Harvey, Western Australia

Harvey is a town located in the South West of Western Australia along the South Western Highway, between Pinjarra and Bunbury. It has a population of 4,215.

1 History
- 1.1 Origin of the name
- 1.2 History
2 Present day
3 Transport
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Origin of the name

Harvey's name is derived from the nearby Harvey River, named by Governor James Stirling in 1829, soon after the river's discovery by explorers Dr Alexander Collie and Lieutenant William Preston RN.

Although not positively known, the river is most likely named after Rear Admiral Sir John Harvey RN. In 1817-18, Harvey was Commander in Chief of the West Indies Station - Stirling served under him while in charge of the HMS Brazen, and Harvey recommended him for promotion. Stirling named a number of Western Australian features after his former navy colleagues.^[2]

[edit] History

According to Dr James Battye, Stirling selected 12,800 acres known as Wellington Location 50A and established the Harvey River Settlement. The only improvement he made to the land, as far as it is known, was the erection of a hunting lodge near the present town of Harvey, known as "The Hut", featuring a shingled roof, jarrah walls and hexagonal paving blocks. In the 1880s, this hut became the childhood home of children's author May Gibbs MBE. Stirling called the area around the town of Harvey "Korijekup", using the Noongar Aboriginal name meaning "place of the red tailed black cockatoo".^[3]

Uduc Road, Harvey, at dusk.

The area was settled slowly over the remainder of the 1800s. During the 1860s, Australind, originally the site of a failed grandiose settlement scheme, was the centre of the Harvey District community. In 1863, a road was gazetted from Pinjarra to Brunswick Junction, which was built by convicts between 1864 and 1876 - it was called the "foothills route" and later became the South Western Highway.

Harvey was developed as a private town in the 1890s by a group of investors following the opening of a railway station there in 1893. However, Cookernup, little more than a railway stop today, had a greater population, and had a telegraph office and school years before Harvey. In 1926 the Harvey Road Board sought the declaration of a townsite, but this did not occur until 1938.

In February 2006, EG Green & Sons, the owner of the Harvey Beef brand since 1919 and responsible for about 90% of Western Australia's beef exports, went into administration. In April, however, the brand was rescued by a new consortium who acquired EG Green & Sons and recreated it as Harvey Industries.^[4]

[edit] Present day

South Western Highway leaving Harvey.

The town is located on South Western Highway, 140km south of Perth on the south bank of the Harvey River, has a population of 4,215, about 12% of whom are Italian Australians,^[1] and is the seat of the Shire of Harvey and is the centre of the Western Australian dairy industry. It contains an agricultural college and the headquarters of both the Harvey Fresh (1986) and Harvey Beef (1919) brand names, and each year in October hosts an agricultural show. In addition, a high school, a primary school, shopping facilities, accommodation (hotel, motel, caravan park), council offices and the Forest Products' Commission's Timber Technology Centre are located within the town.

The railway station contains a museum which documents early life in the town, and the Stirling Cottage (actually a replica of it built 500m downstream from the original in 1994 after the original cottage succumbed to the elements in the 1960s^[5]) has been converted into a tourist information centre and tearooms. An unusual feature is the Italian Internment Shrine, built by Italian internees of Harvey No.11 Camp during World War II and believed to be one of the only monuments of its kind in existence.

[edit] Transport

Harvey railway station.

The main road route through the area is South Western Highway (Route 20; Perth to Bunbury via Pinjarra and Waroona). Uduc Road, the town's main street, goes to Old Coast Road near Myalup. Harvey also serves as a stop on the Australind passenger train from Perth to Bunbury.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (9 March 2006). Harvey (Urban Centre/Locality) - QuickStats. 2001 Census. Retrieved on January 8, 2007.
^ Landgate. History of country town names - H. Retrieved on January 17, 2007.
^ Shire of Harvey. History. Retrieved on October 1, 2006.
^ ABC. Landline - Harvey Beef. Retrieved on October 1, 2006.
^ Harvey Visitor Centre. Business Listings - Stirlings Cottage. Retrieved on October 25, 2006.. An abridged version of this text is on a sign outside the cottage.

[edit] External links

Coordinates: -33.078° 115.894°

Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Street Directory, MSN Maps and Multimap.
- Satellite image from Google Maps, WikiMapia and Terraserver.

Preceding station (inbound)	Transwa Trains network			Following station (outbound)
Cookernup		Australind		Brunswick Junction

Towns in the Shire of Harvey
Australind \| Benger \| Binningup \| Brunswick Jn. \| Cookernup \| Harvey \| Kemerton \| Leschenault \| Myalup \| Roelands \| Wokalup \| Yarloop
Towns in the Shire of Waroona
Hamel \| Lake Clifton \| Nanga Brook \| Preston Beach \| Wagerup \| Waroona