Introduction

I have titled this page ‘Bunbury’ but it is really about three military posts: Port Leschenault, Wonnerup, and Bunbury in that order.  The first was populated by soldiers on and off for seven years; the second a trial for only three months; and Bunbury for a little over nine years. My research for this station began in November 2023 with a visit to Bunbury Museum and Heritage Centre. At that stage I knew that I was standing very close to where the Bunbury convict depot had been. However, no one in the Museum seemed to know where the Bunbury military post had been sited. Later I had a clue, given by Archdeacon Wollaston in the Picton Journal, indicating that 51^st Regiment Lieutenant Northey’s house – later Wollaston’s house – was opposite the barracks. Of course I didn’t know where that was on the ground; much had changed in 180 years. 

Ultimately I was much assisted in identifying the Bunbury military post site by Jenny Stains, of King Cottage Museum, together with a plan of the town sourced from the State Library. It was then up to me to find out about the first military post – Port Leschenault located at Point McLeod. 

Port Leschenault at Point McLeod

Between 17^th and 30^th November 1829, Dr Alexander Collie and Lieutenant William Preston R.N., both arriving at  Swan River on HMS Sulphur made an excursion from Cockburn Sound to Geographe Bay to observe the coast and the country.

Good reports from this excursion prompted Lieutenant Governor James Stirling and Surveyor General John S. Roe to visit the area themselves on the schooner Eagle. A Government Notice soon followed on 30^th March 1830 from the Surveyor’s Office. In part it read:

On the morning of the 6th instance the expedition arrived off Port Leschenault. The appearance of the country being favourable, and a proper position for a military station being selected, the detachment of the 63rd regiment, brought from head-quarters by the Eagle, was landed, together with the stores and provisions necessary for their maintenance. They found, in the great abundance of building materials, great facilities in housing themselves, and the Lieutenant Governor had the satisfaction, before his departure, to see the party nearly complete in arrangements for their comfort during the approaching winter.  During the Eagle‘s stay at Port Leschenault, excursions were made in every direction which could lead to a knowledge of the surrounding country. The most important of these was an expedition of gentlemen volunteers, led by Mr. Roe. [Cross:81].

Thus a detachment of the 63^rd Regiment dug in for their first quarter duty at Port Leschenault in March 1830 under the command of Ensign Donald Hume McLeod, with a sergeant and 15 rank and file.  This was the most men ever detached to this post and only until the end of September when neither troublesome natives nor enthusiastic settlers were attracted to the place.  The military moved on to Augusta and later Vasse.

In September 1831, Ensign McLeod was recalled to Headquarters in Perth and was soon appointed acting Government Resident and Superintendent of Natives at York. At some stage, a substantial timber memorial was placed near the original site of the military post, naming it Point McLeod. A plaque was attached to the structure to commemorate the first military post 150 years later. It can be found along the foreshore of Koombana North Beach, assuming it has not been washed away by high tides, blown away by heavy gales. vandalised or stolen for firewood.

The 21^st Regiment arrived in the Colony in September 1833 to relieve the 63^rd at Augusta. Leschenault made a comeback in December 1837 and it, along with Augusta and Vasse, were operating simultaneously (albeit with numbers of soldiers averaging less than double digits). The 21^st Regiment musters often did not record places of detachment for its troops.  However, the following settlers were recorded as first on the Port Leschenault station: Privates James Blyth (Dec 1837) Keron Doolan (Dec 1837) and John Gill (Jan 1838).

Port Leschenault closed in February 1843.  By then the 51^st Regiment had arrived and the last men on duty at Port Leschenault were Lieutenant A J W Northey, one sergeant and six rank and file. Some of these men would have assisted Surveyor H M Ommanney in marking out the Bunbury townsite and barracks, whilst also acting as military escort. Private William Beardman was one who also served at the new military post at Bunbury in March 1843, later becoming a Swan River Colony settler, farming on land in Toodyay.

Wonnerup

Lieutenant Henry William St Pierre Bunbury (1812-1875) of the 21^st Royal North British Fuzileers arrived in Fremantle on the ship Maria from Launceston to join his regiment.  His first War Office paylist record in the Colony indicated that he had been serving in Hobart Town and was on board Maria on 28^th March 1836 [WO12-3804-222]. The 21^st detachment had been in WA since September 1833. His inauspicious arrival was mentioned in the Perth Gazette with his name mis-spelt Bunberry, along with that of his servant, Private James Hertnan mis-spelt Hartner.

