News / Council

Slavery connection ‘was well known’ in 1990s

Despite concerns raised publicly at the time, the Kennett Government went ahead with naming the muncipality Moreland

A sign at the southern end of Sydney Road.

Mark Phillips
Monday, November 29, 2021


FORMER Brunswick and Coburg MP Carlo Carli has lashed out at the Kennett Government for ignoring the views of local residents in the mid-1990s when choosing a name that has links to slavery for what is now the City of Moreland.

A campaign has been launched to rename the municipality, after evidence resurfaced about its connection to 19th century slavery. The name derives from a sugar plantation that used slaves in Jamaica in the 18th century.

The council will debate the proposal to change the name at its next meeting on December 8.

Mr Carli, who served as the area’s MP from 1994 to 2010, said the slavery connection was well known in the 1990s but the Kennett Government ignored these concerns when it decided to name the new municipality formed from the amalgamations of the cities of Brunswick and Coburg.

Other proposed names at the time included the Indigenous words Merri, after the local waterway, and Billibellary, after a Wurundjeri leader at the time of colonisation.

A now-deceased former Brunswick Mayor, Andrew Ingham, led a public campaign against the name at the time.

“There were loads of names suggested and there were very public concerns about the name Moreland, partly because of the slave plantation connection and partly because it was considered dull and insipid,” Mr Carli said.

“But during the Kennett period local democracy was not considered significant.”

The new campaign for a name change was kicked off when representatives from the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation met freshly elected Mayor Mark Riley on November 19 to urge the council to address “this regrettable inheritance”.

A letter published on a new campaign website the same day demanded that the council commits to begin a process to change the name next year.

“The name ‘Moreland’ contains disrespectful insensitivity through direct association with both slavery and dispossession,” the letter said. Its signatories included WWCHAC deputy chair Andrew Gardiner, former federal MHR for Wills, Phil Cleary, and former Moreland councillor Jo Connellan.

They wrote that the renaming of the municipality was “an opportunity to complement the current spirit of truth-telling and reconciliation, embracing this change as a timely platform for awareness-raising, acknowledgement and healing”.

The WWCHAC has offered to work with the council to find a new name.

It has not proposed an alternative, saying that should be determined through consultation, and is also not suggesting that other landmarks carrying the Moreland name, including a major east-west road and a railway station, should be renamed.

Jamaican slavery connection

The Moreland name was transplanted to Brunswick in the early days of European settlement by a Scottish-born land speculator, Farquhar McCrae, whose family had been involved in the Jamaican plantation between 1770 and 1796. McCrae purchased several parcels of land in Brunswick west of Sydney Road soon after arriving in Australia in 1839, which were then marketed as ‘Moreland’. This land had been taken from its traditional Indigenous owners without their consent.

A history of Moreland section on the council website also refers to the genesis of the municipality’s name in Jamaica, although it does not mention the slavery connection.

In a statement posted on the council website, new Moreland Mayor Mark Riley said the current council had been previously unaware of the name’s connection to slavery, but committed to a community engagement process to develop a new name.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn that 27 years ago, Moreland was named after a slave estate,” the statement said.

“The history behind the naming of this area is painful, uncomfortable and very wrong. It needs to be addressed.

“Moreland stands firmly against racism, we are one community, proudly diverse. Council is committed to working with Wurundjeri people and we take the request very seriously.”

Mr Carli said the connection to slavery was not a new revelation but he welcomed that the name would be reviewed.

A painting of Farquhar McCrae. Source: No MOREland

Others have recalled a fiery public debate about the name of the new municipality taking place at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute in 1994.

“Twenty-seven years ago everyone knew about it, it was a bad idea, everyone was critical but we were fighting to protect hospitals and keep schools from being closed [by the Kennett Government], so there other issues that were more significant,” Mr Carli said.

“We’re 27 years late, but these symbols have come to matter. We’re in a period of reconciliation and Treaty and it’s a good time to have a debate. I think a Woi-wurrung name would be an excellent choice. Moreland is a terrible name, so let’s take the opportunity to do something that will build our community.”

The federal MHR for Wills, Peter Khalil, said he supported the moves to change the name of Moreland and was open to renaming his electorate as well.

“I think there’s a very strong argument to changing the name [of Moreland],” he said. “I think it’s really important that Indigenous elders of the community are given a strong say in that and I would defer to them if we’re going to have an Indigenous name.”

The great dispossession

Urban planner Rod Duncan, on whose research much of the No Moreland campaign is based, said it was ludicrous to suggest that the slavery links were not known, as it is well documented that Moreland was named after a plantation in Jamaica.

“It’s pretty obvious they were not running a tourist resort in Jamaica in the 1770s, it was big money being made on the backs of slaves,” he said.

But Mr Duncan said the rapid dispossession of the area’s traditional landowners in the 1840s is an even bigger scandal than the slavery connection.

He said Farquher McCrae was at the forefront of this with his purchase of multiple parcels of land in what is now Brunswick, Coburg and Pascoe Vale South for about £3000 ($600,000 in today’s money) less than four months after he arrived in the colony of Victoria.

“The slavery thing is embarrassing and should not have been used, but for the Wurundjeri, that’s a peripheral issue to the dispossession,” he said, likening the forced occupation of traditional Indigenous lands to genocide.

“We’re talking about 850 square kilometres of land sold off in four years. The scale and pace of that is really quite shocking and it wasn’t vacant land. Just think about what happened to the people who had been living on that land.”

