AUSTRALIANA South Australia Local History –

Reprint. pp. 72 illusts. #260626

Robe is situated on the ancestral lands of the Buandig and Ngarrindjeri peoples.

Europeans founded the town of Robe on 19 March 1846, ten years after the Province of South Australia was established, as a seaport, administrative centre, and township.

Robe was named after the fourth Governor of South Australia, Major Frederick Robe, who chose the site as a port in 1845. The town was proclaimed as a port in 1847.It became South Australia’s second-busiest international port, after Port Adelaide, in the 1850s. Robe’s trade was drawn from a large hinterland that extended into western Victoria, and many roadside inns were built to cater for the bullock teamsters bringing down the wool, including the Bush Inn, still standing on the outskirts of Robe. Exports included horses, sheep skins, and wool.

The Customs House has been listed on the South Australian Heritage Register since 1980.

During the Victorian gold rushes after the discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851, the government of the colony of Victoria introduced a landing tax of £10 per person to deter Chinese immigrants – more than the cost of their voyage. To bypass the tax, more than 16,000 Chinese people landed at Robe to walk overland for 320 kilometres (200 miles) to the goldfields, mainly at Ballarat and Bendigo. The walk became known as the “Robe Walk”.

• Phaeton – 2 February 1857
• Sultana – 27 April 1857
• Alma 15 December 1861
• Livingstone – 16 December 1861
• SS Admella – 6 August 1859
• Koning Willem II – 30 June 1857, on Long Beach around 5 km (3.1 mi) east of Robe.

A stone obelisk was built on Cape Dombey in 1852 to help ships navigate safely into the bay, and an automatic lighthouse was built on higher ground in 1973.