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| The forests of the Werribee Gorge with the basalt plateau and the old volcanic peak of Mount Blackwood in the distance. |
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| Photo by Mike Daffey, 1999. |
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| Mount Cotrell near where the squatter Charles Franks and a shepherd were speared to death in July 1836, by the traditional owners of the river country. |
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| Photo by Jenny Lee, 1999. |
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As the largest stream on the long plain west of Port Phillip Bay, what is now called the Werribee River was visited by maritime explorers from the south and overlanders from the north. In the process, it was given at least four different names.
Hamilton Hume and William Hovell camped by the river on 15 December 1824 and named it the Arndell after Hovell's father-in-law. Hovell caught two eels, and commented favourably on the surrounding country in his journal.Though the party did not see any Aboriginal campsites on their flying visit, they noted that the grasses around had been burnt off.
Eleven years later, John Helder Wedge 'discovered' the river again. At first he called it the Peel, but he soon gave up that idea. Another name he used was the Ex or Exe. This survived into the early years of white settlement, and was passed on to Exford, a crossing place on the river. But a Watha wurrung man from Geelong who accompanied Wedge told him the local name for the stream, which Wedge rendered as 'Weariby Yallock' ('yallock' meaning 'stream'). Later spelt Werribee, this became the official name, and also the name of the main town on the river.
According to Wedge's informant, the name meant 'spine' or 'backbone' - an apt term for a river that occupies such a central place in its landscape. The Werribee rises in the high country near Daylesford and flows through a deep gorge before it meets the basalt plain. At its mouth is a broad delta, suggesting that in earlier times the river flooded over a much wider area than it does now. In recent times its flow has been depleted by the demands of irrigated horticulture around Bacchus Marsh and elsewhere.
Frontier conflicts
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| The peaceful Werribee River, as it was c. 1882 at Werribee Park, long after the the traditional landowners, the Watha Wurrung people, had been displaced. |
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| Photo by Fred Kruger (1831-1902), contributed by the La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria. |
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The land along the river was quickly occupied when the pastoral invasion of Port Phillip began in 1835. The first squatters were members of John Batman's Port Phillip Association: Wedge's nephew, Charles, was on the river with 2600 sheep by November 1836. The region soon became the scene of fatal conflicts between the white intruders and the Watha Wurrung. In July 1836 the squatter Charles Franks and a shepherd were speared to death near Mount Cottrell. The incident sparked a panic. Practically the whole European population turned out for the funeral, and the squatters swore to take revenge.
Eight Europeans set out, including John Batman, his brother Henry and J. T. Gellibrand, accompanied by four Aboriginal men from Sydney and five 'domesticated natives of Port Phillip', all armed with muskets. They came across a group of between fifty and a hundred Aboriginal men, women and children. It was claimed that the whites fired indiscriminately, killing at least ten people, but the members of the punitive expedition later denied this. No-one would own up to having shot to kill.
During the investigation of Franks's death, one witness said that he had 'a great aversion to the native blacks, and would not give them food'. This would obviously have been a source of friction at a time when sheep were overrunning the best parts of the country. Later, Robert von Steiglitz recalled hearing Franks refer to his bullets as 'blue pills for the natives'.
Such attitudes were widespread. A chilling insight into the practices of the time came from one of Charles Wedge's sons, who told a newcomer to the district in the late 1840s that things had quietened down after the local Watha wurrung 'stole a bag of flour containing arsenic; their yells could be heard a mile off'.
Copyright Imagine The Future Inc. and Australian Film Commission, 2002.
Text by Jenny Lee for ITF.
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