Councillors will receive a report on the proposal to rename Moreland at their next meeting on December 8.

FORMER Brunswick and Coburg MP Carlo Carli has lashed out at the Kennett Government for ignoring the views of local residents in the mid-1990s when choosing a name that has links to slavery for what is now the City of Moreland.

A campaign has been launched to rename the municipality, after evidence resurfaced about its connection to 19th century slavery. The name derives from a sugar plantation that used slaves in Jamaica in the 18th century.

The council will debate the proposal to change the name at its next meeting on December 8.

Mr Carli, who served as the area’s MP from 1994 to 2010, said the slavery connection was well known in the 1990s but the Kennett Government ignored these concerns when it decided to name the new municipality formed from the amalgamations of the cities of Brunswick and Coburg.

Other proposed names at the time included the Indigenous words Merri, after the local waterway, and Billibellary, after a Wurundjeri leader at the time of colonisation.

A now-deceased former Brunswick Mayor, Andrew Ingham, led a public campaign against the name at the time.

“There were loads of names suggested and there were very public concerns about the name Moreland, partly because of the slave plantation connection and partly because it was considered dull and insipid,” Mr Carli said.

“But during the Kennett period local democracy was not considered significant.”

The new campaign for a name change was kicked off when representatives from the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation met freshly elected Mayor Mark Riley on November 19 to urge the council to address “this regrettable inheritance”.

A letter published on a new campaign website the same day demanded that the council commits to begin a process to change the name next year.

“The name ‘Moreland’ contains disrespectful insensitivity through direct association with both slavery and dispossession,” the letter said. Its signatories included WWCHAC deputy chair Andrew Gardiner, former federal MHR for Wills, Phil Cleary, and former Moreland councillor Jo Connellan.

They wrote that the renaming of the municipality was “an opportunity to complement the current spirit of truth-telling and reconciliation, embracing this change as a timely platform for awareness-raising, acknowledgement and healing”.

The WWCHAC has offered to work with the council to find a new name.

It has not proposed an alternative, saying that should be determined through consultation, and is also not suggesting that other landmarks carrying the Moreland name, including a major east-west road and a railway station, should be renamed.

Jamaican slavery connection

The Moreland name was transplanted to Brunswick in the early days of European settlement by a Scottish-born land speculator, Farquhar McCrae, whose family had been involved in the Jamaican plantation between 1770 and 1796. McCrae purchased several parcels of land in Brunswick west of Sydney Road soon after arriving in Australia in 1839, which were then marketed as ‘Moreland’. This land had been taken from its traditional Indigenous owners without their consent.

A history of Moreland section on the council website also refers to the genesis of the municipality’s name in Jamaica, although it does not mention the slavery connection.

In a statement posted on the council website, new Moreland Mayor Mark Riley said the current council had been previously unaware of the name’s connection to slavery, but committed to a community engagement process to develop a new name.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened to learn that 27 years ago, Moreland was named after a slave estate,” the statement said.

“The history behind the naming of this area is painful, uncomfortable and very wrong. It needs to be addressed.

“Moreland stands firmly against racism, we are one community, proudly diverse. Council is committed to working with Wurundjeri people and we take the request very seriously.”

Mr Carli said the connection to slavery was not a new revelation but he welcomed that the name would be reviewed.

A painting of Farquhar McCrae. Source: No MOREland

Others have recalled a fiery public debate about the name of the new municipality taking place at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute in 1994.

“Twenty-seven years ago everyone knew about it, it was a bad idea, everyone was critical but we were fighting to protect hospitals and keep schools from being closed [by the Kennett Government], so there other issues that were more significant,” Mr Carli said.

“We’re 27 years late, but these symbols have come to matter. We’re in a period of reconciliation and Treaty and it’s a good time to have a debate. I think a Woi-wurrung name would be an excellent choice. Moreland is a terrible name, so let’s take the opportunity to do something that will build our community.”

The federal MHR for Wills, Peter Khalil, said he supported the moves to change the name of Moreland and was open to renaming his electorate as well.

“I think there’s a very strong argument to changing the name [of Moreland],” he said. “I think it’s really important that Indigenous elders of the community are given a strong say in that and I would defer to them if we’re going to have an Indigenous name.”

The great dispossession

Urban planner Rod Duncan, on whose research much of the No Moreland campaign is based, said it was ludicrous to suggest that the slavery links were not known, as it is well documented that Moreland was named after a plantation in Jamaica.

“It’s pretty obvious they were not running a tourist resort in Jamaica in the 1770s, it was big money being made on the backs of slaves,” he said.

But Mr Duncan said the rapid dispossession of the area’s traditional landowners in the 1840s is an even bigger scandal than the slavery connection.

He said Farquher McCrae was at the forefront of this with his purchase of multiple parcels of land in what is now Brunswick, Coburg and Pascoe Vale South for about £3000 ($600,000 in today’s money) less than four months after he arrived in the colony of Victoria.

“The slavery thing is embarrassing and should not have been used, but for the Wurundjeri, that’s a peripheral issue to the dispossession,” he said, likening the forced occupation of traditional Indigenous lands to genocide.

“We’re talking about 850 square kilometres of land sold off in four years. The scale and pace of that is really quite shocking and it wasn’t vacant land. Just think about what happened to the people who had been living on that land.”

Councillors will receive a report on the proposal to rename Moreland at their next meeting on December 8.