Pioneers
Welcome to our Pioneers series
dedicated to the settlers of Western Australia. The caches are
located on a rarely used bike track between Henderson and Naval
Base passing close to Mt Brown. The track is a bitumen surface and
provides about 5 kms of smooth riding and is the only way to
complete this series.
All caches are with 15 metres of the track and no bush bashing is
required. Cache range from a small sisteema containers and some
tricky camoed nanos, all camoed containers are in plain sight from
at least one direction!
Warning!!
Some of the Pioneer caches
are near restricted areas due to unexploded
ordinance (artillery shells etc...), we have placed these
caches in areas outside the warning
areas.
***** Please don't try to come
across by road to individual caches for your own safety.
*****
Thomas Peel
(1793–1865)
Thomas Peel was one of the
very early settlers of Western Australia. He was a second cousin of Sir Robert
Peel.
Peel was born in
Lancashire, England, the second son of
Thomas Peel and his wife Dorothy, née Bolton. He was
educated at Harrow School and was
employed by attorneys.
In 1828 Peel went to London with plans to
migrate to New South Wales. However,
Peel and three others including an MP, Potter
McQueen, formed a consortium to found a
colony at the Swan River in Western
Australia by sending settlers there
with stock and necessary materials. The consortium requested a
grant from the British Colonial Office in London
of 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km²). The
government declined this and offered a grant of 1,000,000 acres
(4,000 km²) on certain conditions.
Early in 1829 all the members of the
consortium withdrew except Peel. Fresh conditions were made, the
final arrangement being that if Peel landed 400 settlers before 1
November 1829, he would receive 250,000 acres (1,000 km²). If the conditions were fulfilled, Peel would
receive further grants. Solomon Levey was a silent partner.
Peel arrived in Swan River
Colony(later expanded and renamed
Western Australia) aboard the Gilmore in
December 1829 with 300 settlers, around six weeks later than the
government had stipulated. As he had not fulfilled the conditions
the land grant was no longer reserved for him. The land eventually
granted to him, 250,000 acres (1,000 km²) of land to the south,
extended from Cockburn Sound to the
Murray River.
The early settlement struggled due to lack
of labour and limited good-quality farming land. This, together
with Peel's poor organising skills, meant that he was soon in
difficulties. Within less than two years he had spent £50,000 and
some of his settlers had deserted him. Stores and stock, which were
to be sent from Sydney by Cooper
& Levey did not arrive. Eventually Peel discharged all but a
few from their indentures. In September 1834, Peel was granted
further land, but he had little success in developing it. Peel
became a member of the Western Australian Legislative
Council, but resigned fourteen months
later.
Peel died in comparatively poor
circumstances at Mandurah in 1865 and
was buried in the churchyard there.
A little History of
Clarence or Peel Town
The Swan River Colony in Western Australia
was first established in 1829 when Captain James Stirling, RN, was
appointed the first Lieutenant Governor . Although Stirling had a
previous expedition in 1827, it was not until 1829 that the
settlement was named. With migrants arriving regularly, Stirling
had to find land for them all and this was proving difficult as he
had already promised a large area to Thomas Peel,
a founding member of the Peel Association, who supplied ships to
take emigrants to the newly discovered Swan River.
One of Peel’s ships, the
Gilmore, needed to arrive at the Swan River Colony
by 1 November 1829 in order to receive the land. He was late.
Stirling, therefore, distributed it amongst other settlers. When
Peel eventually arrived on the 15 December Stirling refused to
grant Peel his original choice, and arranged for him to have land
further south, noting that the area was one of the most valuable
assets of the Swan River site and after inspection Peel accepted
it. The Gilmore entered Cockburn Sound and its passengers and cargo
disembarked.Peel set up a township on the sand dunes which Stirling
named Clarence, but whether Peel used this name is unclear. Members
of the township came from numerous backgrounds and were all thrown
together to live closely in an unfamiliar landscape where social
class was non-existent.
Another of Peel’s ships, the
Rockingham, arrived and was anchored in Cockburn
Sound when it was struck by a storm and ran ashore. The 182
passengers were unhurt and off loaded at the township, Those
already in temporary accommodation at Clarence did what they could
for the newcomers, but there was overcrowding and disease was
setting in.
Stirling heard of the conditions and sent a
doctor, Mr. Collie, to check the site. The report showed that
‘one had died from a spearing and 28 of
‘disease’’. Not happy with the lack of facilities
that had been provided by Peel, who had broken the terms of his
contract, Stirling found land for the majority of the settlers and
the township of Clarence was abandoned in 1830.
The Peel Settlement site is
unique in Australia as it has been virtually
untouched since its abandonment.
Aknowledgement: http://www.heritagedaily.com