ABSTRACT
Melbourne was first settled by Europeans in 1835. From modest beginnings as a tent city in what is now the Central Business District (CBD), the city grew rapidly as a result of immigration caused by the gold rush that commenced in the 1850s. In 1851, the Colony of Victoria separated from New South Wales. Other settlements in Victoria had earlier beginnings, usually related to whaling or squatting, but Melbourne’s rate of growth led to its ascendancy. By the 1880s, Marvellous Melbourne (Davison, 1978) was one of the largest and most elegant cities in the Southern Hemisphere. This rapid growth reached its zenith in the land boom of the 1880s which collapsed in the following decade amidst scandals, bankruptcies and defaults (Cannon, 1995).
