WFE Liardet (1840), Tullamareena escaping from the first Melbourne gaol in 1838. State Library of Victoria collection.


Australian Frontier Conflicts: The University of Melbourne’s Dr Katherine Ellinghaus, brings to light an 1839 letter that reveals the frontier violence that happened around colonial Melbourne.
Read more at: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/criss-cross-history-hidden-in-a-letter

One story related to the treatment of First Peoples during the colonisation of Victoria is that of Tullamareena. He was was a senior Wurundjeri man who resisted British colonisation around Melbourne. On 25 April 1838 he was arrested for stealing sheep from John Gardiner’s property at Hawthorn (now a Melbourne suburb). Tullamareena was imprisoned in the first Melbourne gaol but escaped, burning it down with friends Moonee Moonee and Jin Jin. Later Tullamareena was recaptured and sent by ship for trial in Sydney. When it was confirmed that Tullamareena could not understand English, the trial was halted. He was set free but was 700 kilometres from home. Hopefully Tullamareena made it back to Melbourne, although no colonial records of what happened to him apparently exist. The Melbourne suburb, Tullamarine, the Melbourne airport and the Tullamarine Freeway, are named after him. Read more at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullamareena