendent of Port Phillip District.

13 January
Colony of Victoria comes into existence.

6 February
Black Thursday bushfires burn from the vicinity of Melbourne to the South Australian border.

June
Gold discovered at Clunes near Ballarat.
Gold discovered at Forest Creek.

1852

Forest Creek surveyed and renamed Castlemaine.

Princes Bridge over the Yarra opened.


November
Henry EP Dana dies.
Native Police Corps disbanded.

1853

Chinese population of Victorian goldfields reaches 2000.

1854

3 December
Soldiers and police attack the Eureka Stockade.

1855

Population of Victoria reaches 347,305.

July
Introduction of responsible government in the Colony of Victoria.

1880

Aboriginal police trackers recruited from Northern Queensland during hunt for Ned Kelly in north-east Victoria.