Edward William Hobson

EDWARD WILLIAM HOBSON, sourced from the entry for his brother Edmund Charles Hobson in the National Dictionary of Biography

His younger brother, Edward William Hobson (1816-1890?), grazier, was also born at Parramatta. As a youth he served as a sailor on ships plying between Tasmania, New Zealand, Western Australia and Port Phillip. Early in 1837 he established a small run on the Darebin Creek, near Melbourne. By June 1837 he had moved to the south-eastern shores of Port Phillip Bay and held a run, Kangerong, on the slopes of Arthur's Seat. This was followed by the establishment of Tootgarook, a run between Rye and Point Nepean. In 1843 he also took over a run at Tarwin Meadows, on Anderson's Inlet and held it until January 1845.

In June 1841 he visited parts of Gippsland, in the area of the Latrobe River. In April 1844 he left Port Phillip with a large mob of cattle, paused at Tarwin Meadows, and then moved on into the Traralgon district. Four months later he took up, on behalf of his brother Edmund, a run of 19,000 acres (7689 ha) in this area. On Edmund's death in 1848, the control of this run passed to his executors, J. H. N. Cassell and J. R. Murphy, although Edward remained in occupation. In 1853 the run was divided into Traralgon East and Traralgon West, Edward Hobson occupying the latter for a few months. Although reasonably successful up to this time Hobson, who had been made a justice of the peace in 1847, now lost substantially in investments in shipping. In 1862 he was in trouble for cattle stealing and forgery. Three years later he took up cattle droving in New South Wales on the Murray. He was farming a property in that colony in 1873 and remained there until 1884 when he moved to a property of 1900 acres (769 ha) at Swan Hill, where he died about 1890.

On 9 September 1846 Hobson married Marie Anne Martha Celine Helena Napper, a cultured woman of French extraction. During his financial reverses, his wife moved to Euston in New South Wales to be near her husband and opened a school there. They had a son, and a daughter who died in infancy.

Select Bibliography ◾A. Sutherland, Victoria and its Metropolis, vols 1-2 (Melb, 1888) ◾R. V. Billis and A. S. Kenyon, Pastoral Pioneers of Port Phillip (Melb, 1932) ◾F. J. Meyrick, Life in the Bush, 1840-47 (Lond, 1939) ◾‘Memoir of the Late Dr. Hobson’, Illustrated Australian Magazine, vol 1, no 6, Dec 1850, pp 395-408 ◾H. S. Parris, ‘From Melbourne to the Murray in 1839’, Victorian Naturalist, vol 66, no 10, Feb 1950, pp 183-90 and vol 66, no 11, Mar 1950, pp 203-10 ◾W. J. Cuthill, History of Traralgon (State Library of Victoria

Citation details

C. A. McCallum, 'Hobson, Edmund Charles (1814–1848)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography,

Australian Dictionary of Biography

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