the enterprize

The Enterprize

The Enterprize has become the best-known symbol of Melbourne Day - the day the city was born.

Her keel was laid at the Polly Woodside Maritime Museum in 1991, and the $2.5 million, 27m vessel was launched by Felicity Kennett on 30 August, 1997, at Hobsons Bay. The tops'l schooner is a full-sized replica of the ship that brought the first white settlers to Melbourne in 1835. The original ship was bought by John Pascoe Fawkner in April 1835 to search for a suitable place for a settlement in the Port Phillip District.

Enterprize sailed from Launceston on July 21, 1835, but only got as far as George Town in northern Tasmania, where creditors forced Fawkner to stay. Enterprize then left on August 1 under the command of Captain Peter Hunter.
On board was Captain John Lancey, master mariner and Fawkner's representative; George Evans, builder; carpenters William Jackson and Robert Hay Marr; Evan Evans, George Evans' servant; and Fawkner's servants, ploughman Charles Wise, general servant Thomas Morgan, blacksmith James Gilbert and his pregnant wife, Mary.

The party first considered Western Port and the eastern side of Port Phillip for a place to settle, before mooring Enterprize on the Yarra's north bank opposite the site of today's Crown casino.

On August 30 they disembarked and began to put up their tents, build a store and clear some land for growing vegetables, starting European settlement of Melbourne.

For further information, visit www.enterprize.com.au

After this Enterprize continued operating as a coastal trading vessel for a number of years.
She eventually disappeared off the shipping register in 1847, having been wrecked on the bar of the Richmond River
in northern NSW, with the loss of two lives.

The replica Enterprize is managed by the Enterprize Ship Trust, a not for profit organisation. The trust seeks the help of businesses, individuals and other to help keep this much-cherished piece of Melbourne's heritage operating.

For further information, visit www.enterprize.com.au