The Fitzroy Gardens.

Scarce c.19th hand coloured engraving of the Fitzroy Gardens, Melbourne.

Fitzroy Gardens, in East Melbourne, were reserved as public parkland in 1848 on land regarded as unsuitable for building owing to swamps and former bluestone quarries. The reserve was initially known as Fitzroy Square, after Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, Governor of New South Wales, and formed part of the provision of public open space established under Superintendent Charles Joseph La Trobe. Development of the Gardens commenced in the late 1850s, when the Melbourne City Council commissioned Edward La Trobe Bateman to prepare a design. Although Bateman’s scheme was not fully implemented, it influenced the subsequent arrangement of the Gardens.

From 1859 the development was supervised by Clement Hodgkinson, Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands and Survey, with the Scottish landscape gardener James Sinclair responsible for much of the planting. Sinclair favoured avenues, shaded walks and extensive tree planting rather than the formal flower beds proposed in the earlier municipal scheme. The first elms were planted in 1859, and by the mid-1860s the principal paths, plantings and garden structures had been established. The name Fitzroy Gardens was formally adopted in 1862.

References:

Ferguson, J. A. Bibliography of Australia Volumes 1-8, Canberra 1976 9829g.
Hughes-d’Aeth, T. Paper Nation : The Story of the Picturesque Atlas of Australia. Melbourne 2001.

Collections:
National Library Australia: Bib ID 1654251
National Gallery Australia: LEGACY ID 34588
Royal Collection Trust UK: RCIN 1046852
Getty Museum Los Angeles: Object name: 1218593
State Library New South Wales: RECORD IDENTIFIER 74VvDRQZXzWd
State Library Victoria: CCF 919.4 G19