Gisborne, Victoria

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Gisborne Victoria
Main street of Gisborne.
Population:	4231 (2001 census)
Established:	1851
Postcode:	3437
Elevation:	443 m
Location:	51 km from Melbourne 18 km from Sunbury 97 km from Bendigo 81 km from Ballarat
LGA:	Macedon Ranges Shire
State District:	Macedon
Federal Division:	McEwen

For other uses of Gisborne, see Gisborne (disambiguation)

Gisborne (pronounced /ˈgɪz.bən/) is a town approx. 55 kilometres north of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. As it is close to Melbourne, but in attractive countryside, it is proving an increasingly popular place to settle. The town is named after Henry Fyshe Gisborne.^[1] Gisborne is part of the Macedon Ranges Shire.

[edit] History

Recreation Reserve in Gisborne, with Australian rules football posts installed.

In 1834, John Aitken arrived in Melbourne with others and deemed the land south of Mount Macedon ideally suited for sheep grazing. Selecting a sizeable area of land, the following year Aitken shipped merino sheep from Tasmania. Despite his ship running aground at Dromana, with the help of aborigines, Aitken managed to rescue many of his flock and transport them to the Gisborne area. He named his property "Emmeline Vale," after his wife Emmeline, and, over the years, it was here that Aitken reared six children and produced some of the finest merino wool in the Colony.^[2]

From the late 1830s, many pastoralists, arriving from Tasmania and New South Wales, began taking up areas of land in the surrounding districts. The first recorded settlers were: Barbour and Matson, who settled at Bullengarook, Hill at the "Turitable Run" south of Mount Macedon, Stainforth in the area around the present Rosslynne Reservoir, and Aitken and Howey in the area to be later known Gisborne.