Charles La Trobe
Charles Joseph La Trobe ( born March 20, 1801 in London, † December 4, 1875 in Litlington, East Sussex, England) was the first Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, one of the six Australian states today.
Early life
La Trobe was born in London, the son of the musician Christian Ignatius Latrobe, a Huguenot family. Presumably, he was educated in Switzerland. He was an active mountaineer and made several first ascents in the Alps from 1824 to 1826. In 1832 he toured the United States of America with Albert and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth of Pourtàles. In 1834 he traveled to Washington Irving from New Orleans to Mexico. La Trobe published several travel books in which he described his experiences, including The Alps Stock (1829 ), The Pedestrian ( 1832), The Rambler in North America ( 1835) and The Rambler in Mexico ( 1836).
Lieutenant-Governor
In 1837 he was commissioned by the Government Commission of the West Indies, to report on the future education of freed slaves lately. In 1839 he was (now the Australian state of Victoria, the state capital Melbourne) sent in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales as superintendent, although he had little organizational and management experience for this task. Melbourne had its time a population of about 3,000 people and grew rapidly. La Trobe began his work with the rehabilitation of roads. Since the Port Phillip District at this time was a part of the colony of New South Wales, had any sale of land and construction planning and public regulations by their Governor, Sir George Gipps, are licensed to the La Trobe but both a good personal as well as a had a good working relationship.
In 1840 a society was formed, who wanted to make the Port Phillip District into an independent colony. In 1841, La Trobe wrote to Gipps and asked if he wanted to visit the city of Melbourne, to form their own views on the possible emergence of a new colony. La Trobe did not follow an active campaign for the separation of the District of New South Wales and took into account the fact that Henry Grey in a total reorganization plan Australia pursued federal vision for the colony.
At the behest of Charles La Trobe in the Native Police Corps was established in 1842 in the hope that the men of the Aborigines to "civilize". The consent of the tribal leader of the Wurundjeri Billibellarys to his proposal was important for its success. After consulting this supported the initiative and joined himself to the Corps at. After about a year Billibellary left the Native Police Corps, because he found out that it was used to catch Aborigines and even kill.
To 1851, when the gold fever broke out in Melbourne, La Trobe was for three years Lieutenant-Governor ( Vice- Governor ), to the colony of New South Wales Victoria finally dissolved in 1854.
La Trobe, who was plagued by self-doubt, lack of experience, withdrew in December 1852, and waited for his replacement by Governor ( later Sir Charles) Hotham. Towards the end of his governor shaft his Swiss wife became ill; she died in 1854 in Europe. You will be the name of the Melbourne district Jolimont attributed because they mont there at first sight " quel joli! » To have exclaimed.
La Trobe had in the years 1846 to 1847 for four months as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen 's Land, now known as the Australian state of Tasmania.
Name
The design of the inner city area of Melbourne is due to the foresight of La Trobe, the land reserved, such as the Catholic cathedral.
Many places in Melbourne and Victoria are named in honor of La Trobe, including La Trobe University ( the third after The University of Melbourne and Monash University), La Trobe Street in Melbourne's city, a suburb in the outer east of Melbourne, the
Latrobe Valley including the Latrobe River in southeastern Victoria, Mount Latrobe on Wilson 's Promontory and the La - Trobe library, part of the Victorian State Library ( formerly the Melbourne Public Library was called ).
In most of these names, the name has long been erroneously written together, which began to be correct until the middle of the 20th century, with *
Geelong key
Charles La Trobes name is associated with the discovery of keys that indicate that the Portuguese discovered Australia. When Charles La Trobe, an avid amateur geologist who in 1847 investigated a lime kiln in Victoria on Limeburner Point near Geelong, a worker showed him five key called the Geelong Keys that have found this stated.
La Trobe assumed that the keys have been lost on the beach about three hundred years. In 1977, Kenneth McIntyre suggested that they were lost by Portuguese sailors under the command of Cristóvão de Mendonça. As long as the keys were located at this location can not be determined, concluded the geologist Edmund Gill and PFB. Because the age of the container in which the keys were found, Alsop estimated an age 2330-2800 years, so was the dating of La Trobe unlikely. The failure of La Trobe is understandable, but it took on in 1847, that the world is merely an age of 6,000 years ..