The first inhabitants of the area were the
Wathaurong Indigenous Australian tribe. The land on which Sebastopol now sits was first taken up as a pastoral run called Waverley by Henry Anderson and George Russell in June of 1838. It consisted of 26,000 acres and was stocked with 11,000 sheep. It passed to
Jock Winter in 1841 who named it “Bonshaw". In 1855, it was renamed after
Sevastopol in
Crimea. Most of Sebastopol is located on a platau on which deep-lead gold mining began in 1854. At its peak as a mining community in the 1850s, Sebastopol had an estimated population of 20,000. Sebastopol's origin was a separate working class town servicing the rich gold mining fields south of Ballarat. The Post Office opened on 5 October 1857. Sebastopol Town Hall was opened on 19 March 1869. On 14 August 1913 the
tramway to Ballarat opened which led to it becoming by the mid 20th century part of the Ballarat urban area. ==Education==