Tullamarine, Victoria

Tullamarine is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 17 km north-west of Melbourne's central business district. It is split between three local government areas—the cities of Brimbank, Hume and Moreland. At the 2011 census, Tullamarine had a population of 6,271.

The suburb is a collection of recent housing estates and light industry. Generally flat and exposed to the hot northerly winds of Melbourne's summer, as well as cold southerly winds in winter, its most notable feature is the nearby Melbourne Airport. Tullamarine's residential area is contained in a circular loop of the Moonee Ponds Creek, and its western boundary is the Melbourne Airport. Tullamarine contains the smaller residential area of Gladstone Park.

The Albion-Jacana railway line separates Tullamarine from Airport West to the south.

History

The name is thought to derive from Tullamareena, a young member of the Wurundjeri (who later in 1838 escaped from the first Melbourne Gaol, burning it down in the process) according to Reverend Langhorne, an advisor to the first government surveyor, Robert Hoddle. Forty years ago the area was named as Toolimerin.

Tullamareena

Tullamareena (or Tullamarine, Dullamarin) was a senior man of the Wurundjeri, a Koori, (Aboriginal) people of the Melbourne area, at the time of the British settlement in Victoria, Australia, in 1835. He is believed to be present at the signing of John Batman's land deal in 1835. He was known to be a resistor to British occupation of Wirundjeri lands. He was described by the Reverend George Langhorne, an early Port Phillip missionary as " a steady, industrious man".

On 25 April 1838 he was arrested for sheep-stealing from John Gardiner's property in Hawthorn. During his imprisonment he escaped and as a consequence burnt down the first Melbourne gaol along with his friends Moonee Moonee and Jin Jin. William Lonsdale, the first Police magistrate of Melbourne wrote in a letter to the colonial secretary on 26 April 1838:

Tullamareena was later recaptured and sent for trial in Sydney by ship. His trial was terminated when it was established he was unable to understand English. He was set free more than 700km from his home and no records indicate further colonial contact.