Wilbraham Liardet

Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet (17 July 1799 – 21 March 1878), was an Australian hotelier, water-colour artist and historian, who was responsible for the early development of Port Melbourne.

[2] The couple had eleven children before 1839 and nine survived: Frank, Fred, Hector, John Evelyn, St. Clere, Josephine Antoinette, Imogen, Leonora and Frances.

The ship spent three weeks anchored in Hobsons Bay near the early township of Melbourne and Liardet decided to settle in the district.

[7] Storey and Davis owned a boat but, in January 1840, when Liardet requested their assistance in unloading supplies he'd brought back from Sydney on the William Metcalfe, they refused.

[7] In response, Liardet bought a whaleboat from the William Metcalfe's captain to unload his goods and then, with the help of his sons, used this to collect mail from ships anchored in the bay.

"[4]Liardet built a rough tea tree jetty[2] and soon gained a publican's license for the 'Brighton Pier Hotel' which operated out of his nearby cottage.

[9] When the governor of Tasmania, Sir John Franklin, visited the Pier hotel in the 1840s, Liardet gave him one of his own artworks depicting a panoramic view of Melbourne.

[1] He started work on a planned illustrated history of Melbourne, and had completed more than 40 sketches, and made initial notes, when he died at his Vogeltown, Wellington residence in 1878.

Roughly chronological, the first included surveyor Darke's first camp, the 'barrel on a pole' that gave 'Sandridge' its name and 'Darke's Ark' in 1837,[11] the second 'the beginning of the brick era'[12] and, finally, 'some happenings' of the 1840s.

[13] In 1988, as part of the Australian Bicentenary celebrations, a memorial to Liardet was erected on Beach Road, Port Melbourne, near Station Pier.

[14] The memorial reads, in part: "Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn LIARDET was acknowledged as the first European settler and Founder of Port Melbourne, (Sandridge) arriving in 1839 with his family.