Forrest Avon Survey Cairns

Statement of Significance

The place is an excellent representative group of trigonometric survey cairns, which collectively demonstrate the method and purpose of the Colonial Survey Office’s approach to integrating the location-based surveys of the wheatbelt with the more comprehensively surveyed metropolitan area.

The place is associated with statesman John Forrest, at a period of his life when his career as a government official was beginning.

Physical Description

Forrest Survey Cairns, Avon consists of a potential 43 survey cairns, although it is currently unknown how many of these 43 are intact. The layout of these cairns in the Beverley, York and Northam areas are spaced widely apart, while the cairns in the Toodyay are more closely spaced. Moving east into the Avon Valley, the cairns are closely spaced on opposing sides of the Avon River. In the metropolitan area there are only 4 cairns, placed in Ellenbrook, Greenmount, Fremantle and Joondalup, which serve the purpose of “tying” the Avon cairns to the more accurately surveyed metropolitan area.

Few images of Forrest Survey Cairns, Avon are available. However, based upon known trigonometric survey cairns, it has been assumed that the structures consist of a small mound of local stones, generally 50-70 cm high and approximately 1 m across the base, which may still have a marked timber post planted through the middle of the mound. These cairns are generally placed on high points within the landscape, particularly where they can be seen from one another.

History

Shortly after the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, settlers were quick to discover that the settlement was not as lush, fertile or productive as expected, and by 1830 explorations in to the Colony’s interior were underway in search of better land. In late 1830, explorers were successful in their search and found productive agricultural land beyond the area of initial settlement in the region now known as the Avon Valley. In November 1830, the Lands and Surveys Department set aside land in this area for the townsites of Northam, York and Beverley.

While initial survey of land grants in the Swan River Colony relied on the marking of identifiable objects including trees or posts by professional surveyors such as John Septimus Roe, it was often left to the British colonists to fence the boundaries of their grants using a compass and the river boundary to orient themselves. However, the survey of isolated land lots and the creation of routes to them fell entirely to the Colonial Survey Office, which utilised compasses, theodolites and Gunter’s chains to more accurately map the landscape. While these tools were used for transect surveys that could accurately map portions of an area, large scale landscape mapping was performed using triangulation surveys. These surveys used trigonometric calculations to accurately determine the distance between groups of three locations by taking compass bearings from each point to triangulate the features, and by basing groups of calculations off a baseline or secondary tieline that was measured with a chain. The most accurate bearings could be taken where there was nothing to obscure the view between land features, and thus hilltops and mountains in the state’s largely flat landscape were commonly used for triangulation surveys.

In 1871 the Colonial Survey Office was re-organised, and a junior surveyor named John Forrest was promoted to the permanent position of Assistant Surveyor. Forrest had begun as a contract surveyor in 1865 and was a rising star in the Office. After the sudden unavailability of Baron Ferdinand Mueller to lead an expedition into the Colony's interior in search of the lost explorer Leichhardt in 1870, Forrest was given command of the enterprise. While this exploration did not find Leichhardt or any useful pastoral land, the survey performed by Forrest was of popular interest to the British in an age when the last unexplored areas of its Empire were being mapped. Forrest’s promotion saw him take charge of surveys in the Geraldton region. A professional surveyor was sorely needed in the growing area, as by this point the sporadic, location-based surveys of individual grants needed a larger survey to give an accurate overview of the entire region. Over a period of two years Forrest made a number of journeys across the area, starting at Dongara, working his way inland to Mount Scratch, then turning northward to survey points through Geraldton and finish at Port Gregory.

Forrest utilised both transect survey and triangulation survey, and re-used many of the survey cairns laid by earlier surveyors and explorers. Forrest considered his survey to be a success, noting in the newspapers of the day that “very little has been done by triangulation as the country is not well suited for it, but altogether I have never done any work more accurately.”

Forrest’s career continued to develop after this point, and in 1874 he was given command of another expedition, crossing from Geraldton to the north-south telegraph line in South Australia. While once again the exploration did not identify areas suitable for British settlement, the adventurousness of the exploration caught the public imagination, and Forrest’s popularity soared. Two years later the 29 year old Forrest was promoted to Deputy Surveyor General, moving back to Perth to join the Colony’s elite after marrying his long-term sweetheart Margaret Elvire.

Around this time public complaints had arisen regarding the state of surveyed lands in the Avon, which after decades of short-term surveying contracts had become prone to errors. Part of the public concern in this regard may have been the arrival of the railway in the 1870s, which saw feverish speculation from small agricultural towns as to the route and access the lines would take through the region.

By the end of 1876 Forrest had completed his latest trigonometric survey in the colony’s northern regions and was assigned the task of completing a similar survey across the Avon region. The task was an enjoyable one for Forrest, who with his brother Alexander had worked extensively in the area as a contract surveyor in 1868 and already had a number of personal and professional contacts in the region. While there are no surviving maps of this trigonometric survey, Forrest’s survey journal provides a number of insights into his method.

