Melbourne in the 1840's was a series of small settlements, linked by rough, arterial roads to its heart, the Yarra. Some venturesome settlers took up land further out in the bush at Preston and Whittlesea. In Melbourne, 'the fathers of its foundation', Batman and Fawkner, held sway. With the discovery of gold and its subsequent rushes at Ballarat and Bendigo in the 1850's, Melbourne became the Mecca for thousands of immigrants. The rural aspect of Melbourne changed&emdash;shanty and canvas towns sprang up, cheap grog shops littered the roads to the diggings, a continuous bustle of traffic began.
Lawlessness was rife; it is difficult now to imagine highway robbery in East Melbourne, bushrangers holding police at bay in Elizabeth St., City. Together with the immigrant miners and settlers, came the convict 'Bolters' from Tasmania. After escaping to the Mainland, the latter were quickly absorbed into the glutted population. Ships lay idle in the Bay as crews absconded to the goldfields. Contemporary newspapers were filled with reports of convictions for drunkenness, dangerous driving, violence and disorder. The new suburbs of Collingwood and Fitzroy (then known as Newtown), spread with cancerous swiftness in series of shanties, sly-grog shops and 'houses of ill-repute', the area around Moor St., Fitzroy then being one of the worst in Melbourne. While this feverish expansion was in progress, Carlton lay dormant.
Carlton is reputed to have been named after the famous inn of that name in London, the possible derivation of the word&emdash;'coerl town'&emdash;a village of serfs.
During the 1850's it was known under the general name of Newtown; on its south-western borders in the vicinity of Drummond, Lygon and Cardigan Street, some substantial housing had commenced. These were the residences of influential business and professional men, one of the most prominent of these was Sir Redmond Barry. This well-known citizen was the officiating judge at the trials of the convict murderers of John Price (Inspector General of Prisons), in 1857 and of the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly in the 1880's.
Apart from these select terrace houses, the remainder of what is now Carlton, was mainly parkland and virgin bush. many citizens of the day preferred to keep it that way; even objecting to a proposed road through the Carlton Gardens (now the Exhibition Gardens), one of the principal objectors being, Sir Redmond Barry. The Melbourne General Cemetery was opened in 1853 and there, almost in its shadow, lay the Collingwood Stockade.