Henry Hopwood - Founder of Echuca

When the Government Surveyor, Phillip Chauncy rode into a small settlement on the south bank of the Murray River in November 1854, he found a group of roughly built huts occupying the isthmus between the two rivers. At this point an enterprising ex-convict called Henry Hopwood had built an inn, called the “New Road Inn” after a previous venture further along the Murray, and had established ferries over both the Murray and the nearby Campaspe.

The little settlement, which had recorded 26 inhabitants in the Census earlier in the year, was known as “Hopwood’s Ferry”, but after the first land sale to take place in April 1855, it was officially named “Echuca” – after the name for the place between the rivers.

At the first land sales, Hopwood was a major buyer, and soon established himself in a great number of local business interests.

Born in Bolton, Lancashire in 1813, had possibly received some education, but at the age of 21 he was convicted for receiving stolen silk and sentenced to 14 years transportation.

After an unusual career in Van Dieman’s Land, in which he not only served as a convict, but was also on two occasions employed as a police constable, he came to the mainland and by the early 1850’s was managing a boiling-down works at Tatalia (near the present Rich River Golf Club). The trade declined as with a great demand for meat on the Goldfields of Central Victoria, it was no longer necessary to boil down old stock for tallow as in the past.

Hopwood then turned the sheds at the works into a crude Inn, and named it the “New Road Inn” to provide an alternate route and river crossing on the track between Deniliquin and Bendigo.  By 1853 he moved across the river to build another rough inn of slabs and bark, and called it the “New Road Inn” again in order to attract attention from the traveling public.

By 1856 he had spanned the Murray with a pontoon bridge that sped up the transit of stock moving south to Bendigo, and this became so efficient that maiden’s punt went out of business. In 1857, Hopwood had secured the right to place a toll bridge over the Campaspe by means of a special Act of parliament. With stores, and his own gardens and vineyard, Hopwood continued to develop and to prosper. On the superb site above the river, he built his masterpiece, the “Bridge Hotel” and this was finished by early 1859. His next work was to help found the “Riverine Herald” in 1863, but by 1864 he retired from public life, and spent his last few years in “Apsley House” which is now preserved as a wing of the Brigidine Convent.

He died of typhoid on 1st January 1869, and is buried in the Echuca cemetery. He left behind a thriving town of 1500 people where none had lived before he built his first slab inn there, 16 years earlier.  He actually had a great influence on the development of the great inland rivers, and although he had no direct investment in the river trade, his fortunes increased over the years