Colonial Women 1835-1855

The Women of Early Port Phillip: Convicts, Traders, and Settlers on Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri Country, 1835–1855

MLA Educational Series — Gender, Colonisation, and the Making of Victoria

The early decades of colonisation in Victoria (1835–1855) were shaped as much by women as by the men whose names fill official records. While colonial narratives often celebrated male explorers and squatters, women — both Indigenous and European — played crucial roles in survival, settlement, and cultural adaptation. From convict women like Eliza Batman and Mary Reibey to free settlers like Mary Gilbert and Caroline Newcomb, and from Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri women navigating displacement to Indigenous matriarchs preserving knowledge, their lives reflect both resilience and trauma. This article explores women’s experiences in early Port Phillip, tracing the intersections of gender, class, race, and colonisation across the developing settlements of Melbourne, Geelong, and the Western Plains.

Women on the Frontier: Context and Change

When settlers arrived in Port Phillip in 1835, they entered a world already structured by millennia of Indigenous law and gender balance. In Kulin Nation societies, women held defined but powerful roles as custodians of water, food, and family life, responsible for harvesting murnong (yam daisy), weaving, and educating children in cultural and spiritual law. Their connection to Country was both practical and ceremonial, expressed through songlines and kinship (Broome, 2005). Colonisation disrupted this balance almost immediately. European arrivals brought patriarchal norms that redefined gender along class and racial lines. Settler women were framed as moral guardians of civilisation, while Indigenous women were often marginalised, objectified, or displaced from their lands. On Wadawurrung Country, extending from Geelong to Ballarat and the Moorabool River, women faced the devastation of introduced disease, loss of resources, and violence associated with pastoral expansion. Despite this, Indigenous women maintained knowledge systems, often working as guides, translators, and survivors in the face of massive social upheaval (Clark, 1995).

Convict Women: Survival and Stigma

Convict women were among the first European women to live in Victoria. Many had been transported from Ireland and England for minor crimes, often linked to poverty. They were assigned as domestic servants or labourers, forming the backbone of colonial households. Eliza Batman (née Callaghan) epitomised the convict woman’s struggle. Born in Ireland, transported to Van Diemen’s Land, and later the wife of John Batman, she navigated stigma, motherhood, and social prejudice while helping to establish Melbourne and later Geelong. Her story reflects how convict women were both essential to settlement and marginalised within its hierarchies (Shaw, 1966). Others, such as Mary Reibey, began as convicts but became successful traders and landowners. In early Port Phillip, similar women ran boarding houses, bakeries, and small shops, helping to stabilise volatile frontier economies. Despite official portrayals of them as morally suspect, these women often achieved economic independence — though without recognition or social mobility.

Mary Gilbert: The First Settler Woman of Melbourne

Mary Gilbert is often remembered as the first European woman to live permanently in Melbourne. She arrived in 1835 with John Pascoe Fawkner’s expedition and gave birth to Melbourne’s first white child the following year. Mary’s experience offers insight into settler domestic life. Living in rough huts along the Yarra, she baked bread, tended gardens, and provided care for new arrivals. Yet her life was far from idyllic. Isolated, overworked, and vulnerable to disease and childbirth complications, Mary endured hardship typical of frontier women. Her labour sustained male settlers’ ventures while her personal agency remained restricted by law and convention. Mary Gilbert’s story demonstrates how settler women were celebrated as symbols of domestic virtue, but rarely acknowledged as workers and builders of community (Barwick, 1998).

Caroline Newcomb and the Pastoral Frontier

Caroline Newcomb, a free settler from London, offers a different perspective. She arrived in Van Diemen’s Land in 1833 as a governess and later moved to Port Phillip with missionary Anne Drysdale. Together, they established a pastoral run named Boronggoop near Geelong in the 1840s — one of the earliest farms managed by women on Wadawurrung Country. Their partnership, both personal and professional, challenged gender expectations of the time. They employed local Indigenous people, managed wool production, and hosted community gatherings. Newcomb’s surviving journals describe her respect for the local landscape and its original custodians, though her presence, like that of all settlers, was part of the broader process of dispossession (Broome, 2005). Caroline and Anne’s story also demonstrates that women could be landholders and entrepreneurs within the rigid social structures of the colony.

Indigenous Women: Dispossession and Cultural Survival

For Indigenous women of Victoria — including Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, Taungurung, and Gunditjmara peoples — the impact of colonisation was devastating. Many were subjected to displacement, violence, and exploitation as pastoral expansion spread. Historical accounts, such as those of George Augustus Robinson and William Thomas, record the resilience of Indigenous women who became intermediaries between their communities and colonial officials, often serving as translators or guides (Clark, 1998). Women also sustained cultural practice in secrecy: teaching songs, caring for Country, and maintaining family networks despite mission restrictions and removal policies. The experience of Mary Gilson and Dr Deanne Gilson, Wadawurrung women artists descended from these lineages, continues this tradition through art that explores the deep-time continuity of Wadawurrung women’s knowledge, ceremony, and connection to land. Their paintings layer ochre, textile, and contemporary media to express survival, healing, and sovereignty. Indigenous women artists such as these bridge past and present, reasserting cultural identity in spaces once defined by exclusion.

