Cleaning Up

Taming the River

Then and Now

Melbourne is a city shaped by water. The choice of site for Melbourne was determined by the location and characteristics of the Yarra River. The availability of fresh water above rocky falls at a place on the river ten kilometres from its mouth persuaded John Batman in 1835 that ‘this will be the place for a village’.

Any commercial settlement in the early nineteenth century needed fresh water to drink, and salt water upon which to float its trading ships, so from the beginning colonists looked to the Yarra as a vital resource. Robert Hoddle soon pegged out his city grid to align with its course.

The river’s naming is credited to JH Wedge, surveyor for Batman’s Port Phillip Association. Wedge’s notebook recorded the name ‘Yarrow Yarrow’, a rendering of ‘Yarra Yarra’ (he later conceded that he had confused the Aboriginal term for rapids or waterfalls with the name of the river itself). The Aboriginal peoples knew the river as Birrarung.