Bremer Bay - Culture and History

The first Europeans to make contact with the area were Matthew Flinders who, in 1802, sailed the Investigator along the coast charting its beaches and rugged cliffs as he went. By the 1820s the whalers and sealers who hunted in the southern ocean knew of Bremer Bay and used it as a stopover point.

In 1841 Edward John Eyre passed through the area having being revitalised at Thistle Cove (near Esperance) after traversing the Nullarbor Plain. Eyre and his Aboriginal companion Wylie made the journey from Thistle Cove to Albany in late June, 1841.

Eyre was critical of the whole area. After nearly dying of thirst on the Nullarbor crossing he was now confronted with almost continuous rain. This probably accounted for his description of Mt Barren in the Fitzgerald River National Park as 'Most properly had it been called Mt Barren, for a more wretched arid looking country never existed than that around it.' It is hard to imagine Eyre making this observation having just crossed the Nullarbor Plain.

In 1849 Bremer Bay was named by the WA Surveyor General John Septimus Roe after the captain of the HMS Tamar, Sir Gordon Bremer.

The first European settler into the area was John Wellstead who arrived in the 1850s and built the two storey stone homestead which still stands near Tooleburrup Hill about 7 km south of Bremer Bay. It is still owned by members of the family and is not open for inspection.

The township (if it can be called that) came into existence with the establishment of telegraph station in 1876. The first operator was Mary Wellstead who was probably the first female telegraphist in the country.