Portland Bay

Portland Bay is a small Bay off the coast of Victoria, Australia. It is about 360 km west of Melbourne. The main town on the bay is also named Portland.

The bay was named after the Duke of Portland, a Secretary of State and later Prime Minister of Great Britain, by Lieutenant James Grant sailing on the Lady Nelson, on 7 December 1800. [1] [2] [3] [4] The town of Portland later took its name from the bay.[4]

The Convincing Ground massacre occurred in Portland Bay in 1833 or 1834 in a dispute about a Beached whale between whalers and the Kilcarer gundidj clan of the Gunditjmara people.

Notes

  1. ^ Grant, James (1803), The narrative of a voyage of discovery, performed in His Majesty's vessel the Lady Nelson, London: Roworth, pp. 195 , cited in Bird (2006)
  2. ^ Lee, Ida (1915), The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson, London: Grafton, pp. 328, http://openlibrary.org/books/OL6580132M/, retrieved 2011-02-11 
  3. ^ [http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-f482 Chart of the N and W. parts of Bass's Straits discovered and sailed through in a passage from England to Port Jackson in December 1800 in H.M. armed surveying vessel Lady Nelson commanded by Jas. Grant ...], http://nla.gov.au/nla.map-f482, retrieved 2011-02-11 
  4. ^ a b Bird, Eric (12 October 2006). "Place Names on the Coast of Victoria". The Australian National Placename Survey (ANPS). http://www.anps.org.au/documents/VIC_coastal.pdf. Retrieved 2008-07-23.