WAPort & river
Mandurah
A fishing village on the estuary before it was a commuter city.
1831Townsite reserved
WHAT STARTED IT
After his first settlement at Clarence failed, Thomas Peel led his remaining settlers south to the estuary that drains the Peel Inlet and Harvey Estuary. A townsite named Peel was reserved on the west side of the inlet entrance in 1831, but settlers built on the eastern shore, known as Mandurah. Fish were plentiful, but the markets were far away in Perth and Fremantle.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
Canneries opened on the foreshore from 1878, and in the 1880s and 1890s Mandurah became known across the colony for canned mullet, with the goldfields a ready market. The railway to Pinjarra in 1893 and an estuary bridge in 1894 brought visitors for the fishing, though the town grew by private subdivision and was not declared a townsite until 1950.
TURNING POINTS
1831Land is reserved for a townsite named Peel at the inlet entrance, but settlers build on the eastern shore at Mandurah.
1878Charles Broadhurst opens the first fish cannery on the Peel Inlet, in a stone building on the Mandurah foreshore.
1893The railway from Perth reaches Pinjarra, inland from Mandurah.
1894The first traffic bridge across the estuary opens on 26 May.
2007The Perth–Mandurah railway line opens on 23 December.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
The suburb is the centre of the City of Mandurah, a coastal city 74 kilometres south of Perth, linked to the capital by railway since 2007. Anglers still fish from the estuary bridge.