Contents: Busselton History - Busselton Beaches - Landmarks and Historical Areas - Weather / Climate - Places of Worship in Busselton

Busselton History

The first recorded mapping of what is now Geographe Bay and the eventual town of Busselton, was in 1801 by the French explorer Nicolas Baudin, from the ships the Geographe and Naturaliste.  The Bay was named after his ship whilst the river was named the Vasse after a sailor who went missing in mysterious circumstances.

The area was settled in 1832 when explorers from the Augusta area, led by John Garrett Bussell, travelled north to farm the areas around the Vasse River after they found the Cape Leeuwin area to be largely infertile and difficult to reach by sea.  These settlers moved their homes and families to the area in 1834.

The first official mention of the name Busselton was on 30 June 1835, when the Colonial Secretary wrote informing the Surveyor General that nine towns, among which was Busselton, were to be considered open for the purchase of allotments.

On 4 July 1835 a General Notice to that effect was issued from the Surveyor General's office, Perth. The district continued to be referred to as "the Vasse", and in general "the Vasse" and "Busselton" were equally used as late as the turn of the century, when "the Vasse" began to be dropped.

A growing port serviced the settlers and the subsequent local industries that developed which included the exportation of horses to India and a developing trade in beef, dairy and timber (which continue to be major exports of the Busselton area to this day).  Construction of the Busselton jetty began in 1865 and by 1960 had reached out 2 kilometres from the shore.  Jetties servicing the timber industry were also built at Wonnerup and Quindalup but only the town jetty survives today.

Prior to white settlement and for at least 38,000 years, this area has been the traditional land of the Noongar Aboriginal people with many Noongar names and travel routes still widely used today. The Noongar (which means "man") people tell traditional stories of the Waagle (or Rainbow Serpent) giving life and sustenance to their people who in return were the caretakers of the land.

They used fire as a tool to clear undergrowth, promote new growth in plants and to assist in the capture of animals.  They also trapped fish but were the area's first conservationists, always respecting what the land could provide for them.

The land of the Noongar nation stretches from approximately Geraldton on the west coast to Esperance on the south coast.  Of all the Aboriginal peoples in Western Australia, the Noongar were the most affected by early white settlement.

Visitors to Western Australia are often struck by the number of place names ending in “up” such as Cardup, Wonnerup, Burekup, Yallingup and Karrinyup.  The “up” in these names comes from the Aboriginal Noongar language but there is some dissension as to whether it means place of, water place or meeting place and most likely it is a combination of all three translations.

All of these towns were originally spelt with a double “p” – so Cardupp, Wonnerupp, Burekupp, Yallingupp and Karinyupp. 

The double “p” spelling in the original Western Australian Government gazettal of these names was used because the Lands and Surveys Department had adopted a system for spelling Aboriginal names developed by the Royal Geographical Society.   The RGS system had a rule that vowels are pronounced as in Italian and consonants as in English.

This would have meant that names ending in "up" should have been pronounced as "oop", because the Italian "u" was a long "u", as in flute. These Aboriginal names were meant to be pronounced as "up", and the Department asked the RGS for a rule to assist in correct pronunciation.

The RGS solution was that doubling the following consonant shortened the preceding vowel, and this meant the "upp" ending ensured the "up" pronunciation. However, this particular rule was rescinded in 1915 for south west towns with the suffix "up", as the Australian way of pronouncing the letter "u" was almost always short, and rarely the Italian "oo" – something you always wanted to know!

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