Greenough Flats History - 1822 to 1856

GREEENOUGH FLATS HISTORY 1822 - 1856

1822 Phillip King surveyed the mid-west coast by ship and named Moresby's flat-topped Range and the Wizard Hills.
1839 George Grey and exploration party travelled over the Flats moving through low, grassy, swampy plain, thinly wooded with acacias which . . . "brought us to a river, about five and twenty yards wide, which I named the Greenough, and travelling up it a short distance, we found a spot where we could cross by stepping from rock to rock ... we passed a large assemblage of native huts.
There were two groups of those houses close together in a sequestered nook in a wood, which, taken collectively, would have contained at least a hundred and fifty natives". It is likely these huts were in the southern Flats area.
1840/1 Captain John Loft Stokes in HMS Beagle entered a natural anchorage, which he named Champion Bay. The following year he journeyed to the Greenough hinterland . "After extensively examining with my glass, resting on the ground, all that lay within the extensive range of vision afforded by Wizard Peak ... It was now clear that this part of the country was not fit for the settler".
1846 Augustus Gregory, Frank Gregory and Henry Grocery travelled overland and explored the valley and coal seams of the Irwin River.
1846 Lieut. Frank Helpman journeyed from Champion Bay to the Irwin and crossed the Greenough River, noting a large spring, probably the Bootenal Spring. This became a key area for future European settlement, providing water and timber resources.
1848 A settler expedition under the leadership of A.C. Gregory, including C. F. Gregory, Lockier Burges, James Walcott and Augustus Bedart, camped on a bank of the Greenough River.
1849 A. C. Gregory met Aborigines on the Greenough River enroute to the Murchison from Perth.
1850 Two developments allowed for the creation of large pastoral runs; a system of A and B class leases allowed for extensive holdings at low prices, and the arrival of convicts ensured access to a cheap and compliant labour force. The changes in regulations concerning land also allowed applications for tillage (agricultural) leases.
1850 Pastoralists William Burges and Thomas Brown settled the Champion Bay District with parties from the Avon Valley. Burges chose pastoral leases to the north on the Bowes River (three leases totalling 60,000 acres) and Thomas Brown established Glengarry homestead on the east side of Wizard Peak, in the Greenough hinterland (leases no. 63 and 64, 40,000 acres). With Brown were J. S. Davis, James Walcott and Major Logue, who all leased land in the area north, south and east of Wizard Peak. The same year, A. C. Gregory marked out 40 half-acre lots and public reserves for Geraldton.
1851 The Colonisation Assurance Corporation leased 60,000 acres in three pastoral blocks covering the Greenough Flats, and planned to settle immigrant farmers on small blocks. The corporation employed Henry Gregory and F. Scott to survey the Front Flats into allotments, but the scheme foundered the following year.
1851 In June, Eliza Brown, wife of Thomas Brown, travelled overland to see her husband in his new pastoral venture. She stayed in a hut at the fledgling Glengarry homestead and saw the Front Flats. . . 'There will be only little clearing required, as scarcely any large trees grow on the flats; but clumps of flowering shrubs in some places very close together, and in others further apart'.
1851 William Burges was appointed Resident Magistrate of Champion Bay and in September wrote of the agricultural potential of the Greenough Flats. He also reported that Aborigines had killed stock on his pastoral run, driving 33 cattle over steep hills to their deaths.
1852 Hamersley and Co., which already had holdings in the Irwin River valley, expanded into the Greenough and became a key force in future development of the Flats. The company, also referred to as The Cattle Company', leased 10 blocks totalling 200,000 acres and took over pastoral leases Nos. 61 and 62, B-class land on the Flats formerly held by the Colonisation Assurance Corporation.
1852 Davis, Walcott and Co. took two leases - totalling 40, 000 acres to the east and north of Brown's leases near Wizard Peak. These holdings were the nucleus of the Tibradden homestead.
1852 First baby registered in the Victoria District to William Criddle, of 'the Bootenall', at the northern end of the Front Flats. Criddle was probably working here for Hamersley and Co.
1852 George Shenton applied to lease 1, 280 acres at the southern end of the Greenough Flats, south of the river elbow, at Wagawa, now known as Old Walkaway. William Cousins, a relative of Shenton's, established a wheat crop on this land, probably the first on the Flats.
1853 Pastoralists bought blocks on their leases in the Greenough area, using pre-emptive purchase rights to safeguard their homesteads and water sources, a practice known as 'peacocking'.
1854 There were 353 people - 280 men and 73 women - in the Victoria District, which included Champion Bay, Greenough and the Irwin. This figure included convicts and military personnel. NOTE: Census figures excluded Aborigines.
1854 Reports of settler-Aborigine skirmishes in the Greenough hinterland . . . 'the natives are still continuing their depredations on the stock of the settlers'. Aborigines used the Bootenal thicket, on the Front Flats, as a base for raids and settlers attacked them there.
1856 Two Aborigines were killed by settlers near Wizard Peak after a series of skirmishes.
1856 Thomas Brown leased 9, 200 acres at the northern end of the Front Flats - this property ran down the coast to the Greenough River mouth and included the lower estuarine reaches. At the same time, Hamersley and Co. leased 6, 000 acres in the southern Flats area.
1856 Colonial Secretary Barlee visited the northern districts, including the Greenough, and the tour stimulated the survey and sale of blocks on the Flats. Barlee encountered homesteads at the Greenough . . . ' it surpasses beyond comparison any part of this colony that I have yet seen".

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1822 - 1856 | 1857 - 1867 | 1868 - 1877 | 1880 - 1899 | 1900 - 1963 | 1963 - 1993