Henry Hopwood

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D Wong on 28th November 2013

Henry Hopwood was 22 years old and transported for "Receiving stolen silk". Henry was the founder of Echuca, Victoria. He was born in Bolton, Lancashire, the son of Henry Hopwood, manufacturer and his wife Mary, nee Kelly. 11/12/1832: Henry was a gilder and married a widow Fanny Wagdin (walkden) nee Roberts. 1835: was made a police constable. 1838: For breaching regulations by living with a woman not his wife he was sentenced to a road gang for a year. May 1839: he aided and assisted the abduction of his master's daughter and was sent to Port Arthur for 2 years. 22/12/1842: TOL and rejoined the police. 15/1/1846: CP When his sentence expired, Henry moved to Port Phillip ad became overseer of boiling-down works on the Murray River near the future site of Echuca. When the works closed, he knock together the huts, licensed them as the New Road Inn and had a punt for crossing the river. In 1853 when Francis Cadell and William Randell demonstrated the navigability of the river, Henry sent his plans for a tow to Lieutenant-Governor Charles La Trobe and, perhaps with prior knowledge, leased a section of the Wharparilla run, newly gazetted as the site for a future town. In 1854 the town of Echuca was named. Henry built his Criterion Hotel. In January he became postmaster at Hopwood's Ferry, b y March he had opened a butchery, bakery and boiling-down works and by November a large iron store. In 1856 his remarkable pontoon bridge spanned the Murray, and in 1857 he bridged the Campaspe River. Later he built a brick store, organized a school, planted a vineyard, published a newsletter and in March 1859 opened the Bridge Hotel. Henry's first wife died early in 1857, and in 1859 he married Charlotte Walters of Bendigo. 1/1/1869: Henry died of typhoid, aged 55. His daughter Alice, born in Tasmania about 1845, married James McCulloch in 1867 and died without children in 1895.