VICPort & river
St Leonards
A firewood landing at the tip of the Bellarine.
1849James Langdon takes up the St Leonards run
WHAT STARTED IT
St Leonards faces Port Phillip at the eastern end of the Bellarine Peninsula, across the bay from Melbourne. James Langdon took up the St Leonards run in 1849, and his partner George Cole, a Melbourne merchant who later ran bay paddle steamers, bought foreshore land and is thought to have shipped firewood from here to Melbourne.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
A pier was working by 1862, later carrying farm produce, poultry, pigs and fish, while brickmaking and grazing filled the hinterland. By the 1920s the hotel, boarding houses and beach camps filled at holiday times, and anglers came for the whiting.
TURNING POINTS
1849James Langdon takes up the St Leonards pastoral station.
1862A pier is working at St Leonards.
1874The state school opens on land donated by George Cole.
1886The Illustrated Australian News pictures the township and its long jetty.
1926Easter visitors fill the hotel, boarding houses and beach camps, drawn by the whiting fishing.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A retirement and holiday town of about 3,500 people in 2021, many of its houses holiday homes. The jetty, foreshore camping grounds and wildlife reserves around Swan Bay remain its focus.