Charles Franks arrived in Melbourne aboard the "Champion" from Van Diemen's Land in 1836 and made a squatter's claim to land on the western side of Port Phillip near Mount Cottrel (northeast of what is now the Melbourne outer-western suburb of Wyndham Vale). Franks' land neighboured that of the early Melbourne explorer and surveyor John Helder Wedge, which was managed by his nephew Charles Wedge—prior to him gaining a pre-emptive right to land license of his own for the Frankston area. The correspondence with the Department of Lands and Survey states that, at the time of surveying the area for the land sales of 1854, the name "Frankston" was probably suggested to honour the Wedge's deceased former neighbour.