Works included in this catalogue
Hoddle Melbourne from Surveyor-General’s Yard {1893} SLV [WT]
* Hoddle Melbourne, Port Phillip 1840 {1893} Loc? [WT]
Hoddle Melbourne from the Survey Office 1840{1893} SLV [WT]
Hoddle Racecourse and Survey Office {1893} SLV [WT]
Hoddle, a surveyor by profession, arrived in Sydney in 1823, and was appointed Surveyor-General of Port Phillip in 1837. He is usually regarded as responsible for the grid plan of central Melbourne, although Robert Russell, who preceded him, also claimed credit for the design: see now * Russell [attrib.] Melbourne from the Old Falls 1837 {1891} Loc? [EN].
The four historic sketches by Hoddle acquired in 1893 (as listed above) all appear to date from c.1840. The SLV also holds various other drawings by him (acquired after 1904), including works produced in England, Queensland and New South Wales, prior to his arrival in Melbourne.
Refs.
For Hoddle, see http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hoddle-robert-2190 (by Marjorie Tipping; from ADB vol.1, 1966); Kerr Dictionary (1992), pp.367-68; and Madeleine Say, “Robert Hoddle and nineteenth-century genre painting,” LaTrobe Journal 75 (Autumn 2005), pp.49-61. See also further information in the SLV’s catalogue and Downer & Phipps Victorian Vision (1985), p.8 and cat.nos.117-18