The
traditional owners of Kilmore and the Kilmore Plains are the
Taungurung people, a part of the
Kulin nation that inhabited a large portion of central Victoria including Port Phillip Bay and its surrounds. The
Tommy McRae artwork held by the National Gallery of Australia depicts the "Kilmore Tribe Holding Corroboree", and a child pioneer of Kilmore, James Hamilton, describes in detail just such a corroboree at Kilmore in 1845. In 1866, a Taungurung elder, Lanky, reported to the Kilmore Free Press that the native name of Kilmore was Mulmialinuck. Kilmore was discovered for European use by the famous Overlander and explorer of the Port Phillip District (later Victoria) and South Australia
Charles Bonney on about 21 March 1837, at which time he also blazed the track of the Sydney Road to Melbourne. His track formed the main highway between the capital cities for 139 years. Kilmore was settled by Bonney on about 17 June 1837 as a sheep station and he built Bonney's
Outstation on the townsite itself. Kilmore would have had its first European building within a couple of days of Bonney's arrival. Bonney's sheep station was unique because the Kilmore Plains on which it was established were permanently watered by three spring-fed creeks and were highly fertile. Thus they were suited for both grazing and high population small acreage farming. After Bonney left, the station was held successively by Dr Richard Julian Hamlyn, then the partners
Frederick Armand Powlett and John Green. The most productive part of the property was purchased by
William Rutledge on 12 April 1841 in a Special Survey of and was progressively leased or subdivided into small holdings for intensive agriculture whereupon it became the agricultural powerhouse of inland Victoria. Rutledge named Kilmore for his home place in Ireland at
Kilmore, County Cavan. The Kilmore Plains had such a concentration of population that in the first Victorian election of 1851 the district controlled two seats. The United Boroughs of Kilmore, Kyneton and Seymour were dominated by Kilmore township, while the United Counties of Talbot, Dalhousie and Anglesea were dominated by the Rutledge Kilmore Special Survey. As a further demonstration of the importance of the district, the first elected representative of the United Counties was
John Pascoe Fawkner, the co-founder of Melbourne. Between 1856 and 1865 the seat of Kilmore was the electorate of the Irish-born
John O'Shanassy (1818–83) who had three stints as
Premier of Victoria between 1857 and 1863.Victoria Premiers O'Shanassy, an Irish Catholic, was the bane of the Protestant establishment in Melbourne and the ensuing sectarianism also affected those who lived in Kilmore. O'Shanassy's supporters were referred to as 'O'Rowdies' and O'Shanassy as the 'Rowdy King". A
Melbourne Punch cartoon "Freedom of Election at Kilmore" depicted the 1859 election day in the town as a wild barney of Irishmen. Kilmore was a stronghold of early
Celtic settlers from
Ireland,
Scotland and
Cornwall, and remains a strong Celtic area to this day. The town hosts a market on the last Saturday of each month, and a Celtic Festival each June. Kilmore Post Office opened on 1 February 1843 and, with Ovens (later
Wangaratta) which opened the same day, were the fifth and sixth to open in the Port Phillip District and the first two inland offices. Many of Kilmore's oldest extant buildings are made of
bluestone including the hospital, old court house, former post office, some churches,
a gaol, and a monument to
Hume and Hovell near the golf course. The Kilmore Magistrates' Court closed on 1 January 1990. == Population ==