Historical Association of Wetlands and Rivers in the Busselton-Walpole Region WATER RESOURCE TECHNICAL SERIES I WATER AND RIVERS COMMISSION REPORT WRT2 1996 WATER AND RIVERS COMMISSION Cover Photograph: Payne's Flour Mill, near capel. In 1851 George Robert Payne took up a block of land on the Capel River where he built a flour mill almost entirely of wood, making a dam across the river and utilising the water thus conserved to run the mill. Photograph (taken c. 1900), and text courtesy of Battye Library 345B. Historical Association of Wetlands and Rivers in the Busselton-Walpole Region Report to Water and Rivers Commission Pierre Horwitz & Angela Wardell-Johnson Department of Environmental Management Edith Cowan University W ATERI RESOURCE TECHNICAL SERIES WATER AND RIVERS COMMISSION REPORT WRT2 1996 WATER AND RIVERS COMMISSION ©Water and Rivers Commission of Western Australia, 1996 Published by the Water and Rivers Commission Hyatt Centre 3 Plain Street East Perth, Western Australia 6004 Telephone: (09) 278 0300 Publication Number: WRT2 ISBN: 0-7309-7248-8 STREAMLINE ABSTRACT This study and report documents the historical association of wetlands and rivers of the Busselton- Walpole Region to people of European origin. It covers their first exploration of the Region, early settlement and farming development, water supply developments for domestic use and irrigation, the development of the timber industry and land drainage. It draws up a list of important sites within each Local Government Area in the Region The study contributes to a series of documents published for the purposes of water allocation planning in the Busselton­ Walpole Region. Other publications focus on the following topics: • Recreational Use ofWaterbodies in the Busselton- Walpole Region • Report on an Investigation into the Aboriginal Significance of Wetlands and Rivers in the Busselton - Walpole Region • Environmental Significance of Wetlands and Rivers in the Busselton- Walpole Region • Scientific and Educational Use of Wetlands and Rivers in the Busselton- Walpole Region KeyWords Water Resources Planning, Historical Association, European Settlement, Wetlands and Rivers, Busselton - Walpole, Western Australia (ii) FOREWORD The Water and Rivers Commission's Policy and Planning Division is currently undertaking a series of studies aimed at developing a water resources allocation strategy for each of the six regions into which the State has been divided for the purpose. Allocation strategies are to be based on ·the Commission's aim of promoting a sustainable bahince between environmental, economic and social values of the State's water resources. This report contributes directly to that aim. This current study relates to the Busselton-Walpole Region of the South West. It is the second region to be covered and follows a study of the Perth-Bunbury Region carried out between 1985 and 1991. As part of the study consultants were engaged by the Commission to report on the historical association of wetlands and rivers within the Region. This report by the consultants is being published by the Commission in order to inform the community, and to encourage wide debate on this component of the community's need for water, and on the allocation planning process as a whole. While this report has been prepared consistant with the Commission's resource management aims, many of the opinions expressed are those of the consultant and are not necessarily all endorsed by the Water and Rivers Commission. The Commission would welcome comments on the report from any interested person or organisation. Comments should be addressed to the undersigned. c:l./({Z~ Director, Policy and Planning Division Water and Rivers Commission November 1996 (iii) CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Aims and the Value of Historical Data ............................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Study Region ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 1.3 Structure of the Report ........................................................................................................................................ 2 1.4 Early Exploration ................................................................................................................................................ 2 1.5 Early Settlement: Agriculture and Resource Extraction ..................................................................................... 3 1.6 Early Attitudes to Water ..................................................................................................................................... 5 1.7 Environmental Change ........................................................................................................................................ 6 1.8 Cultural Significance of Sites ............................................................................................................................. 7 2.0 METHODOLOGY 2.1 Sources of Information ....................................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Rationale for Methodology and the Dichotomous Approach ............................................................................. 9 2.3 Methodology: Data Acquisition and Synthesis ................................................................................................. ! 0 3.0 SYSTEMATIC APPROACH 3.1 Relationship to Nyungar Associations .............................................................................................................. 11 3.2 Preferential Land Grants ................................................................................................................................... 1 1 3.3 Travel Routes .................................................................................................................................................... 12 4.0 LOCATION BASED DATA 4 .I Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 14 4.2 Shire summaries* (in alphabetical order) ......................................................................................................... l4 5.0 RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................... 72 6.0 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................................................... 73 APPENDIX A: Package for Respondents ............................................................................................................................. 77 APPENDIX B: Survey Respondents ..................................................................................................................................... 83 APPENDIX C: Main Database of Information (in shire alphabetical order) ........................................................................ 85 * including, for each shire, a table and a map of historical sites (v) 1.0 INTRODUCTION given above could be combined to deal specifically with 1.1 Aims, ·and the Value of Historical Data water-related issues, in other words: This work, commissioned by the Water Authority of to investigate sites ofEuropean cultural significance Western Australia, documents the historical association which demonstrate the ways in which waterways of wetlands and rivers to peoples of a European origin in have been significant over the period ofdevelopment the Busselton-Walpole region. The Water Authority ofthe region. seeks to assign all water resources; in doing so it The purpose of this introduction is to set out these requires that all values and uses which society places on relationships within the context of a broad overview. those resources receive reasonable consideration. With respect to the European colonisation and Accordingly, this report aims to provide a list of sites occupation of Australia, two themes have gained which have European cultural significance and which momentum in recent years in the discourse of Australian perhaps might need to be protected from any environmental history. The first is the increasing value development of water resources. It also provides a brief applied to European cultural heritage in Australia where and preliminary synthesis of the way in which inland attempts to reconstruct early European traditions, waterways have been utilised since the Europeans first landscapes and built environments are encouraged. The commenced their visitation of the region. second is the increasing recognition of the mismatch To state that water was essential to Europeans in between the expectations and assumptions of the post- exploration and settlement of the region is obvious. 1788 European settlers of Australia, and the capabilities Technically speaking any site of historical importance of the ancient land they came to occupy (Frawley 1994), can have a "water utilisation" component to it. Explorers and the increasing recognition of the uniqueness of the required water in their travels, and early settlers sought a Australian landscape in its pre-settlement condition permanent source of water proximally.