page_title: Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company
section_title: Half-Yearly Meeting
hierarchical_section_title: Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company / History / Half-Yearly Meeting
caption_attribution_description: English: Geelong and Melbourne Drawing 3
context_page_description: The Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company was a railway company in Victoria, Australia.
  Alexander Thomson, a member of the Victorian Legislative Council, introduced and mentored a bill to incorporate the Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company.On 8 February 1853, the operation of Melbourne and Geelong Railway Company and Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway Company was approved by the Victoria Government. Thomson was one of the directors and presided at the first shareholder meeting. Work began at the Geelong end in 1854 but progress was slow due to a labour shortage caused by the Victorian gold rush, so the Victorian government hired out 100 prisoners to the company at a daily rate of five shillings each. They were housed in prison hulks moored in Corio Bay.English engineer and surveyor, Edward Snell, undertook the survey and design of the line, including a station and extensive workshops at Geelong, and a number of bluestone and timber bridges.
  Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company was one of the first private railway companies in Victoria.
context_section_description: The company held 2 meetings per year and published 2 reports according to the meeting annually to announce the progress as well as incurred difficulties to stakeholders. The first meeting was conducted in the beginning of January and the second one was in the beginning of July.
caption: Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company Drawing 3
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