Pensioner Guards Traditional Cache

This site is one of the "Cockburn Heritage Markers" that together depict the history of the Cockburn Area. This would have been a beautiful site to live in the late 1800s.

You will need your own log extraction tool and writing implement. Please return as found.

Pensioner Guards

Lake Koojee Village at Cockburn Sound was established between 1876 and 1885. The cottages, on 20 acre lots were planned to house twenty families of the Enrolled Pensioner Force, all of whom were veterans of the British Army and had served in various campaigns.  These ex-soldiers volunteered to act as guards on the ships transporting convicts to Western Australia. 

More than 2000 men and their families from the United Kingdom and Ireland arrived on 36 ships between 1850 and 1868.  For their services they were allotted a plot of land in various Pensioner Villages from Greenough to Albany.  Their duties included acting as guards at convict depots and road gangs, performing guard duties at Government House, the Ammunition Magazine, and to be available when called.  Many worked in the general work force including warders at Fremantle prison and in the Police and Water Police forces. 

The Pensioner Force was disbanded in 1880, but continued to serve as the Enrolled Guard until 1887.  Descendants of the original grantees still reside in the Coogee area.