Lieutenant Bunbury’s commanding officer was Captain W H Armstrong who had joined his regiment the previous year from Hobart, but it can be seen from Bunbury’s journal that during his short stay in the Colony, he was often Governor Stirling’s ‘go-to man’.

In December 1836 whilst visiting the Vasse on his return from King George’s Sound, the Governor met with Bunbury about the formation of another military post between the two estuaries of the Vasse. The estuaries extended between them about nine or ten miles from E.S.E. to W.N.W.  Divided about half-way was Wonnerup Island, not entirely surrounded by water except in the wet season or at spring tides.

By the new year of 1837 Bunbury, his servant, and six soldiers were at Wonnerup. Bunbury writes, Like all his [Stirling’s] plans, it was changed several times before being carried into effect, and various were the places fixed upon for the station, and at last, instead of a useful and important post of communication near Port Leschinault (sic) being formed, I was sent to build barracks and form a township on a presq’isle more fit for Dutchmen or frogs than British Soldiers; where there were no settlers and no land to be taken up, and where in fact we were as utterly useless as it was in the Governor’s power to render us. There I remained about three months, till, having completed a plan of the township, I rode up to Head Quarters to show His Excellency that the Surveyor General, through ignorance of the locality, had placed the town of Wonnerup where mud and water were far more plentiful than dry land. [Bunbury:98].

Lieutenant Bunbury spent three years in Australia, visiting New South Wales, Van Diemen’s Land and Western Australia. He left Fremantle on the ship Hero on 8^th November 1837, arriving in Mauritius on 11^th December. He spent Christmas Day in Mauritius and chose to board Hero to England via the Cape because the fare was cheaper and he had enjoyed the accommodation and the company on the journey to Mauritius.

Lieutenant Bunbury may have been interested to know that one of the soldiers under his command who had served at Port Leschenault for ten months in 1837/38, lived for a time in Wonnerup after his Army discharge in 1840. Keron Doolan and his wife Mary had two children there until moving on to Dardanup. In the mid 1860s he was a neighbour of James Hertnan, Bunbury’s former servant.  Thus, Lieutenant, there may have been some settlers at Wonnerup, however briefly!

Bunbury – the Naming before the Townsite

A township has been formed, or at least laid down on the maps, comprising the southern promontory and part of the north beach at the entrance of Port Leschinault (sic) Inlet, which the Governor named ‘Bunbury’ in compliment to me [Bunbury:136]. That day was 21^st December 1836.

By 1838, John and Helen Scott and their three sons and a stepson had been in the Colony for over six years, most recently farming in Guildford, when they were given 320 acres of land to work on Governor Stirling’s Location 26.  It was known as Eelup Farm.  The Scott family is recognised by many sources as the first settlers in the Bunbury district. Today on the site of the former Eelup farm and homestead is the Eelup Rotary in East Bunbury, the largest traffic roundabout in WA.  It is about four kilometres from the site of Port Leschenault where the 63^rd Regiment landed.

• In 1839, Ommanney laid out the town-site of Busselton, and in the following year that of Bunbury. His Bunbury survey was hampered by a number of persons already squatted there [Johnston:93].
• Another source indicates, Survey Peg No 1 for the Bunbury Townsite was placed in the middle of Meredith Creek by Surveyor Thomas Watson under a Colonial Government contract in 1838. However, Watson’s survey work was largely abandoned and it was not until 1841 that Assistant Surveyor H M Ommaney (sic), under instruction from Surveyor General J S Roe, began a full survey [inHerit Place No. 05704].
• Then there is, the township of Bunbury… was surveyed in February 1841 [Whiteley:27].
• All of this is trumped by an announcement by the Colonial Secretary’s Office dated 25^th March 1841 that town allotments in Bunbury were open for public selection [Govt Gazette].
• Following which, Henry Mortlock Ommanney, In November 1841 purchased Bunbury town Lot 65 for £25, and Lot 66 also for £25 [Statham:253].
• ‘Plan of the Town of Bunbury as marked out on the Ground, June 1849 by Gregory’ is the only one that I can find. Even at very high resolution, the digitised plan is difficult to read because of subsequent alterations. On my area of interest the paper is torn throughout, showing only an orange blob [WASRO S235- cons3868-55].

