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    John Batman Memorial, 1978, by Stanley Hammond, courtesy of City of Melbourne.
    Details

John Batman Memorial

J.W. Brown
Bluestone cairn
Date unknown
Queen Victoria Market

A prosperous Tasmanian farmer, John Batman looked to Victoria to increase his grazing lands. In 1835, Batman made his controversial 'treaty' with Wurundjeri elders and returned to Launceston to make arrangements for the new settlement. On returning to Victoria some months later, he found John Pascoe Fawkner had already settled the site of Melbourne. With his health declining, he settled on Batman's Hill, near the present site of Southern Cross Station. He died of syphilis just four years later in 1839.

Batman was buried in the old Melbourne cemetery (since 1922 the Queen Victorian Market), but no headstone marked his grave. When interest in Batman arose forty years later, it was near impossible to establish his burial place. Once found, a bluestone monument was erected in his memory. In 1922, the cemetery was de-registered and the monument moved to the north bank of the Yarra at Swan Street Bridge. Batman's remains were exhumed and re-interred in the Fawkner Cemetery, named, ironically, in honour his archrival. The monument was later returned to its original site.

City Of Melbourne