On 3rd December 1877 Forrest started at the intersection of the Avon bridge to York outside of Beverley (currently the intersection of the Great Southern Highway and Top Beverley-York Road), and surveyed a baseline line south to Gnurdungging Hill, where he built a survey cairn. This was followed the next day by another cairn built at Bald Hill to the southwest. Forrest then travelled to York and placed a cairn at Needling Hill on the 8th December, with a tie line to the southeast corner of J Hardey’s Location C. Two days later Forrest constructed another cairn at Mount Bakewell overlooking York town, which he triangulated with Needling and nearby Mount Brown. Travelling north to Northam, Forrest placed a single cairn in this area at Mount Dick on 12th Dec 1877, tying this to a corner of T Carter’s Location P3. Forrest then moved west to Toodyay, where he placed seven survey cairns on local hills, finishing at Jimperding Hill by the 31st December 1877. These cairns were tied to various locations in the area, including another baseline measured along the Toodyay Road that was marked with inscribed posts buried to road level. At Jimperding Hill, Forrest also utilised a “temporary flag” as a minor survey point to help triangulate his cairns with Location 393, as the local topography was becoming hilly.

After a short break over the new year Forrest returned to the western edge of Toodyay on 3rd January 1878, where he began the task of surveying the Avon Valley. Between 3rd and 11th January Forrest established nine cairns on opposite sides of the Avon River, finishing at point MH. As there were few marked Locations in this area, survey cairns were tied to scarred trees and temporary flags were also used to help triangulate points. One notable location tied to a survey cairn was Location 367, noted in Forrest’s diagrams and descriptions as “Joe’s Cage”, a reference to prior owner and notorious bushranger Moondyne Joe (P24717).

Forrest appears to have taken a break at this point, leaving the area and returning to the Avon Valley on the 29th January. Forrest’s first three points, HN, ME and RG, started further southwest along the valley and worked northeast towards MH before working back downstream southwest again. This may have been due to the intense tree cover and lack of marked Locations, as by this point Forrest had largely given up on using temporary flags and was utilising scarred trees as well as simply noting recognisable landforms bordering the river’s edge. Between the 29th January and 2nd February Forrest established 11 cairns, his most intensive period of work during the project.

After this Forrest took another break, returning the western end of the Avon Valley on the 11th of February. His first cairn established at this point was BP, which was tied to both a scarred tree and the “Upper Swan Church” (likely P2494 All Saints Anglican Church [RHP]). From there, Forrest again worked his way back to his last set of cairns before turning southwest to work his way out of the Avon Valley by the 13th of February 1878, with a total of seven cairns established. Forrest’s last survey point, PV, was tied to a scarred tree as well as taking sightings to P2124 St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral (RHP), P1953 Perth Town Hall (RHP) and P2003 Wesley Church (RHP) in Perth.

From this point Forrest surveyed four final points, which served to tie the survey points across the Avon Valley to the established metropolitan survey points and effectively link the Avon Valley survey to Perth. Between the 14th February and 21st February 1878 Forrest took sightings from cairns at Ellenbrook, Greenmount, and Fremantle, likely from pre-existing cairns but also tying the measurements to a number of locally built landmarks. The final cairn, D, was further north in the bushland of Joondalup, for which Forrest didn’t bother to draw a diagram map, rather simply noting the measurements to link Buckland Hill in Fremantle to this final survey point.

Overall, Forrest’s strategy appears to have been to create a small number of survey points in areas that were already settled and largely surveyed, but to create an intensively-surveyed bridge of survey points across the Avon Valley that would link the Perth and Avon areas. Given the dense vegetation and hilly topography of the Avon Valley, Forrest opted for a strategy of following the Avon River, which provided clear viewpoints to either side of the waterway.

While it is known that Forrest used teams of assistants on earlier surveys and explorations, no mention is made in his journal of who accompanied him on this survey, nor did the newspapers of the day describe his team. It is noted that convicts were occasionally utilised as assistants to government survey teams during this period, however by 1877 the era of cheap convict labour was largely over, so it is unknown if convicts accompanied Forrest on this journey.

Another item noted in Forrest’s survey journal is that the survey was scheduled for October 1877, however Forrest did not begin in earnest until December. The newspapers of the day report that Forrest spent most of October 1877 hosting Baron Mueller, who was travelling Western Australia and was treated as a visiting celebrity.

Forrest’s career continued to grow after the Avon triangulation, the young surveyor performing another three trigonometric surveys and taking on temporary higher-level government administration positions, culminating in his appointment as Surveyor-General and Commissioner of Crown Lands in 1883 - the first colonial-born Western Australian to achieve this. Forrest went on to become the first Premier of Western Australia in 1890, and after representing Western Australia in the negotiations for Federation in 1899 was elected as one of the first Federal Members of Parliament in 1901. Forrest served in a number of Federal positions and was briefly acting Prime Minister in 1907. In 1918 it was announced that Forrest was to receive a Barony from the British government for his lifetime of service, again the first colonial-born Australian to do so, however he lost a long-term battle with cancer and died while on route to England the same year. Forrest is still widely recognised for his achievements as a surveyor and statesman and is memorialised at Kings Park, however his interactions with Aboriginal groups have been criticised.

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This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.