Surveyor Ommanney’s Field Books offered me no further insight into the anomalies surrounding the history of Bunbury township’s beginnings. To this layman they were mostly pages of sketches and coordinates; sixteen books with an average of over hundred pages each – book number 10 the most relevant timeframe and geographic area.

A Shortage of Surveyors

From the arrival of Parmelia in June 1829 to the end of 1833, about 60 ships arrived from overseas, most of them bringing land-hungry migrants to the Colony. By 1834 the population was 1,800. Surveyor General John Septimus Roe, was already suffering a shortage of qualified surveyors, when Governor Stirling reduced his Survey Department staff to a draftsman and clerk. During the longer period from 1834 to 1840 the arrival of ships and the growth of population had slowed somewhat, but there was still a huge backlog to deal with.  For the four years to 1838, survey work was put out to contract but found entirely lacking.

Henry Mortlock Ommanney arrived on Edward Lombe in August 1830 from London, one of 22 passengers. He was recorded as a single man of 20, surveyor, when he appeared in the 1836 Plantagenet census where he had been granted 2,500 acres in July 1832; at his young age, probably well connected.  Whether he was working as a contract surveyor to the government or on his own account is not known. However, by 1838 he and Alfred Hillman had been added to the staff of the Survey Department. Roe may have been thinking, ‘too little too late’.

It is reasonable to assume that the survey of the barracks was concurrent with that of the Bunbury township in 1841.

Rev John Ramsden Wollaston M.A. Camb.

The Western Australian Land Company had been the catalyst for Wollaston’s plans to emigrate to WA but, despite his expectations, he was not ever going to be officially appointed Chaplain to the emigrants flowing from this scheme. Nonetheless he must have ridden on horseback thousands of miles to administer baptism, marriage and burial rites to his flock as well as divine service and comfort.  He was a selfless man of common sense and wry humour among the prima donnas of the colonial Church of England.  He was fifty years old when he left England for Port Leschenault, his mind set on the future benefit for his sons.  The family arrived in April 1841 on board Henry and Wollaston very quickly took up land at Picton. Five Privates –Thomas Fildes, Joseph French, James Fivish, James Kendall, and Henry Woods – of the 51^st Regiment had been stationed in the area under the command of newly promoted Lieutenant A J W Northey since May the same year [WO12-6203-177/185].  It is mainly Wollaston’s relationship with Northey that earns the clergyman a mention in this narrative.

An Act to promote the Building of Churches and Chapels, and to contribute towards the maintenance of Ministers of Religion in Western Australia was given Royal assent in July 1840. It also covered (with many terms and conditions) a clergyman’s annual stipend.  Wollaston may have seen this coming before he left England. In his Picton Journal  he records in May 1842, The Church is at last begun; I am most anxious to get it up, but such are my straitened means, that I fear it will be long before it is completed. With much hard labour he, his sons and employees by some super-human effort opened the church [St Mark’s, Picton] on 18^th September the same year; notwithstanding the other responsibilities of running a farm and tending to the religious needs of other far flung settlers.  Wollaston described it [the opening] as, the most important event of my life… the first testimony for God and His Christ erected in this district. One hundred people were present including parishioners and friends from Australind, Augusta, Vasse and Bunbury. He meticulously set out a table of accounts indicating that the ‘site cost us nothing’ but the total expenditure to date had been £129 1s. 10p.

Wollaston relates that he finally received his stipend. On 1^st December 1842 he relates, I have this day signed receipts for the first instalments of my salary as Government Chaplain, £25 being the quarter due from 1^st August to 31^st October 1842, so that for fifteen months I have performed all the clerical duties of this district and built a Church without any salary whatever [Wollaston:118]. Of course he also had to wait for ‘the Bishop or his commissioner’ to consecrate the church. There are so many dates offered by various sources about when this happened, that I can only say that it was probably a long time after Wollaston’s death. The church remains on the original site, after much redesign and restoration, as the second oldest church in Western Australia.

