Hamersley, Western Australia

Hamersley's soil is an infertile yellow-brown sand composed of fine to coarse quartz grains, with Tamala Limestone beneath. Locally known as Karrakatta Sand, it is almost certainly the leached remnants of coastal sand deposited by eolian processes in the late Pleistocene period, between 11,000 and 100,000 years ago. Below the sand are Paleozoic rocks of the Perth Basin. The sand contains an unconfined aquifer with large supplies of low-salinity potable groundwater which is recharged by rainfall.[13]

As with other infertile areas of the Swan Coastal Plain, Hamersley would have supported open forests of Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah) with Corymbia calophylla (marri) or Eucalyptus gomphocephala (tuart), and an understorey of Banksia attenuata (candlestick banksia), B. menziesii (firewood banksia), B. grandis (bull banksia), Allocasuarina fraseriana (western sheoak) and Agonis flexuosa (Swan River peppermint). The main shrub species would have been Jacksonia sternbergiana (Stinkwood), J. furcellata (Grey Stinkwood), Acacia cyclops (Coastal Wattle), Acacia saligna (orange wattle), Hibbertia species, Allocasuarina humilis (dwarf sheoak), Calothamnus quadrifidus (one-sided bottlebrush) and Grevillea thelemanniana (spider net grevillea).[13] Biodiversity surveys in 2006 have also identified a relatively rare species, Jacksonia sericea (waldjumi), in two eastern Hamersley reserves.[14]

Hamersley was named after the Hamersley family who arrived in the Swan River Colony in 1837 and established themselves at Guildford. There is no evidence they ever visited modern Hamersley, but in 1869 they built a summer home in what is now North Beach, 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) to the west, and bought considerable holdings in the area over the following years.[15]

The name first came into use to describe the north-western section of the Perth Road District in 1906. Hamersley Ward was a large area of land covering what is now Hamersley, Carine, Watermans Bay, North Beach, Gwelup and parts of Balcatta, Karrinyup and Trigg. The Hamersley townsite, consisting of Hamersley Ward, was gazetted in 1945.[16] As a result, many facilities in North Beach, including a primary school, a golf course, several sporting clubs and residents' and seniors' associations, were called Hamersley. After the Hamersley Development Scheme started in 1968, confusion as to exactly what Hamersley referred to led to conflict between established organisations in North Beach and emerging ones in Hamersley – the Hamersley Gazette noted in 1973 that "North Beach people have the prior claim but ours is more officially accepted".[17]

The suburb was gazetted as a locality by the City of Stirling on 24 October 1975, although it had existed as a postal locality since 1971.[18]

The ABC radio tower in Hamersley

Before European settlement, Hamersley was part of a larger area of land that was occupied by the Mooro people, an Indigenous Australian people who traversed the lakes and wetlands running parallel to the coast between what is now Perth and Yanchep.[19]

Soon after the establishment of the Swan River Colony, colonial authorities divided up the land into grants which were given to settlers who had brought capital in to the new settlement. Southern Hamersley became part of Location K, a 2,585 hectares (6,390 acres) strip of land extending 19 kilometres (12 miles) west from Caversham on the Swan River to Big Carine Swamp, which was granted to Robert Ansell Partridge in September 1829.[20] The western part of this, first surveyed by P.L.S. Chauncy in 1843,[21] remained fairly inaccessible, and the only development in the area was the construction of the Daviot Park cottage on Old Balcatta Road 500 metres (0.31 miles) southwest of Hamersley.[22] By the late 1930s, portions in the far west and south-east of the suburb had been cleared for small-scale agriculture such as market gardening,[23] and in 1939 the Department of the Interior constructed a 180-metre (590-foot) tower and other facilities for ABC AM and shortwave radio broadcasts on Wanneroo Road.[4]

Northern Hamersley, meanwhile, became part of Swan Location 1315, which extended north to Lake Goollelal and west to the coast and was granted in the 1890s to the Midland Railway Company[24] after being surveyed by Crossland & Co. in 1892, and by N. Lymburner in 1894.[21] It appears that no development occurred in northern Hamersley, other than the construction of Beach and Carine Roads in 1900, and the State Housing Commission resumed the land in November 1950.[25] In 1962, a lucerne grower with a property on Duffy Road, Carine applied to use the northern half of the suburb as a sheep run. The Shire President, Herbert R. Robinson, refused to grant permission, saying that "land might soon be needed for housing".[26] The West Australian reported in 1967 that the area was still "virtually untouched bushland".[27]

