The Church of England in Warnambool obtained of land for an Aboriginal mission station to "ameliorate the present wretched conditions of the Aborigines", and requested establishment of an Aboriginal reserve in the area. The Victorian Board for the Protection of Aborigines created Framlingham Aboriginal Reserve in response. The reserve was occupied in 1865 by many of the surviving members of the Kirrae Wuurong clans, who originally inhabited the area between Mount Emu Creek and the Hopkins River, and much of whose language was recorded by a Scottish squatter, James Dawson. Members of the Djargurd Wurrung from the Camperdown area and Gunditjmara people from Warrnambool were also relocated to Framlingham, but Gunditjmara from Portland and Lake Condah refused to settle here due to tension with the other clans, leading to the establishment of Lake Condah reserve in 1869.