Bunbury Barracks

A letter sent by Surveyor-General Roe to the Colonial Secretary Peter Brown/Broun dated 15^th September 1841 requested that Commandant F C Irwin send instructions to Lieutenant Northey, 51^st Regiment, to furnish two men to assist in marking out a barracks site in Bunbury [Johnston:94].  Major Irwin indicated that the Port Leschenault barracks were in a state of dilapidation and infested with vermin and recommended a new site be chosen at Bunbury. He suggested an area of one acre ‘on the second hill on the second range behind the flagstaff hill which bears N to N.W. from it’.  Further paperwork between Governor John Hutt, Peter Brown and the Resident Magistrate at Leschenault, M W Clifton, effected the exchange of the Port Leschenault barrack site for the Bunbury barrack site, as recommended [Whiteley:27].

The musters and paylists [WO12-6203-206/210] indicate that in September 1841, Northey was at Perth HQ [folio 202]. The same five privates who were at Port Leschenault in May, were still there in September, with the addition of  Corporal Joseph Davies (later a settler).

By September 1842, the manpower situation at Port Leschenault was increased comprising the same privates as the previous year, a Sergeant James Green replacing Corporal Davies, and four newcomers: William Beardman, James Culy, William Lewis and Denis O’Kelly.   Lieutenant Northey was now at Port Leschenault with his men.  Four other privates were recorded as ‘on command’ during September 1842 which means they could have been anywhere, doing anything, including completing the building of the barracks at Bunbury.  One interesting feature is that in September 1842, Private Henry Woods was on the government’s payroll instead of, or as well as, the Army’s [WO12-6204 folios 197-206].

I think it unlikely that we will ever know how many men, and who, moved between Port Leschenault and Bunbury to assist in the survey and to build the barracks.  But by January to March 1843 Port Leschenault had been abandoned and Bunbury station was first populated by one officer, a Sergeant and 17 rank and file, including settlers William Beardman, Charles Holt, William Lewis and Henry Woods.  This time, definitely under a General Order from Commandant Irwin dated 2^nd March 1843 [WO28-266-17].

So… where exactly were the new Bunbury Barracks?
Wollaston delivered his Sunday services in the various settlements of Leschenault, Bunbury, Augusta and Vasse – often on a settlers property, on rotation and even morning, afternoon or evening depending on his travelling plans.  In a story about Christmas Day 1842, Wollaston was vexed because the Governor and his entourage missed the morning service at Bunbury and would have missed the service at St Mark’s at Picton had it started at the normal time of noon, instead of 3 pm. In his journal (p.131) Wollaston states, The Governor ought to have attended Service at both places, especially since he has all along been such a stickler for Bunbury, the military too are now there in the new barracks and I am appointed as Minister of Bunbury. Thus we need to find a church as well as the barracks!

In May 1843 Wollaston notes, I can now look forward to retiring to Bunbury and Mr Northey has offered me his house, which I have at once consented to take… My success will depending upon God’s turning up a little timely assistance. I will work with and for my boys as long as I can.  The idea of managing for themselves has excited them to great exertions (p.195/196). A month later he delivers his Sunday service at Bunbury and records, our small room was so full, several could only stand at the door. In the same journal entry Wollaston indicates that he has lodged ‘in Mr Ommanney’s hand’ a memorandum of intention to convey to ‘The Trustees of Church Property’ the church ground here [in Bunbury] as soon as Sir James Stirling  furnishes him with the title to the 15 acres of which it was a part.

This requires some explanation. Assistant Surveyor Ommanney set aside a site for Bunbury’s Church of England during his 1841 survey of Bunbury, positioning it so that the church would dominate its surrounds from Leschenault Square. On the 1849 Gregory Plan, Lot 295 is a little over one acre with the words ‘Diocesan Trustees of the Church of England’ with no indication when the words were added. WA did not have its own Diocese until 1857 when Bishop Matthew Blagden Hale was himself consecrated and appointed Bishop of Perth. This is not the site of the first church in Bunbury.

Further south, under the ‘orange blob’ on the 1849 plan, was a temporary church hall and school which had operated from the very first days of the Leschenault-Bunbury settlement. The owner of Lot 221, Thomas Thompson (a surveyor with the Western Australian Land Company) had died on a return journey from Ceylon and the lot passed to his fiancée, Elinor K Clifton. It is clear that Wollaston conducted his Bunbury services from these premises.  Wollaston and his wife, ultimately moved into Lieutenant Northey’s house even before Northey returned to England. Wollaston writes of seeing Mr. Lawrence the lawyer about conveyancing of the Northey house, and of his carpentry work to refurbish it.  Northey left for England on 1^st November 1843 on Champion, but finally Wollaston (p.243) gives us the answer to the location of the barracks: The allotment is ¼ acre, one of the square ones opposite the barracks. No. 220 on plan, commanding a view of the mouth of the estuary looking towards the bay.

