Map - French Island (Victoria) (French Island)

French Island  (French Island)
French Island (Boonwurrung: Bellarmarin, Woone, or Jouap) is the largest coastal island of Victoria, Australia, located in Western Port, 61 km southeast of Melbourne. In 1997, about 70% of the island was declared the French Island National Park, administered by Parks Victoria, and was listed in the former Register of the National Estate in 1984. The island is an unincorporated area under the direct administration of the government of Victoria, and is a declared locality of Victoria having its own postcode. Community issues are dealt by the French Island Community Association. The island is otherwise administered by the Department of Transport (Victoria). The population of the island in 2011 was around 116 people, of which about 60 were permanent residents. By 2021 the population on census night was recorded as 139 with a median age of 52 years.

French Island is relatively isolated and underdeveloped. There are no water mains, electricity mains, or medical services on the island. There is one small general store and post office located on Tankerton Road about 3 km from Tankerton Jetty. Many of the locals actively promote environmental tourism. Visitor accommodation includes camping, bed and breakfast, guesthouse and farmstay.

According to the French Island Community Association, prior to British colonisation, French Island was a hunting ground of the Bunurong people. They lived on the mainland and travelled to French Island to collect shellfish and swan eggs. There are several registered sites on the island that consist of shell middens and stone scatters they left behind.

In April 1802, a French expedition ship Naturaliste under Jacques Hamelin, part of the Baudin expedition to Australia, explored the area. Hamelin named the island Île de Françoise (Island of Francoise), which was corrupted as French Island.

The first recorded colonial settlers on the island were William and John Gardiner in 1847, who had the first pastoral lease and grazed 8,000 sheep. The first land subdivision was in 1867 when 4733 acres were divided into 14 allotments. The first land sales took place in 1873 with the minimum price £1 per acre. In the 1880s, koalas were introduced to the island.

During the 1890s depression, the government encouraged settlement of the area and established seven village settlements on French Island under the Village Settlement Scheme. These were called Energy, Star of Hope, Callanan's, Perseverance, Industrial, Kiernan's and Grant Homestead Association. Altogether about 200 people made up these settlements. Tankerton Post Office opened on 3 September 1890 and remained open until 1994. It reopened in 2001 under the name French Island. A Fairhaven post office was also open from 1911 until 1957. Four schools were built of which the Perseverance Primary School, established in 1896, is the only one remaining and now caters for only a small number of primary school children.

John Ratford introduced chicory to the island, after he spent a season learning about it on Phillip Island in 1895. The Chicory industry became the main source of income on the island for over 70 years with extensive chicory planting and some 30 chicory kilns established. The Bayview chicory kiln, the second and now the oldest remaining on the island, was built in 1896-97 and is currently a cafe and museum.

McLeod prison farm opened on 17 July 1916 and occupied 222 hectares and operated as a self-sustaining farm. Timber cabins housed the prisoners until 1946 when concrete cells were built. The prison closed in 1975 and was used as a holiday camp facility until 1995. Most recently it operated as an eco-village until it was bought in 2017 for $4 million by a Chinese-based company with plans to turn it into a major tourism operation.

In 1967, at the request of then state Premier Henry Bolte, the State Electricity Commission of Victoria proposed the island as the site of the first nuclear power plant in Australia but the plans were abandoned. During the 1960s and 1970s BHP, Hooker Rex and the State Electricity Commission paid inflated prices for land, inducing land owners to sell up and move off the island.

In July 1997, 11050 ha, about 70%, of the island was declared French Island National Park, and in May 2002 the waters directly north of French Island were declared the French Island Marine National Park. 
Map - French Island  (French Island)
Country - Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of 7617930 km2, Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with deserts in the centre, tropical rainforests in the north-east, and mountain ranges in the south-east.

The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
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