“Horatio Cooper, Bundoora (deceased) was born in England in 1806, and was married in Tasmania 18th October, 1836, his widow (born in 1816) haveing been in the colony for nine years. They arrived in Melbourne in Janaury 1837, and Mr Cooper commenced a custom-house agency, had charge of Government stores, and control of the rations of the militaty. He bult a house in Little Collins street, and after living there for two and a-half years bought land at Bundoora in 1839, and resided sometimes there, sometimes at St Kilda, and for a time in England, until his death, being for years engaged in dairy farming on an extensive scale. He owned some valuable imported stock, and was one of the first to import pure Durhams. He also sent over to Tasmania for brickmakers, and it was his capital that started the first brick-making machine int he colony. He went to England with his family in 1857, returned in 1859, and died in 1864, at fifty-nine years of age, at St. Kilda, where the family then resided. His eldest daughter was the first child baptised in Melbourne, by the Rev. James Forbes, the first Presbyterian Minister. The children are now all settled and doing well. Mrs Cooper remembers Governor Bourke very well, and it was her later husband’s bullocks which were employed to carry that Governor from Melbourne to Geelong, when he first came to the colony.”
From Victoria and its Metropolis: Past and Present written in 1888 by Alexander Sutherland.
Chapter –, “Bourke District” page 422. Includes descriptions of some townships and short biographies of local residents.
Mt Cooper, an extinct volcano is situated at the northern end of Bundoora Park in Plenty Road, Bundoora and was named for the Victorian Pioneer Horatio Cooper (1806-1864).
Cooper Street, Epping may also be named for Horatio Cooper.
Image: Patterson, Kevin. Photographer Mt Cooper, Bundoora, 1985 YPRL Collection DV_F_00383