This plan below, like most, is not dated, but shows the site (Lot 221) of St Paul’s Church in Bunbury which was not built until 1866 and demolished in 1963, and of course shows the barracks on Lot 297. Clearly Wollaston was keen to live in the house next door to the church hall, but probably even more thrilled to get a captive audience of soldiers from the new barracks!  [SLWA b 1840542_2].

By December 1843 Commandant Major Irwin is once more writing a General Order for the movement of the last troops from the military post at Vasse which was then closed. Corporal Joseph Farmaner was to march with Privates James Ayliffe, James Cunningham, Charles Waghorn and Thomas Whittle to Bunbury on Monday 1^st January 1844 [WO28-266-28].

More Redcoats at Bunbury

Java brought 96^th Regiment troops from Hobart, Van Diemen’s Land to serve in Western Australia in February 1847. Sixteen of the troops disembarked at King George’s Sound on 14^th February on detachment at Albany and Kojonup.  The balance arrived in Fremantle on 22^nd February and disembarked on the 24^th .  The 96^th relieved the 51^st troops who were bound for Calcutta in March 1847. Of the ten troops at Bunbury in February 1847, two privates transferred to 99^th Regiment as of 1^st June 1847 – Thomas Bailey settled in the Colony after his discharge to pension, and Edward Dobbs returned to England in August 1849 . Private William Foot transferred to the 65^th Regiment in New Zealand from 1^st December 1848.

Radcliffe/Ratcliffe brought 99^th Regiment troops from Hobart to relieve the 96^th Regiment. The ship arrived  on 5^th April 1849.   As the cost of schooners to take the troops from Perth to Bunbury barracks was considered too high, a Mr Chipper was contracted to bring the baggage overland with a horse team while the men would walk, setting out on 14^th April.  All of the troops first stationed at Bunbury returned to England in February 1856 except Private McCullum who transferred to the 12^th Regiment in December 1855, was discharged to pension in December 1857 and settled in the Colony as a police constable [Bentley:151,152].

Closure of the Bunbury Barracks

Everything changed in June 1850 when the first of the convict ships arrived in the Colony.  Stirling’s dream of a free settlement was dashed when after 20 years, the Colony was not thriving . The gentrified populace was tired of indignant natives, relentless hard labour, different agricultural practices and challenging living conditions; they needed cheap labour and they needed it now. Not all agreed, some being reluctant to give up the ‘free’ Colony status.  Convictism, already finished in NSW and on the way out in Tasmania, had arrived in Western Australia.

In the early days of settlement it was not unusual for serving soldiers to act as police constables. Certainly after discharge from the Army they often took up police duties. With the imminent arrival of convicts in the Colony, the 1849 Ordinance for Regulating the Police in Western Australia came into effect. Bunbury constables Edward Hester and John Gill were appointed. The Water Police was quickly formed in January 1851 after an incident involving an escaped convict. By 1853 Western Australia had a small population but one growing with the increasing number of convicts arriving from Britain. At the time there were four distinct groups of ‘policemen’ owing allegiance to different authorities. The Governor Charles Fitzgerald’s appointment of a Superintendent of Police in the Colony along with a new ‘Code of Rules for the Western Australian Police Force’ heralded the start of a cohesive force.

The Home Government was already thinking in terms of winding down the Army’s peace-keeping role in the colonies and the arrival of convicts in WA made it possible to make the transition through the introduction of the Enrolled Pensioner Force (1850 to 1880), and the temporary Enrolled Guard (1880 to 1887) who took up land in areas already settled. The Warders from the Convict Establishment had a role in supervising convicts, and the Royal Engineers and Royal Sappers and Miners Corps (1850 to 1862) were an instructional and supervisory force working with the convicts on building works.

