Obituaries Australia

Thomas Strode, 1872

State Library of Victoria, H5056/70

There are now very few remaining in Victoria of those who may be regarded as the founders of the colony, and one more — the late Mr. Thomas Strode, of Richmond — has just been removed by death. Mr. Strode arrived here in the month of October, 1836, shortly after the late J. P. Fawkner. He soon afterwards left for Adelaide, but returned to Port Phillip in 1838, in which year he founded, and for some time afterwards carried on, the Port Phillip Gazette, the first legally registered printed newspaper in the colony, the only complete file of which is now in the British Museum. Mr. Strode also established the Maitland Gazette and the Pastoral Times, the latter being still published at Deniliquin, N.S.W. In the year 1840 he was a member of the first Masonic lodge formed in Melbourne, and in the following year was principally instrumental in establishing the first lodge of the Independent Order of Oddfellows in the province of Port Phillip. For the past seven years the deceased gentleman has been a confirmed invalid, the immediate cause of death being paralysis. He expired at his residence, Punt-road, Richmond, on May 1, and was interred in the Boroondara Cemetery.