Land use map of Hamersley in 1968

In the late 1960s, concern about the growth of land prices in the Perth metropolitan area, which for several years had exceeded the consumer price index, led to the Premier of Western Australia, David Brand, convening an inter-departmental committee to study the problem. One of the committee's recommendations to Cabinet was to release 300 hectares of land owned by the State Housing Commission in Hamersley, Warwick and Greenwood which was on a much larger area that had been designated as "deferred urban" land under the Metropolitan Region Scheme in 1963.[28] On 13 December 1967, the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority decided to rezone as urban all land bounded by Hepburn Avenue, Marmion Avenue, North Perimeter Highway and Wanneroo Road, on the condition that subdivision would be approved when "Town Planning (Development) Scheme(s) have been approved with the general object of serving the best possible development at the least cost to the community".[27][29]

The Shires of Perth and Wanneroo combined to prepare Town Planning Scheme No.26 (Hamersley Development Scheme),[30] and by early March 1968, the scheme, which included provisions for water supply, sewerage, drainage, road construction and undergrounding of power mains, was presented to both councils for consideration. A time limit of 3½ years for developers to construct homes on released land was built into the scheme in an effort to prevent land speculation, which the inter-departmental committee believed was a key factor in spiralling prices in Perth.[3][31] By July, however, negotiations between the councils broke down, and the Shire of Perth (now City of Stirling) decided to administer its own part of the scheme independently.[32] The scheme was divided into nine sections, with what is now the suburb of Hamersley being the first stage.

In April 1968 the R&I Bank, a government-owned bank, was granted permission to subdivide a small area in northern Ardleigh Crescent in the suburb's west.[33] The first auction of 80 lots on Saturday, 14 December 1968 was anticipated on the front page of The West Australian, with Premier Brand advising intending buyers to be cautious about their bids.[34] At the auction, 76 lots were sold at an average price of $4,784, compared to $6,700 at a recent R&I Bank sale in the nearby suburb of Karrinyup, with newspapers agreeing that the Premier's warning had been heeded by bidders.[35]

The western portion of Hamersley grew steadily over the following months and years, with segments being released, auctioned and developed by the R&I Bank, T&S Plunkett Homes and Parkland Housing. The Hamersley Development Scheme, however, was doomed almost before it started. Disagreements over issues such as undergrounding of power and the time limit clauses between the Town Planning Board and the Shire of Perth had caused delays in the scheme's approval. In July 1970, the Shire Planner reported that "there is little point in proceeding with the Scheme, especially in view of the large areas already subdivided", and recommended the council agree "that for all practical purposes, Town Planning Scheme No. 26. is defunct".[36] By the February 1971 state election, over 1,000 eligible voters lived in the district.[37]

View southeast from Rannoch Circle towards the Perth CBD

In June 1970, the Metropolitan Region Planning Authority released land in the southwestern corner of Hamersley, which had previously been held in reserve under the Metropolitan Region Scheme for a large freeway interchange between the future Mitchell Freeway (then known as Stephenson Freeway) and Reid Highway (North Perimeter Freeway).[38] The result of these changes was to allow the construction of Walter Way, Dutton Crescent and connecting streets, which were named after racing drivers from the 1920s and 1930s.

Between 1971 and 1973, reserves, public recreation areas and drainage sites were set aside in western Hamersley, and facilities were erected in quick succession – the 1st Hamersley Scout Group in 1973, the colonial-style Holy Cross Anglican Church in 1974,[39] and a community hall at Aintree Street in 1975.[40] Residents in the region were at this time on the fringe of Perth's suburban area, relying on partly built main roads, distant shopping centres and overstretched local facilities for several years after the suburb's construction. A locally produced fortnightly newspaper, the Hamersley Gazette, started in early 1973 by Peter Flanigan, from his home in Manton Court, covering the suburbs of Carine, Hamersley, Warwick and Greenwood, with the open aim of helping to form community associations and campaign for better facilities.[41] A July 1973 article, for example, lamented that "work on Erindale Road appears to have come to a standstill... great piles of dirt and unmade road surfaces bear testimony to the fact that something is going on, or should be going on, but this one is taking a very long time."[42]

