In 1836, Robert Russell was the lead surveyor appointed to the Port Phillip District1, the European name given to the area now known as the state of Victoria. He published an early printed topographical survey of the site of Melbourne. It shows the position of huts and buildings before the foundation of the township in 1837. You can see the layout of the Central Business District which later became known as Hoddle’s Grid. Robert Hoddle drew the standard grid plan that features in the survey after he succeeded Russell as surveyor-in-charge in 18372.
Details of native vegetation are noted such as tea tree scrub and she oaks. Prominent landmarks include Batman’s Hill, now Southern Cross Station, Burial Hill the site of Melbourne’s first cemetery, now Flagstaff Gardens, the large salt lake known as Batman’s Swamp (later known as the West Melbourne Swamp) and the Yarra Falls that determined the site for the foundation of Melbourne3. Located west of present-day Queen Street, the Falls marked the merging of tidal water downstream and the freshwater upstream. In the 1880s they were removed for the construction of Queens Bridge4.
Robert Russell was also an artist, and he produced a series of drawings and watercolours of the Yarra Falls. His cottage on the south side of the river just opposite the rocky bar of the Falls provided the perfect vantage point for these artworks. Russell sometimes used sketches drawn in the early years of the Melbourne township as the basis for watercolours he painted decades later.
The survey and artworks document the natural landscape of early Melbourne as it was shortly after European colonisation and before the major industrial changes to the environment that followed in the years to come.
This ‘Treasures of the Library’ video shows a close up of Russell’s survey and watercolour. You can browse other artworks by Russell featuring the Yarra Falls on the catalogue.
- Parker JR (2008) ‘Surveying‘, eMelbourne [website], accessed 31 July 2026.
- Preston H (2006) ‘Robert Russell (1808-1900)‘, Australian dictionary of biography [website], accessed 31 July 2026.
- May A (2008) ‘Yarra Falls‘, eMelbourne [website], accessed, 10 August 2026
- As above