Fawkner, John Pascoe (1792-1869), an Australian pioneer, was a cofounder of Melbourne. He organized a party that left Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in August to settle on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria. The group established a settlement at the site of what is now Melbourne but soon discovered that a group led by John Batman had already claimed the area. Fawkner himself arrived in October. Batman died soon afterward, but Fawkner lived to see the colony gain self-government.
Fawkner was born in London on Oct. 20, 1792. In 1819, he settled in Launceston, Van Diemen’s Land, where he established his own newspaper, the Launceston Advertiser, in 1829. He died on Sept. 4, 1869.