However, there were also celebrations – the paper reported in detail on the annual Glendale Spring Fair, held between 1973 and 1976 by the Glendale P&C Association on the second Saturday in November. It included activities for children, marching bands provided by The Salvation Army and the Australian 10th Light Horse Regiment, and a parade along Glendale Avenue and Beach Road at 10:30 am. Intended originally as a fundraiser for the school, the Gazette reported that it was "a sort of glorified féte that rapidly outgrew its origins", with live coverage of the parade on ABC radio and on television station TVW-7 and personalities such as Jeff Newman in attendance. The fair, however, became the victim of a dispute over naming rights between the Glendale P&C, community groups and commercial sponsors.[43] Other events included the grand opening of Warwick Grove Shopping Centre on 13 November 1974,[44] the greening of Aintree-Eglinton Reserve[45] and the activities of the Hamersley Progress Association. The paper was acquired in February 1977 by Bill Marwick of the Wanneroo Times, and evolved into the Stirling Times in 1980.

Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, looking northwest along the former Carine Road

Meanwhile, work was only starting in eastern Hamersley. In 1973 Project Homes acquired a poultry farm and agricultural holding, and completed the construction of Vickers Street and adjoining roads, with Don Place becoming a display village.[46] In 1974 the City of Stirling agreed, after complex negotiations, to sell 4.2 hectares of land comprising Carine Road and Allen Street to the State Housing Commission and to War Service Homes in order to "facilitate a satisfactory subdivisional design of adjoining land held by the State Housing Commission" in the eastern portion of the suburb. All that remains of these two early roads are paved pathways within the Rannoch-Tay-Earn Reserve, which was gazetted in 1976.[47] By July 1975, 200 defence service homes were under construction on land immediately to the east of Erindale Road, to be made available to veterans from March 1976.[48] The rest of eastern Hamersley was built over the next few years, and by 1981 development was essentially complete.[49] The community hall was redeveloped into a full-fledged community centre, which officially opened in 1990.[50]

Despite Hamersley's stability in the years since 1981 and its relatively low crime rate,[51] it has periodically drawn the attention of the Perth media. In July 2000, a man bludgeoned his former girlfriend, mother-of-two Deborah Boyd, to death in a rented home in Brabant Way. He was subsequently sentenced to strict-security life imprisonment.[52] On 23 January 2006, a large scrub fire caused the closure of Reid Highway and delays in rail line services during the afternoon rush hour.[53]

Public transport in Hamersley is generally in the form of Transperth buses operated by Swan Transit from the Warwick railway station at its northwestern corner, linking via the Joondalup railway line to the Perth CBD.

At the 2011 census, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that 13.9% of Hamersley's residents used public transport to get to work.[54] This was a sizable jump from 8.5% in the 2006 census,[55] and was higher than the north-western metropolitan average of 13.1%.[57] Public transport usage was highest (16.8%) in the section of Hamersley closest to the train station, and lowest (8.3%) in the Vickers Street section to the southeast, where many residents live more than 10 minutes' walk from the nearest bus stop.[59]

Currently, the only service in the suburb is the 387 daytime service between Warwick and Perth via Balcatta Road, which travels along Eglinton Crescent. Eastern Hamersley does not have a direct service, other than those along Erindale and Wanneroo Roads. However, service along Wanneroo Road is very limited outside standard weekday hours.[67]

Originally, Hamersley was served by a shuttle service to Wanneroo Road, Nollamara, to connect with other routes to the Perth CBD. In September 1973, the Metropolitan Transport Trust introduced the 358 and 359 services, which linked Greenwood to Perth via Eglinton Crescent and Glendale Avenue/Aintree Street respectively, travelling along Blissett Way, then becoming limited-stops Wanneroo Road services. An after-hours service, the 369, was also introduced.[68] In 1987, following the construction of the Warwick Transfer Station and the Mitchell Freeway, services along Glendale Avenue and through East Hamersley ceased, with two new routes – the 347 and the Freeway-bound 387 – being created to serve Eglinton Crescent.[69]

On 21 March 1993, the Joondalup railway line came into operation as part of the Northern Suburbs Transit System, resulting in the creation of the 449 and 457 services to replace the 387 service.[70] The 449 operated only during the morning and evening rush-hour, while the 457 operated after-hours and at weekends.[71] These services operated virtually unchanged until 6 November 2011, when the 347 was replaced with the present-day 387, and the 457 and weekday evening services were withdrawn. On 31 January 2016, the 449 was also withdrawn, leaving Hamersley without weekend bus services.[72]