opponent of transportation to these shores." He published the Melbourne Advertiser on 1 January 1838 which was the district's first newspaper. The Advertiser'''s first nine or ten weekly editions were handwritten in ink. The old wooden printing press brought to Tasmania by Lt. Governor David Collins in 1803, and some worn typeface were eventually obtained from Launceston and the first printed edition appeared on 5 March 1838. It was to last for a further 17 editions when it was closed down on 23 April 1838 for want of a newspaper licence from Sydney. The Port Phillip Patriot and Melbourne Advertiser'' was commenced on 6 February 1839 by newly licensed John Pascoe Fawkner. It was published daily commencing on 15 May 1845. In association with the newspaper he ran a bookselling and stationery business. Fawkner acquired a property in 1839 as one of eleven lots in the subdivision of the Coburg district by the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle, in the present day Pascoe Vale. The property was called Belle Vue Park or Pascoe Vale Park. and was bounded approximately by the Moonee Ponds Creek, Gaffney Street, Northumberland Road and the western prolongation of Boundary Road. There were two other lots to the east of Moonee Ponds Creek. He lived at his farmhouse and at his town-house in Collingwood between 1840 and 1855. Fawkner was very active in the development of the Port Phillip settlement, including its political life and he set out his views on participation and franchise in his document, Constitution and form of government, believed to have been written in the 1830s : In 1842 Fawkner was elected one of the Market Commissioners, and in 1843 a town councillor, an office which he held for many years. On 18 September 1851 Fawkner was elected to the first Victorian Legislative Council for Talbot, Dalhousie and Angelsey, and held the seat until the original Council was abolished in March 1856. In November 1856 Fawkner was elected to the first Parliament of the self-governing colony of Victoria, as a member of the Victorian Legislative Council for Central Province, a seat he held until his death on 4 September 1869. Perhaps anticipating his life was drawing to a close, he sold his collection of books the year before. His library contained 1,266 volumes and the titles listed in the sale catalogue indicates he was well read. In Melbourne as in Launceston, Fawkner made