Port Albert is a coastal town in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, Australia, on the coast of

Corner Inlet The Corner Inlet is a bay located south-east of Melbourne in the South Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia. Of Victoria's large bays it is both the easternmost and the warmest. It contains intertidal mudflats, mangroves, salt marsh and s ...

on the Yarram - Port Albert Road, south-east of

Morwell Morwell is a town in the Latrobe Valley area of Gippsland, in South-Eastern Victoria, Australia approximately 152 km (94 mi) east of Melbourne. Morwell has a population of 14,389 people at the . It is both the seat of local governme ...

, south-east of

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, in the

Shire of Wellington The Shire of Wellington is a local government area in Victoria, Australia, located in the eastern part of the state. It covers an area of and in June 2018 had a population of 44,019. It includes the towns of Heyfield, Rosedale, Maffra, ...

. At the , Port Albert had a population of 293.

Location and features

Port Albert was one of the earliest ports established in Victoria. In 1841 the Gippsland Company investigated the area following favourable reports from explorer

Angus McMillan Angus McMillan (14 August 1810 – 18 May 1865) was a Scottish-born explorer, pioneer pastoralist, and perpetrator of several of the Gippsland massacres of Gunai people. Arriving first in New South Wales in 1838, McMillan rose swiftly in Au ...

. In May of that year the first settlers arrived. Initially the area was known as Seabank or Old Port, but was changed to New Leith when the town started developing, and later changed to Alberton and Port Albert in honour of

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861. Albert was born in the Saxon duch ...

, the husband of

Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previo ...

. The Post Office opened on 1 November 1842 as Alberton (it was renamed Port Albert in 1856) and was the fourth to open in the

Port Phillip District The Port Phillip District was an administrative division of the Colony of New South Wales from 9 September 1836 until 1 July 1851, when it was separated from New South Wales and became the Colony of Victoria. In September 1836, NSW Colonial Sec ...

. It became the administrative centre of

Gippsland Gippsland is a rural region that makes up the southeastern part of Victoria, Australia, mostly comprising the coastal plains to the rainward (southern) side of the Victorian Alps (the southernmost section of the Great Dividing Range). It cove ...

and a transport hub for cargo between

and

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

(now

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

), thanks to its 250-metre timber jetty. As the

Victorian Gold Rush The Victorian gold rush was a period in the history of Victoria, Australia approximately between 1851 and the late 1860s. It led to a period of extreme prosperity for the Australian colony, and an influx of population growth and financial capit ...

began in the 1850s, traffic through Port Albert increased, bringing prospectors from

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, many of whom were headed for the Dargo goldfields. This further added to Port Albert's prosperity. During the 1870s and 1880s, Gippsland was gradually settled, and connected to the railway network. This reduced Port Albert's role as an important transport hub, and the population subsequently decreased. Today the town acts as a commercial fishing port, and is popular with

fishers Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral. Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to: Places Australia *Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland *Elect ...

and surfers. The town hosts a fishing competition each March. Port Albert Hotel

The town's historic two-storey wooden hotel, established in 1841 and the oldest continuously licensed hotel in Victoria, was burned down in February 2014.2019, 'Port toasts new $5m pub', The Great Southern Star, 9 July 2019, http://thestar.com.au/blog/port-toasts-new-5m-pub/ The fire was believed to have been deliberately lit.2015, 'Leongatha man charged', The Great Southern Star, http://thestar.com.au/?p=13441 In July 2019 plans were announced to build a $5,000,000 hotel and accommodation complex on the site. Drum Island, around 110 hectares in size, lies off the coast.

References

Coastal towns in Victoria (Australia) Ports and harbours of Victoria (Australia) Towns in Victoria (Australia) Towns in South Gippsland Shire of Wellington {{VictoriaAU-geo-stub

Location and features

See also

References