Commandant Lieutenant Colonel F C Irwin on 20^th June 1851 spelled out six General Orders on how to manage the closure of the Bunbury military post and barracks [WO28-266-131]. The barracks were used as a temporary home for the enrolled pensioners and their families while the allotments that had been assigned to them were established. By the beginning of 1852 a convict depot also appeared on the Bunbury landscape.

Getting Along Together in Port Leschenault

The aboriginal people of the Bunbury and Leschenault area c. 1841 were the Wardandi Noongar people. I sourced the perfect emissary to explain the relationship between the local aboriginals and the colonists at that time in the Leschenault-Bunbury district.  He was Marshall Waller Clifton, Chief Commissioner in Australia of The Western Australian Land Company and outstanding diarist. Clifton, his wife and large family and other emigrants sailed from Gravesend in December 1840 for Port Leschenault (later Australind) on Parkfield, a 496-ton ship built in 1833 on the Isle of Man and last surveyed on 6^th October 1840. The ship was bound for NSW but arrived in Port Leschenault on 18^th March 1841 after a swift passage of 96 days.

Clifton records few disturbances between the natives. In one incident in June 1841 he seems to have resolved the trouble with a ‘Bill of Amnesty on all of them’ [Johnston:70]. This was brought about by a raid on Shenton’s Bunbury flour store (right Lots 17 and 18) reminiscent of a raid seven years earlier on W K Shenton’s South Perth store by Calyute. Eight natives were involved in Bunbury, but only two were charged. The amnesty on the remaining perpetrators, it was thought by Clifton, would ensure future good behaviour. Those charged with assault (not for robbing the flour store) were aboriginal males named Morechup (called Troublesome/Troublehouse) and Ninda. They were sent by Chief Magistrate George Eliot to Fremantle on remand for assault and received in the Fremantle Round House on 7^th July 1841. They were sent to Rottnest (not to work) on 20^th July as there was no room in the gaol.  They were returned to the Round House in September but not tried until 3^rd January 1842 when they were discharged on the motion of Acting Advocate General Richard Nash [Errington:229]. Throughout there is no mention of soldiers being involved. 

Some years later, Clifton wrote, These natives were very useful to the settlers. There was always a number of both men and women employed in reaping, haymaking, etc., as in those times all crops were cut by scythe or sickle. They were most useful as stockmen in the days when all the country was unfenced many being bold and fearless riders, and all most wonderful trackers. Their eyesight was far keener than any white man’s, so much so that the individual footprints of any one of their party could be recognised by them and the discovery of a strange footprint would cause consternation and alarm in the camp. …Taking them in all, I have kindly recollection of many of them, who were faithful servants to me and my family [Johnston:74/75].

A Different Story in Vasse

Just before Clifton and his emigrants arrived, a less palatable situation arose after the murder of George* Layman, a settler at Wonnerup. In 1841 one of the most bloodthirsty deeds ever committed by Englishmen is reported to have taken place. … Colonel (captain) Molloy ordered his soldiers to prepare to march, and he took command of them and the chief settlers in the south-western districts. He gave special instructions that no woman or child should be killed, but that no mercy should be offered the men. A strong and final lesson must be taught the blacks. All were well armed.[Kimberly:116]. 

The Musters and Pay List show the troops at Vasse (left). There were three less men of the 51^st detachment at Vasse in February and March 1841 than the previous quarter (Oct to Dec 1840). Irwin’s General Orders are not extant until 1^st April 1842 and thus do not cover this affray. In view of this quote, …the Aboriginals were troublesome. In 1841 a treacherous murder of one of his settlers had to be avenged, which Molloy did with the help of other settlers, in the way that his military training indicated [Hasluck:ADB]. Perhaps Molloy had his own soldiers and the 51^st detachment had no role at all.

Deaths of Soldiers

Only two soldiers met their death in the Bunbury district during the Redcoats’ service there: Private James Duffett, 51^st Regiment who died on 26^th December 1845 from suicide.  Private George Brown, 96^th Regiment drowned on 19^th December 1847. There were many soldiers who were ‘lost in the bush’ and sometimes their remains never found; perhaps Private John Clayton from the 51^st detachment at Vasse was one of them.

Bunbury Now and Then

Lots bounded by streets Prinsep (north), Stephens (south), Victoria (east), Wittenoom (west).
1 Centenary Gardens, formerly Lot 297 Bunbury Barracks. 
14 St Paul’s Place, formerly Lot 221 St Paul’s Church and Lot 220 Lt. Northey’s house.

