Above: Looking back towards the Point from the police station. (State Library of Victoria) Below: The police station in later years
Above: Lawrence Rostron Below: The Rostron land
Constable Louis Julius Weidner was appointed as its occupier. He was a tall and intelligent 31 year-old German with a reputation for being conscientious and fair. He was only needed there for two years. It became increasingly obvious to the authorities that South Australia was more lenient to the Chinese, whose numbers had begun to decrease in any case. The Sandy Point police station was abolished in June 1862. The building was put up for sale but there were no takers. It was rented for 3/6 a week to Mr Putwain of the Oyster Company and then it was sold to a Lawrence Rostron for £26. Enter Lawrence Rostron The 63 year-old Rostron was a most influential figure. Born in Lancashire to wealthy parents, he had been sent to Brazil to manage the family’s business. Whilst there, he amassed a small fortune and he decided to emigrate to Australia in 1842 and start a new life. Rostron became a hotelier, merchant, shipowner and a grazier controlling over 200,000 acres. In 1860, he saw an opportunity at Western Port, which had once been a productive source of oysters before being over-fished. A scheme to establish artificial oyster beds at Sandy Point was being promoted by a former Inspector of Fisheries, James Putwain, and Rostron decided to invest. The company spent £20,000 on dams and containments before operational problems arose and the venture folded. The loss was unsustainable for Putwain but his partner, Lawrence Rostron, would survive the loss.
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Rostron’s interest in Western Port had been aroused. In August 1864 he bought Crown allotments 150 and 151 - 308 acres at Sandy Point which included the old police station. He had plans for a township covering 39 acres at the Point. There were 15 lots from one to three acres and a nearby reservoir which was all that remained of Putwain’s oyster beds. When the lots were put up for public auction, their reserve prices ranged from £3-4 per acre and all but one were sold. A few people bought multiple lots: one wealthy Moonee Ponds widow Eliza Alice Sparkes bought three, land and shipping agent H Smith bought three, politicians T Loader and R Anderson bought five between them, and merchants J Lord and H Howard one each. The speculators had obviously moved in and no houses appeared. Henry Howard was the only one with a business interest in the area - he owned a hotel in Mornington and ran the mail coach through Hastings to Phillip Island. He would have used the jetty on the Point which had been providing the vital link with the Island.