Healesville - Culture and History

The area around Healesville was originally occupied by the Yarra Yarra or Wurrundjeri Aboriginal group who were settled at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Reservation on Badger Creek, 5 km south of the town, from 1863. This reservation, and others created around the same time, became infamous with many Aborigines dying through disease and maltreatment. In 'The Kurnai of Gippsland' Authors Phillip Pepper and Tess De Araugo report that by 1881 'the death rate was so high on all the Aboriginal reserves throughout Victoria that there was serious talk of closing ... Coranderrk ... where there were not enough healthy men to work on the farms'.

This was confirmed by a letter which appeared in The Age on 22 September 1886 which was a petition drawn up the people at Coranderrk and presented to the Chief Secretary of Victoria by Barak and Punch, two of the oldest and most respected Aborigines in the community. It read: 'We wish to ask for our wishes, that is could we get our freedom to go away shearing and harvesting, and come home when we wish, and also to go for the good of our health when we need it; and we aboriginals all wish and hope to have freedom, not to be bound down by the protection of the board ... There is only a few blacks now remaining in Victoria. We are all dying away now, and we blacks of aboriginal blood wish to have our freedom for all our lifetime, for the population is small, and the increase is slow.'

In 1922, with their numbers greatly depleted, the mission was closed and the remnants of the Yarra Yarra people were moved to Lake Tyers in Gippsland. Today, as far as can be determined, there are no Yarra Yarra people left. Barak, referred to by some sources as 'the last king of the Yarra Yarra tribe' and a person reputedly at the meeting between Aboriginal leaders and John Batman in which Batman 'bought' Port Phillip, died in 1903 and is buried in the Coranderrk Aboriginal cemetery in Picaninny Rd (which runs off the Healesville-Koo-wee-rup Rd) to the south of town.

The first pastoralist took up a run in the area in 1839. However, there was no settlement to speak of when a party from Melbourne, dissatisfied with the existing route, blazed a new trail to the booming Woods Point goldfield c.1860 (see entry on Jamieson). This track passed by a little to the north of the present site of Healesville. A few lodging houses, a blacksmith's and a mining warden's office were established at a settlement known as New Chum Creek which served the needs of the peripatetic diggers. Two hotels were established 8 km further east along the route, at Fernshaw.

In 1863 a new road to Woods Point was surveyed, passing through land full of wild clematis, Christmas bush and eucalyptus trees. A townsite was surveyed in 1864 and named after Richard Heales, the Victorian premier from 1860-61 who had died that same year. This township initially developed on the back of the Woods Point miners. Shops began to emerge and timbercutters, who would prove important to the area's economy in the early days, started to arrive as New Chum Creek was abandoned.

In 1865 town lots were sold and the first local pub and sawmill were built. The following year saw the construction of both the district's first school and a police station. A small building constructed of palings was erected in 1869 to serve as an Anglican church. A more substantial church building was erected in the early 1870s in the town's main street for the use of all Protestant denominations.

As returns at Woods Point declined some of the miners decided to settle at Healesville. They turned to farming, fruit-growing and hop-growing. By 1873, 324 ha had been cleared for grazing and 60 ha for wheat.

With the ongoing improvement of the roads, Cobb & Co established a coach service from Healesville over Black Spur to Maryland in the late 1870s.

The arrival of the railway in 1889 enabled the development of Healesville as a tourist attraction and the first guesthouses emerged at this time. The New Chum area was opened for selection in 1892 and 809 ha of the old Coranderrk Mission were resumed two years later for selection. The area experienced a recession at the turn of the century as a result of competition from Tasmanian hops and owing to a ban on the timber industry in the water catchment area at Fernshaw.