Gairdner is a town in the Great Southern region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. The town is located between Jerramungup and Boxwood Hill along the

South Coast Highway South Coast Highway is a Western Australian highway. It is a part of the Highway 1 network. With a length of , it runs from Esperance to Walpole roughly in parallel to Western Australia's south coast. Even then the journey is pretty much in ...

, on Devil Creek, a tributary of the Bremer River. The surrounding area was opened up by the state government for settlement in the 1950s. The primary school, the first building at what was to be the Gairdner townsite, was established in 1960. Prior to 1960, students attended school at Jerramungup. The name of the townsite was approved by the Minister of Lands in 1978. The town is named after the

Gairdner River Gairdner River is a river located in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. The river was first recorded by Surveyor General John Septimus Roe in 1848, when carrying out exploration of the area, noting that natives referred to it an ...

`(25 km to the east), which was named by

John Septimus Roe John Septimus Roe (8 May 1797 – 28 May 1878) was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, a member of Western Australia's legislative and executive councils for nearly 40 years, but also a participant in t ...

while on an expedition in the area in 1848. He named it after Gordon Gairdner, Senior Clerk of the Australian and Eastern Departments in the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of col ...

, later Chief Clerk of the Colonial Office and Secretary and Registrar of the

Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George IV, Prince of Wales, while he was acting as prince regent for his father, King George III. It is named in honour ...

. Roe also named Mount Gordon and

Gordon Inlet Gordon Inlet is an estuarine inlet, located in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. The inlet is at the south west corner of the Fitzgerald River National Park and approximately north west of the town of Bremer Bay. The estuar ...

(at the mouth of the Gairdner River) after Gairdner. The surrounding areas produce

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

and other

cereal A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...

crops. The town is a receival site for

Cooperative Bulk Handling The CBH Group (commonly known as CBH, an acronym for Co-operative Bulk Handling), is a grain growers' cooperative that handles, markets and processes grain from the wheatbelt of Western Australia. History CBH was formed on 5 April 1933, at a ...

References

{{authority control Towns in Western Australia Great Southern (Western Australia) Grain receival points of Western Australia