1850s

Early settler, Edward Hamersley, bought the properties Pyrton and Lockridge to the north of Guildford in the 1840s, and like other pastoralists, employed Noongar workers. The land was and is significant for Noongar people, encompassing traditional camp sites around Success Hill and Bennett’s Brook.[vi] Noongar families continued to live on this private land, away from the control of the Native Welfare Department and the Bassendean Roads Board for almost one hundred years.[vii]

In 1842, George Fletcher Moore, Advocate General and a farmer who lived in the Upper Swan, published A Descriptive Vocabulary of the Language in Common Use amongst the Aborigines of Western Australia. Moore recorded a great deal of information about Noongar people’s lore and customs and their relationship to the land.

George Fletcher Moore’s book available to view on Google Books

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