Back in 1878 Melbourne’s docks were under siege by the Melbourne Harbour Trust itself. Desperate to widen the Yarra so that it could handle bigger ships the Harbour Trust brought in heavies to destroy a privately owned dry dock which stood in their way. The ‘ battle of the docks’ attracted 1500 onlookers before police broke up the fight and arrested 6 Harbour Trust employees. The physical battle then became a media war between Wright and Orr which owned the dry dock and the Harbour Trust – it is a great Melbourne story written by Luis Calleja, an RHSV researcher, for Docklands News. You can read the full story here:
DN_188.pdf (docklandsnews.com.au)
(scroll to P22)
The detail from the map in the RHSV collection hasn’t reproduced well – contact us if you’d like to see it in higher-res (office@historyvictoria.org.au)
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