2-982-525 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mr. J. T. Smith, Mayor of Melbourne, 1858. John Thomas Smith '...commenced life as a junior clerk in one of the New South Wales banks...He then, at twenty-one years of age, went over to the district of Port Philip (now Victoria). Here a Sunday-school friend had recommended him to employment as an assistant in the Church of England mission to the aborigines, in the schools of which mission at that time about eighty native children were receiving instruction...In 1842 he was returned at the head of the poll as a Councillor for the city of Melbourne...In November, 1851, Mr. Smith was elected Mayor of Melbourne for the first time. He found it an onerous office, its duties being as multifarious as they were difficult. Immigrants landing daily, often in hundreds at a time; homes for them were out of the question; provision of some kind was imperative: it was made. The police was then a small body, and not always trustworthy: the offenders could pay them better than the authorities. Amid innumerable difficulties, order was preserved, the dignity of the law maintained, and even a few improvements set on foot. So satisfied were the citizens with their choice that Mr. Smith has been...five times elected Mayor of Melbourne'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.