Welcome to the Pickering Brook History Web Site
Welcome to the Pickering Brook History Web Site
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WELCOME It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to my web site. My passion about the history of Pickering Brook and surrounding areas commenced in about 2007 when I started searching early records at the Kalamunda Library. That was where I met Carol Mansfield from the Kalamunda & Districts Historical Society. Her enthusiasim and passion rubbed off onto me. So started this remarkable journey back through time. History evolves and changes constantly over the years. Old
memories sometimes get forgotten with the hectic lives we live today. On this
web site, with the input of many contributors, we have been able to record much
of the past history and memories of the early pioneering days of Pickering
Brook and its surrounding areas. This history could easily have been lost as
time moved on, but now it has been saved for everyone to enjoy. |
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History is my passion and the more research you do, the more
it grabs you and pulls you in to find out more. I sincerely thank all those people that have kindly shared
their stories with me. Some very personal, some surprising, some humorous, some
mysterious, some unprintable and some amazing. Without your input this web site
would not exist. This is an on-going project and new history is coming to
light as the search continues. If you wish to be part of this record of
memories and history, I would welcome you making contact and we can help you
gather it all together. I have personally researched the local history for the past
14 years. This has meant travelling many kilometres and spending hundreds of hours, to
interview families, collect and scan photos, searching archival records, maps
and newspaper articles and compiling all that material into a record to add to
this web site. I am very excited to welcome on board with me, the support of a team of very passionate local specialists in their own fields, to help with the recording of our history. Please enjoy your trip down memory lane with us. GORDON FREEGARD and TEAM
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Gordon Freegard
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The 341 ton sailing ship "Atwick" was under the
command of Captain Hugh McKay when she left London with passengers and general
cargo bound for Western Australia. She carried two guns and had a crew of 20
men. She arrived in the Swan River Colony on October 19th, 1829. Forty-eight year old agriculturalist Capt. Edward Picking (aka Pickering) from Gainborough, was a passenger on board. His servant William Hyde (aka Hide) was also on board. He applied for a land grant the same day as he stepped from the boat. He farmed in several places in Western Australia. In 1834 he was assigned 3000 acres, but this was lost due to non-payment of location fees. Was Postmaster in Perth in 1841. In 1844 he became Clerk of the Roads Trust and called tenders for Canning Bridge in 1846. It appears that he made several exploratory journeys along the Helena River. In the Hand Book of Western Australia, there is a map dated 1835 which shows the Helena River and a tributary, "Picking Ck" flowing north into it. All other maps show the tributary as "Pickering Brook" and one can only conclude that it has , over the years, been corrupted into "Pickering". |
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About 4 miles west of the creek or brook is the settlement of Pickering Brook. It seems that when the Canning Jarrah Timber Company Ltd. owned the Upper Darling Range Railway, a log line running in an easterly direction, was built from a point on the main line somewhere below Monument Hill. That point was of course, a junction and before the railway was taken over by the Government, was known as Pickering Junction. Later it was called Pickering Brook, presumably because the Government did not acquire the log line. The place name of Pickering Brook was used. Because of its proximity to the water catchment country, settlement was not encouraged, and a named townsite was not formed. A townsite was formed about 2 miles east on 22nd January 1922 and it was known as "Beamulla", an aboriginal word meaning "Black Cockatoo". At a meeting of the Pickering Brook Progress Association, a request was made to the Under Secretary of Land, requesting a change of name. The reply dated 26th December 1923, presented three names for consideration. The name Carilla, on the recommendation of the Surveyor General was gazetted on the 17th February 1926, replacing Beamulla. Carilla is the Aboriginal name for "running water". In 1952 the location of Carilla was cancelled and Pickering Brook formally encompassed the whole area. The town site of Pickering Brook was gazetted on 12th January 1973.
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References: Article: Kalamunda of the Dreamtime
Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2008-2022
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