Green’s Dictionary of Slang

Smellbourne n.

.

1867		Melbourne Punch 3 Jan. 6/2: The fragrance of the city scent fountains ever flowing along Swanston-street is highly prized by all chemists, and, in consequence, it is proposed to alter the name of the southern metropolis from Melbourne to Smell-bourne.
1881		Melbourne Punch 14 Apr. 1/2: A new chum coming up the Yarra naturally holds his nose as he inquires: ‘And this is Smell-bourne? I could have guessed as much’.
1891		Pacific Coast Teacher 1-2 154: Victorians speak proudly of ‘Marvelous Melbourne,’ but their jealous neighbors wilfully construe this title Marvelous Smellbourne. Typhoid and diptheria sweep away hundreds every season.
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Feb. 12/3: The story goes that a brush occured at [...] Smellbourne’s most swaggah boarding-house. After the wine and chestnuts had passed round, somebody swung up to a popular officer [...] and insulted him. The professional fire-eater told him summarily and simply to ‘shut-up.’.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Jan. 2nd sect. 1/3: The sensational land crashes and bank smashes of Smellbourne and Sydney.
1923		Windsor & Richmond Gaz. (NSW) 9 Nov. 3/4: The police are on strike in Marvellous Smellbourne, and hoodlums are rioting and looting in a shameless way.
1936		South Western Advertiser (Perth, WA) 1 May 4/7: He pays a higher rent for this roost than he would for a marble hailed mansion in marvellous Smellbourne.
1948		Albany Advertiser (WA) 8 Mar. 3/1: Sydney, returns the compliment by speaking of the sacred Yarra as ‘Smellbourne's sewer’.
1955		Arizona Dly Star (Tucson, AZ) 4 Dec. 45/5: Sydney is acciused by Melbourne of being over-Americanized. Sydney calls her accuser ‘Smellbourne’.
1972		A. Chipper Aussie Swearers Guide 69: Smellburnian. Melbournian.
1984		Age (Melbourne) 6 Nov. 4/3: [R]eminders of the unsewered days when the city earned the title Marvellous Smellbourne.
1993		(con. mid-19C) Age (Melbourne) 30 Jan. 11/6: Early pollution of the Yara created ‘Smellbourne’.
2000		(con. mid-19C) Age (Melbourne) 29 Dec. 7/4: Melbourne’s pollution problems earned it the sobriquet ‘Marvellous Smellbourne’.