Boddington is a town and

shire Shire () is a traditional term for an administrative division of land in Great Britain and some other English-speaking countries. It is generally synonymous with county (such as Cheshire and Worcestershire). British counties are among the oldes ...

in the Peel region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, located south-east of Perth. The town sits on the road from Pinjarra to Williams on the Hotham River. The population of the town was 1,844 at the 2016 Census.

History

The town owes its name to an early settler, Henry Boddington, who was a farmer and shepherd in the 1860s and 1870s and leased land in the area in 1875, later moving to Wagin. His name became associated with a pool in the Hotham River at which he frequently camped. The original settled locality was called Hotham, west of the town at what is now the end of Farmers Avenue, named for the Farmer family, and a post office and school were established. When the

Hotham Valley Railway The Hotham Valley Tourist Railway (commonly Hotham Valley Railway) is a heritage railway, tourist and heritage railway in the Peel (Western Australia), Peel region of Western Australia. The railway operates over a section of the original Pi ...

was being constructed in 1912 to meet demand created by the local timber industry, a townsite was chosen adjacent to the town, and subsequently gazetted. The town was built in the 1920s, with a school, hospital, council offices, post office, shops and agricultural hall. A railway bridge was built over the upper reaches of the Murray River in 1949, then known as "Asquith Bridge", and was used for carting railway timber to the Banksiadale Sawmill. The area declined slowly over time, and the 1961 Western Australian bushfires devastated the local timber industry. By 1969, the railway had been closed and Boddington became a typical small service area for the surrounding district. However, the establishment of

bauxite Bauxite () is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH) ...

mining in 1979 to service Western Australia's

alumina Aluminium oxide (or aluminium(III) oxide) is a chemical compound of aluminium and oxygen with the chemical formula . It is the most commonly occurring of several aluminium oxides, and specifically identified as aluminium oxide. It is commonly ...

production at

Worsley Worsley () is a village in the City of Salford, Greater Manchester, England, which in 2014 had a population of 10,090. It lies along Worsley Brook, west of Manchester. Within the boundaries of the Historic counties of England, historic county ...

, Kwinana and Wagerup, and the opening of the Boddington Gold Mine in 1987 created a thriving mining town.

Present day

Boddington is located off

Albany Highway Albany Highway links Western Australia's capital city Perth with its oldest settlement, Albany, Western Australia, Albany, on the state's South coast of Western Australia, south coast. The highway travels through the southern Wheatbelt (Weste ...

and southeast of Perth in the

Darling Scarp The Darling Scarp (), also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to ...

. It is the centre of a sheep and timber district as well as a service centre for the nearby bauxite and gold mines. Boddington contains a

TAFE Technical and further education or simply TAFE () is the common name in Australia for vocational education, as a subset of tertiary education. TAFE institutions provide a wide range of predominantly vocational courses. Colloquially also known ...

centre, and each year on the first weekend of November hosts a 3-day

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaqu ...

. In addition, a district high school, shopping facilities, accommodation (hotel, motel, caravan park), council offices and a

telecentre A telecentre is a public place where people can access computers, the Internet, and other digital technologies that enable them to gather information, create, learn, and communicate with others while they develop essential digital skills. Telecent ...

are located within the town.

Population

In the 2016

Census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, there were 1,198 people in Boddington. 74.1% of people were born in Australia and 87.3% of people only spoke English at home. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 40.2%, Anglican 22.1% and Catholic 13.1%.

District

A Royal Historical Society plaque near the town marks the grave of a local Aboriginal named Quency Dilyan who helped explorers

Alexander Forrest Alexander Forrest CMG (22 September 1849 – 20 June 1901) was an explorer and surveyor of Western Australia, and later also a member of parliament. As a government surveyor, Forrest explored many areas of remote Western Australia, particula ...

and Ranford during their expeditions in the area. Several scenic drives and bushwalking tracks have been set up by the shire council through state forests and

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, rather than being intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is any different from the native plant, eve ...

country.

Economy

The town's economy is supported by mining and agriculture. The

Shire of Boddington The Shire of Boddington is a Local government areas of Western Australia, local government area in the Peel (Western Australia), Peel region of Western Australia, about south-east of the state capital, