Peter Hurlstone
| First name | Peter |
|---|---|
| Last name | Hurlstone |
| Country of Origin | England |
| Date of Birth | 2/1/1802 |
| Year of Arrival in Australia | 1838 |
| Submitted by | Solway Nutting |
Story
Leaving Home
Peter Hurlstone, descended from a line of Gloucestershire millers and educated at Oxford, married Hester Howell when he was 19. During their early lives, rising populations and improved roads were causing many traditional occupations to disappear from the villages, as country dwellers could buy in town articles that once would have been produced locally. There was no longer enough work for the craftsmen Ð tailors, millers, weavers, even carpenters and builders.
So Peter, Hester and their young family of seven set off for Sydney. Arriving in the heat and drought of February 1838 they found there was little business for a millwright, as grain was very scarce.
The Journey
During the journey from England on the `Layton\’ their youngest child died and was buried at sea. As steerage passengers on the brig `Louisa\’ on a rough voyage between Sydney and the 3.5 year old settlement of Melbourne, further tragedy hit: their 9-year-old Hester died on the way.
Arrival
They alighted on the new jetty just built at Sandridge, at a time when Melbourne\’s population was rapidly increasing, from just over 1000 at the start of 1839 to more than 1500 by the end. There were plenty of projects for a young engineer and millwright such as Peter Hurlstone. A man of ‘retiring habits’, he never boasted of his achievements, but he was responsible for many
FIRSTS FOR EARLY MELBOURNE.
– He was captain, owner (or both) of the steam paddle-boat the `Firefly\’, first steamboat to run on the Yarra. It plied between Sandridge, Williamstown and Melbourne for several months, then was sold.
– He was owner of a sawmill, powered by the engine of the former `Firefly\’, at a timber yard on the corner of Russell and Bourke Streets, Melbourne. Peter and family were then living on a block which is now part of the Lonsdale Street site of Myers.
– He became master of the paddle steamer `Governor Arthur\’ which did two trips a day between Williamstown and Melbourne, from 1841 to 1845. When it caught fire on Christmas Eve 1841, it sank so only the mast funnel and bowsprit showed above water. Rebuilt in six weeks, it was soon running again.
– A singer and organist, Peter played the harmonium at Wesley Methodist Chapel, corner of Flinders Lane and Swanston Street. When a larger chapel was built in Collins Street, June 1841, the harmonium became inadequate. To replace it, a pipe organ was ordered (in `kit\’ form) from Lancashire.
– He assembled the Methodist Chapel organ, the first pipe organ erected in Melbourne. He is also credited with assembling the first pipe organs at St James Church (St James Old Cathedral) and St Andrews Brighton.
By March 1843 he had built an organ for his home, about which the Port Philip Herald claimed: its ‘sonorous notes and variegated tones cannot be exceeded in richness of melody’ by any comparable instrument in the world.
– In 1846 Peter constructed a threshing-machine and flour mill at Little Brighton, using the engine from the `Firefly\’ to drive both machines simultaneously. During 1848 he leased the Janefield water-driven corn mill on the River Plenty, and his son Alfred ran it.
– Although more associated with the Methodist Church, he served on a committee to work for a new Anglican building to replace the small St Andrews Church at Brighton. It was in the new 1851 building that it is believed he assembled a pipe organ, although the church records have since been lost in a fire.
– Peter Hurlstone was the first choir master and organist at the new Wesleyan Church in Mill Road (now Hawthorn Road) from 1851 to when he left Brighton in 1864.
– In 1859 he was on the Council for the Municipality of Brighton. A picture of his wind-driven mill was part of the Brighton coat-of-arms from then until 1887, when Brighton became a town.
– He left Brighton two years after his wife Hester died, selling his land and moving the mill to the centre of the business district on Point Nepean Road. He had recently profited from land speculation at Dunkeld in the Western District.
– Now in his sixties, he spent his remaining years in Prahran and Windsor, dying at the Dandenong home of his daughter Adelaide and son-in-law Joseph Draper Cadle. One obituary stated: ‘Not only was he the introducer of steam navigation and saw-milling to the colony; but being by profession an engineer and millwright, he erected the first windmillÉ’