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Robert Hoddle (20 April 1794 – 24 October 1881) was a surveyor of Port Phillip in the 1830s, and the creator of the Hoddle Grid in central Melbourne.
Hoddle was born in Westminster, London and became a cadet surveyor in the Royal military surveyors in 1812. In 1822 he left for the Cape Colony, South Africa where he worked on military surveys for more than ten years. He arrived on the William Penn at Sydney Harbour in July 1823. Governor Brisbane appointed him assistant surveyor under surveyor-general John Oxley. He spent the next twelve years in Queensland and surveying the Blue Mountains, where he worked on the Bell's Line of Road. He also surveyed the sites of the New South Wales towns of Berrima and Goulburn.
Hoddle arrived in Port Phillip, the future site for Melbourne, in March 1837 and was appointed senior surveyor with his assistants D'Arcy and Darke. By 1838 Melbourne, Williamstown and Geelong were quickly surveyed for deliverance to the market as real estate. His designs were an innovation for Australian cities, as Melbourne and its inner suburbs were planned in the grid style.
Lonsdale appointed Hoddle auctioneer at the first sale of crown land on 1 June 1837, at which he sold half-acre (0.2 ha) allotments averaging just over £35 an acre. His commission was £57 12s. 7d. He bought two allotments for himself costing £54. Hoddle built himself a house on the corner of Bourke and Spencer Streets.
Hoddle was an artist as well as a surveyor. Many of Hoddle's paintings are in the National Library of Australia, State Library of Victoria and the State Library of New South Wales. They show scenes of New South Wales and Port Philip. Some of his works were offered for sale in a South Yarra gallery in October 2004 and May 2005.
Between 1830 and 1836, Hoddle made several visits to the area now known as the Australian Capital Territory (A.C.T.), where his chief task was to survey boundaries of properties settled by squatters. He is the earliest-known European artist to have depicted the A.C.T. area. Some of the paintings he made during this time are held at the National Library of Australia. They include:
Additional works by Hoddle include:
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