Hume’s Pass is a low pass on the Great Dividing Range in central
Victoria
Victoria most commonly refers to:
* Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India
* Victoria (state), a state of Australia
* Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital
* Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...
,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
. It is located at Wandong in the
Shire of Mitchell
Mitchell Shire is a local government area in the Hume region of Victoria, Australia, located North of Melbourne. It covers an area of and, in April 2024, had a projected population of 61,362. Larger towns include Beveridge, Broadford, Kilm ...
local government area
A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...
, from the state capital,
Melbourne
Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...
.
The
traditional owners
Native title is the set of rights, recognised by Australian law, held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander groups or individuals to land that derive from their maintenance of their traditional laws and customs. These Aboriginal title rig ...
of Hume’s Pass are the
Taungurung
The Taungurung people, also spelled ''Daung Wurrung'', are Aboriginal people who are one of the Kulin nations in present-day Victoria, Australia. They consist of nine clans whose traditional language is the Taungurung language.
Their Country ...
people, a part of the
Kulin nation that inhabited a large portion of central Victoria including Port Phillip Bay and its surrounds.
History
Hume’s Pass was discovered and named by Hamilton Hume and Captain William Hilton Hovell on the 13th December, 1824 during the first European journey through inland Victoria. It enabled them to break through over the top of the Great Dividing Range. Hovell described its location clearly in his journal of that day.
However a map produced by Hume had an error in it leading to uncertainty about its true location for 197 years.
The route recorded by Hume and Hovell from the nearby town of Broadford to Hume’s Pass, was shown approximately in an 1857 map from the Surveyor General’s Department of Victoria.
The approximate route was shown again in 1924 during major celebrations for the centenary of the Hume and Hovell journey.
Finally an old settler’s trail across the exact location of Hume’s Pass was shown in 1930 on the Victorian Army Survey map of that year without it being acknowledged.
The independent Royal Historical Society of Victoria demonstrated in its double-blind refereed journal in 2021 how to correct the error in the Hume map and thus revealed the true location to be 1260 metres south of Arkell’s Lane Wandong.
Hume’s Pass still has not been officially named after two centuries, unlike other places first named by Hume and Hovell.
['Geographic Names Victoria', VicNames Register, Dept of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, East Melbourne, Victoria.]
References
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Towns in Victoria (state)