LOCAL LEGEND DEBUNKED
Local legend has long held that the tall pine tree situated on the site of the Native Police Depot in the Police Paddocks had been planted by Lady Jane Franklin. Lady Franklin was the wife of Sir John Franklin who was the governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1836 to 1843.
John Franklin joined the Royal Navy in 1800 at the age of 14 and accompanied Matthew Flinders on his voyage around Australia. He later served in the Battles of Trafalgar and New Orleans and led explorations seeking to discover whether or not there was a passage between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans north of Canada. Upon his return to England following his time as governor of VDL he again set out - in 1845 - for Arctic waters to prove the existence of the North-west Passage. In September 1846 the expedition's two ships became trapped in pack ice and by June 1847 twenty five expedition members, including Franklin, had died. The ships were crushed by ice and abandoned in April 1848. Rescue missions sent by the Royal Navy failed to locate any trace of the expedition and it was not until 1859 that a party financed by Lady Franklin discovered the remains of the crew members as well as the written records of their tragic fate.
In the following excerpt Melbourne historian, Dr Marie Fels, shows that it was not possible that Lady Jane Franklin was the person who planted the tree.
LADY FRANKLIN'S TREE
It is not a pleasant task for an historian to demolish a cherished community belief. The present bronze plaque in the Police Paddocks asserts that Lady Franklin planted a pine tree on her visit to Melbourne in 1839, and an existing pine tree on the site is believed to be that tree. Lady Jane Franklin, wife of the Governor of Van Diemen's Land, did visit Melbourne en route from Hobart to Sydney in April 1839. She kept a diary of her journey, as did Dr Edmund Charles Hobson, a member of her party. There was no police station at the Police Paddocks in 1839; de Villiers' 1838 Corps, which was located not at Dandenong but in Captain Lonsdale's paddock in Jolimont, had lapsed more than twelve months before, and the site had not yet been selected for the Westernport Protectorate. Not only was there no police encampment, but there were unlikely to have been many Aboriginal persons at the site. It is apparent from the Journals of the Protectors William Thomas and James Dredge that there were large numbers of Aborigines in Melbourne in the early months of 1839, possibly partly out of a desire to know what the Government proposed in the setting up of the Protectorate to protect them.
On her first day in Melbourne, Captain Lonsdale took Lady Franklin to a corroborree attended by more than 400 Aborigines: her diary states that Mr Robinson (1) got them together. Her diary does not state specifically where this corroborree was held, but she notes that the Protector was living on the other side of the river on an elevation opposite Captain Lonsdale's (that is, on the south side of the Yarra between the present Anderson Street and Punt Road).
Even had there been any Aborigines (not Native Police) at Dandenong for Lady Franklin to visit in the first few days in April 1839, such a visit would have been impossible anyway at that time. The distance was well over twenty miles of rough bush track, the usual route being Melbourne - Brighton - Cheltenham - Damper Flats (2) - Dandenong. This would have been an impossible journey to have made in those days without changes of horses - to Dandenong and back in a day. Lady Franklin's diary does not mention camping out overnight and she could not have covered more than forty miles on horseback and attended a corroborree in one day. All the rest of her time on this short visit is accounted for in her diary. She could not have planted a tree at the Dandenong Police Paddocks on this visit.
It is of interest to note that another name has been associated with this tree that of Lady Stanley. Pasted inside the Dandenong Daybook is a note by Sergeant Crowe, Police Station, South Yarra, who inspected the book on 11 February 1959. Sergeant Crowe wrote that the Stud Depot was established in 1839 and that Lady Stanley placed a commemorative plaque on a pine tree. He gave no date, noting merely that the plaque was removed by vandals.
Given the strength of the oral tradition, the likelihood is that some distinguished female visitor planted a tree at some time at the Police Paddocks.
Footnotes:
(1) George Augustus Robinson was the Chief Protector of Aborigines in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.
(2) Damper Flats was the area now known as Springvale.
This extract is reprinted - with the kind permission of the author - from
Fels, Marie: The Dandenong Police Paddocks - Early use as Native Police Headquarters and Aboriginal Protectorate Station, 1837 - 1853.
A copy of this book is available at the Rowville Library.