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When did Melbourne become a town and then a city?
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Melbourne
Aerial view of Melbourne's central business district, with Princes Bridge and Flinders Street train station in the foreground.
Melbourne was officially incorporated as a town in 1842 and subsequently designated as a city in 1847.1
These milestones followed the initial establishment of the settlement in 1835 by pioneers John Batman and John Fawkner, and the formal naming of the site in 1837 after the British prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.1