In 1881, a bluestone monument was erected at the Old Melbourne Cemetery, later the Queen Victoria Market carpark, to mark the burial site of John Batman, often described at the time as a ‘founding father of Melbourne’. In 1835 Batman sought to expand Tasmanian grazing lands into Victoria. He made his controversial ‘treaty’ with Kulin elders 6 June 1835 and returned to Launceston to arrange the new settlement. However, upon his return to Victoria months later, he discovered that John Pascoe Fawkner had already established a settlement on the site of Melbourne. As his health deteriorated, Batman settled on Batman’s Hill, near what is now Southern Cross Railway Station. He passed away from syphilis just four years later, in 1839. In 1922, the Old Melbourne Cemetery was de-registered, and the monument was relocated to the north bank of the Yarra River at Swan Street Bridge. Batman’s remains were exhumed and re-interred at Fawkner Cemetery - ironically named in honour of his rival. The monument was eventually returned to its original location at Queen Victoria Market.
The John Batman monument at the Queen Victoria Market
The inscription on the monument states:
On 25 January 2025, the statue was vandalized and broken in half during the early hours. The monument has long been the subject of controversy. Batman was a key figure in Victoria’s colonial establishment but the original inscription on the monument incorrectly claimed that Melbourne was "then unoccupied." To address this inaccuracy, a plaque was added in 1992 acknowledging that Aboriginal people had originally occupied the land. A second plaque was installed in 2004 further clarifying the historical errors in the monument’s depiction.
Not all colonists applauded John Batman. John Glover, a Tasmanian neighbour of Batman, once described him as "a rogue, thief, cheat and liar, a murderer of blacks and the vilest man I have ever known."
