Wilbraham Liardet

Wilbraham Frederick Evelyn Liardet (17 July 1799 – 21 March 1878), was an Australian hotelier, water-colour artist and historian, who was responsible for the early development of Port Melbourne.

Liardet was born on 17 July 1799 at Chelsea, London to Wilbraham Liardet and his wife Philippa Evelyn. His father was an official in the Ordnance Department, from a family of Swiss origin, and his mother, previously the widow of an army Major, Daniel Francis Houghton, was the daughter of Charles Evelyn, Baronet, a descendant of English writer, gardener and diarist John Evelyn.

The young Liardet joined the Royal Navy and served aboard HMS Pelican before joining the Army. He reached the rank of lieutenant in April 1825 and, the following year, after receiving an inheritance of £30,000, he retired on half-pay.

In 1821 he married a cousin, Carolina Frederica Liardet, daughter of John Robert James William Tell Liardet, a Royal Marines officer and former Secretary to the British Legation in Madrid and his wife Perpetue Catherine de Paul de Lamanon d'Albe of a 'distinguished' French Huguenot family. Wilbraham and Carolina had a common ancestor in John George Liardet who arrived in England from Switzerland in 1772.

The couple had eleven children before 1839 and nine survived: Frank, Fred, Hector, John Evelyn, St. Clere, Josephine Antoinette, Imogen, Leonora and Frances. Caroline and Alonzo died of scarlet fever in London and Felicia and Rosalie died in infancy at Sandridge.

Liardet and his family sailed for Sydney on the William Metcalfe in July 1839 arriving in November of that year. The ship spent three weeks anchored in Hobsons Bay near the early township of Melbourne and Liardet decided to settle in the district.

The area he chose, Sandridge (later Port Melbourne), had been the early home of surveyor William Wedge Darke and his family. Darke had cut through the first track to the beach and camped there in a bullock-drawn wooden caravan known as 'Darke's Ark'. He'd also hoisted a barrel on a pole, on high ground, to point the way back to the Melbourne and this led to the area's early name of 'Sandridge'.

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