rose,
shamrock & thistle - 1835 ‘John Batman
- Irish Town - Mary Cora Negri’
Darebin’s Australians: Immigrants to Citizens
In 1788, the British began the colonization of Australia. Captain
Phillip landed with his cargo of freesettlers & convicts from
the gaols of England. Harsh social conditions in England, Scotland
and Ireland also forced many to migrate to Australia. Many Irish
came to the colony forced out by British rule & the potato famine.
In 1835, John Batman accompanied by 3 white assistants & 6 New
South Wales aborigines sailed into Port Phillip Bay looking to trade
goods for land. It was by the banks of a creek in present day Darebin
that he met Billibellary & other Wurrundjeri Elders. Kulin displacement
had begun. In 1836 the British Colonial administrator Captain Lonsdale
‘opened up the district’. Darebins first immigrants
where predominantly British, Irish & Scottish. Land for farms
was sold in Northcote in 1839. Irishtown, later to become Preston
was settled in the 1850’s.
THE ROSE, SHAMROCK AND THISTLE HOTEL
In 1854, the year of the Eureka rebellion, Charles Burrell, an ex-convict,
came from Tasmania as a ‘ticket of leave man’ &
opened The Rose, Shamrock & Thistle Hotel in Preston. Many of
the publicans to follow would be female. Women publicans abound
through Darebin’s history. Almost half the pubs in pre WW2
Darebin were run by women. Often you would get a succession of women
publicans, Claire Wright in her book “Beyond the Ladies Lounge”
a history of women publicans, suggested that they had a girls network’
letting them know when a license was becoming available. Women were
encouraged by the liquor licensing authority as they gave hotels
respectability. Miss Sara A Oliver, Miss Jane Gordon, Mrs Mary Murphy
& Elisabeth Pretty ran the pub between 1889-1905. Mrs Mary Cora
Negri born Mary Miliken, took over the license in 1927 and ran the
pub for 28 years until 1955, little was written about her.
She appears to have died in 1971.
