Bicheno History
The town began as a sealers port and was called Waubs Bay Harbour after an Aboriginal woman, Waubadebar, who was enslaved by sealers in the early 19th century. A strong swimmer, she became famous for rescuing two sealers when their boat was wrecked 1 km offshore. Years after her death, the town honoured her by constructing a grave off the main beach. Bicehno was renamed after James Ebenezer Bicheno, colonial secretary of Van Diemens land in the 1840s.
In 1854 the town became a coal mining port, but a year later most of the miners left and joined the Victorian gold rush. The town shrank drastically, which is why so few historical buildings remain. Around the 1940s the towns fortunes changed as it started developing into a holiday destination and still is today.