I was asked the other day by a very well-respected colleague and friend, that he enjoyed MY STORY. I apologise to all why I haven’t continued for a while.

Here is a little bit of history not about me, about my mother’s side of the family.

I may have this wrong my great great grandfather, there may be another great in there somewhere.

Master of the schooner Harriett in which he traded across the Pacific in the 1850s.

Husband of Isabella Jane Forbes

Licensee of the Albion Hotel in Melbourne

Owner of the Wollomai House and much surrounding property on Phillip Island and the adjoining mainland.

Owner of the horse Wollamai which won the Melbourne Cup in 1875

— FROM MAX WALTER\’S HISTORY —
His (William Ford Cleeland\’s) son John Cleeland married Isobel Jane Forbes and:-
* Travelled to the USA to join the Gold Rush in California
* Bought a Schooner and traded in the South Pacific
* Migrated to Australia and purchased 7,000 acres on Phillip Island in
Victoria called ‘Wollamai’
* Won the Melbourne Cup on his horse ‘Wollamai’ in 1875
* Bought the Albion Hotel in Bourke Street Melbourne in 1895 which was the starting point for Cobb and Co Coaches
* Raised 4 children, John Blake, Bine, Dot and Eddie.

— FROM EMELBOURNE.NET.AU —
Albion Hotel

A three-storey hotel with distinctive arched façade, the Albion once stood on the site of the David Jones store on the north side of Bourke Street, across from its rival the Bull and Mouth. Its neighbour to the west was Cobb and Co.\’s stagecoach office, for which the hotel acted as a terminus and depot. The first Albion Hotel was a large shingle-roofed, single-storey timber house built on the site in 1839 by carpenter James Westwood. It was rebuilt around 1851 by brewer Henry Condell, Melbourne\’s first mayor, as a larger hotel with 60 bedrooms. John Cleeland, licensee during the 1860s and 1870s, installed an American ice-cream soda fountain imported by George Coppin. The hotel closed in 1912 and the site was later occupied by Buckley and Nunn where a commemorative plaque was installed in 1946. Albion Lane once provided rear access to the hotel, and its builder is remembered by Westwood Place.

Chrystopher J. Spicer


— Melbourne Argus 25/8/1945 —
One of Melbourne’s most popular hosts was John Clee-land, of the Albion Hotel in Bourke St Melbourne on the north side of Buckley and Nunn’s. It was the coaching house and many of the squatters made it their headquarters. Cleeland, like most Ulstermen, was enterprising and had taken part in the early gold rush to California. He made money there, and having bought a schooner, traded for many years in Sth Pacific, a hazardous calling today but infinitely more so then. After purchasing the Albion, he bought a property ‘Wollamai, ran cattle and a few racehorses, one of which won the Melbourne Cup called Wollamai.

— OVENS AND MURRAY ADVERTISER 28 Jan 1914 —
DEATH OF AN OLD COLONIST.
Mr. John Cleeland, died to-day at Phillip Island, at the age of 87 years. The late Mr. Cleeland, who was a colonist of 73 years, formerly kept the Albion Hotel in Bourke-street, Melbourne, when it was the headquarters of Cobb and Co. coaches. He won the Melbourne Cup in 1875 with Wollomai.

This is MY STORY.(we are not famous, our family are all from hard workers.)