Geelong
Geelong is a port city of approximately 152,000 people located on Corio Bay, 80 kilometres south-west of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. It is Victoria's second largest city. Despite its proximity to Melbourne, it remains physically and psychologically separate from its much larger neighbour, with many kilometres of undeveloped farmland, as well as independent local media and their own AFL club (the Geelong Football Club). However, it is perhaps the pungent stench of the Werribee sewerage treatment facility located approximately half-way along the Melbourne-Geelong road that has been the true barrier to development between the cities.The town's major industries include the Shell oil refinery and the Ford Motor Company's engine plant.
Geelong is becoming well known within Australia for its emerging music scene; it is proudly called home by many of Australia's up and coming musicians.
The nearby town of Torquay, Victoria is also the location of many surfing equipment and clothing manufacturers, as well as some of Australia's finest surf beaches. Along the coastline to the west is the Great Ocean Road.
Foundation
The first non-aboriginal person recorded as visiting the Geelong region was Lt. John Murray, who commanded the brig Lady Nelson. After anchoring outside Port Phillip Heads (The narrow entrance to Port Phillip Bay, onto which both Geelong and Melbourne now front) on 5 Jan. 1802, he sent a small boat with six men to explore. Lead by John Bowen they explored the immediate area, and on reporting favourable findings, they explored further, and eventually stayed in the area for about a month. During this time, Murray claimed the area for England and gave the name ‘Port King’ (after Philip Gidley King – Governor of New South Wales) to what is now Port Phillip Bay. Governor King later renamed the bay Port Phillip Bay, after the first governor of Australia.
The next visit to the Geelong area, apart from a short-lived settlement on the far side of the bay in 1803/4, was by the explorers Hume and Hovell. They reached Corio Bay – the area of Port Phillip Bay that Geelong now fronts – on 16 Dec. 1824, and it was at this time they reported that the Aborigines called the area ‘Corayo’, with the bay called ‘Jillong’.
In March 1836, three squatters – David Fisher, James Strachan and George Russell – arrived on the Caledonia and settled the area. By 1838, when Geelong (By this time the Aboriginal names for the land and water had somehow been swapped) was first surveyed, the population was 545. There was already a church, hotel, store and wool store; and by 1841, the first wool had been sent to England. A regular steamer service was also running between Geelong and Melbourne, and a newspaper – the Advertiser – had been established.
By 1850, buoyed by the gold rush, Geelong was the fifth largest town in Australia, but as the gold petered out, so did Geelong. In the period leading up to The Great War, Geelong’s former nickname ‘The Pivot’ (symbolizing how Port Phillip’s trade revolved around Geelong) was degraded by the Melbourne press to ‘Sleepy Hollow’; the population remaining below 100,000 until the 1960’s.