Marriage, Class, and Law

The colonial legal system defined women primarily through marriage and dependency. Married women had no property rights independent of their husbands, while unmarried or widowed women often struggled to claim land or inheritance. The story of Eliza Batman after her husband’s death illustrates this. Despite her role in helping to establish Melbourne, she was denied property rights and forced into poverty. Laws protecting male ownership mirrored the broader patriarchal structure of empire, where women’s citizenship was conditional. Indigenous women faced additional legal erasure: excluded from testimony in courts until 1876, and subjected to policing and missionary control rather than justice (Reynolds, 1987). Many were forced onto reserves such as Nerre Nerre Warren, Coranderrk, or Framlingham, where matrilineal systems were suppressed under patriarchal mission rules.

Women’s Labour and the Colonial Economy

Women’s economic contribution to early Victoria was both visible and invisible. In Melbourne and Geelong, they ran inns, laundries, schools, and market stalls. They brewed beer, tanned hides, and made clothing for miners and sailors. Yet colonial census data of the 1840s rarely recorded their occupations. Most were listed under their husbands’ or fathers’ names, erasing women’s participation in building the early economy. On the goldfields after 1851, women worked as cooks, midwives, and small traders, while Indigenous women often sold woven baskets, fish, or bush foods at camp markets. These activities blurred the line between survival and enterprise, showing that women’s work sustained both settler and Indigenous economies (Serle, 1971).

Cross-Cultural Encounters and Violence

Relationships between Indigenous women and settlers were complex, ranging from cooperation to exploitation. Some women formed cross-cultural marriages or alliances that provided temporary protection or economic support, while others were subject to sexual violence and abduction. The records of George Augustus Robinson and missionary accounts reveal that such relationships were often coerced or unequal, reflecting the broader dynamics of colonisation. Yet Indigenous women’s agency persisted. Many used their positions as domestic workers, translators, or camp leaders to negotiate safety for their families or to pass knowledge across cultural boundaries. These acts of endurance challenge the portrayal of Indigenous women as victims alone — they were also cultural strategists and survivors (Broome, 2005).

Women as Keepers of Memory

Women across all communities — settlers, convicts, and Indigenous — were the principal keepers of memory. They recorded stories through letters, journals, songs, and, in the case of Indigenous women, through art, weaving, and ceremony. Figures like Caroline Newcomb and Mary Gilbert left written traces of colonial life, while Indigenous matriarchs preserved oral histories that now inform truth-telling processes such as the Yoorrook Justice Commission. In Wadawurrung Country, contemporary women artists like Dr Deanne Gilson re-inscribe these histories through painting, reconnecting with ancestral landscapes once scarred by pastoralism. Their art transforms trauma into renewal, making visible the strength of Indigenous womanhood across time.

Conclusion

The story of early Port Phillip cannot be told through explorers and politicians alone. Women — Indigenous and settler, free and convict — were the quiet architects of survival, culture, and community. On Wadawurrung and Wurundjeri Country, their lives intersected amid rapid social change: Indigenous women maintaining law and ceremony under invasion; convict women enduring poverty and stigma; and settler women forging livelihoods from hardship. The resilience of figures like Eliza Batman, Mary Gilbert, and Caroline Newcomb, alongside the endurance of Indigenous matriarchs whose names were never recorded, reveals a history of strength beneath oppression. Today, through art, research, and truth-telling, their voices return to Victoria’s narrative, restoring the balance between gender, culture, and Country.

References

Barwick, D. (1998). Rebellion at Coranderrk. Canberra: Aboriginal History Inc.
Broome, R. (2005). Aboriginal Victorians: A History Since 1800. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.
Clark, I. D. (1995). Scars in the Landscape: A Register of Massacre Sites in Western Victoria 1803–1859. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Clark, I. D. (1998). The Journals of George Augustus Robinson, Chief Protector, Port Phillip Aboriginal Protectorate. Melbourne: Heritage Matters.
Presland, G. (1994). Aboriginal Melbourne: The Lost Land of the Kulin People. Melbourne: Harriland Press.
Reynolds, H. (1987). The Law of the Land. Ringwood: Penguin.
Serle, G. (1971). The Golden Age: A History of the Colony of Victoria, 1851–1861. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.

Written, Researched and Directed by James Vegter (22 October 2025)

MLA

Sharing the truth of Indigenous and colonial history through film, education, land, and community.
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Magic Lands Alliance acknowledges the Traditional Owners, Custodians, and First Nations communities across Australia and internationally. We honour their enduring connection to the sky, land, waters, language, and culture. We pay respect to Elders past, present, and emerging, and to all First Peoples’ communities and language groups. This article draws only on publicly available information; many cultural practices remain the intellectual property of their respective communities.