Between now and then, structures within this square, marked 26 & 32
had been the Pound and the old Council Chambers.

Plan of the Town of Bunbury June 1849.

Sources and Bibliography

Books, Journals, Websites
Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia, During the Years 1829-1832 by Joseph Cross, 1833.
The Military Establishment in Western Australia 1829-1863, E S W & C G S Whiteley, Hesperian Press, 2010.
Early Days in Western Australia, Letters and Journal of Lieut. H W Bunbury, Oxford University Press, 1930.
Military Camp at Point MacLeod, Place No. 5675, inHerit, Heritage Council of WA website.
Bunbury Townsite No 1 Peg – site, Place No. 5704, InHerit, Heritage Council of WA website.
St Paul’s Church, Place No. 5738, InHerit, Heritage Council of WA website.
Military Barracks Ground & Building, Place No. 7169, inHerit, Heritage Council of WA website.
W K Shenton’s House and Store, Place No. 6600, inHerit, Heritage Council of WA website.
Bunbury City Council Minutes dated 21^st February 2023, pp.39-40.
Bunbury History, Bunbury Museum & Heritage Centre website.
Knights and Theodolites, a Saga of Surveyors, F M. Johnston, Edwards & Shaw, Sydney, 1962.
Excellent Connections, a History of Bunbury 1836-1990, p .xi-xii, Anthony J Barker & Maxine Laurie, 1992.
Wollaston’s Picton Journal, Volume 1, ed. Canon A Burton & Rev Percy U Henn, Lamb Paterson Pty Ltd.
Dictionary of Western Australians, Vol. 1 Early Settlers 1829-1850, Pamela Statham, UWA Press, 1979.
Grandfather was a Policeman, Mollie Bentley, Hesperian Press, 1993.
Locked up in Fremantle 1829-1856, Steve Errington, Hesperian Press, 2023.
History of West Australia, Warren Bert Kimberly, Chapter 13, 1897.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Alexander Hasluck, Vol. 2, Australian National University, 1967

Archives
Plan of the Town of Bunbury as marked out on the Ground, June 1849 by Gregory, WA State Record Office.
State Library of Western Australia, digital reference  b 1840542_2.
War Office Musters & Pay Lists WO12-7252, 3806, 6203, The National Archives, Kew.
War Office Monthly Returns WO17-1234 (1837) to 1248 (1852), The National Archives, Kew.
War Office General Orders HQ WO28-266 Western Australia, 1842 – 1853, The National Archives, Kew.
Population & Census Returns 1830, 1832, 1836, 1837, WA State Record Office.

Newspapers & Gazettes
West Australian 28 Nov 1936 – Wonnerup Military Post.
Perth Gazette 2 Apr 1836 – arrival of Ensign Bunbury from Van Diemen’s Land.
Public Ledger 8 Dec 1840 – Parkfield sails from London to Australind.
Perth Gazette & Western Australian Journal – 13 Mar 1841 – Murder of Mr John [*George] Layman.
Perth Gazette & Western Australian Journal – 27 Mar 1841 – arrival of Parkfield and M W Clifton.
Government Gazette 9 Apr 1841 – Townsite Allotments for Sale 25 Mar 1841.
Inquirer 21 Apr 1841 – arrival of Wollaston family.
Perth Gazette 14 Apr 1849 – 99^th troops to march to Bunbury.
Government Gazette  5 Jun 1849 – appointment of Bunbury Police Constables.
Perth Gazette 11 July 1851 – EPF and convicts arrive in Bunbury.
Government Gazette 15 Mar 1853 – Code of Rules for the WA Police Force.

 Illustrations
Bunbury Lighthouse [Phil Hollett Gallery].
Pt McLeod Memorial & Plaque [B & D Exposure Photography 2014].
Colonel H W Bunbury in later life [Early Days in WA 1930].
Street Map of Bunbury with captions [Excellent Connections 1992].
The Ven. John Ramsden Wollaston M.A. Camb. [Wollaston’s Picton Journal Vol.1].
Marshall Waller Clifton {Knights and Theodolites 1962].
Shenton’s house and store Lots 17 & 18 [extract Bunbury Town Plan 1849].

© Diane Oldman 2025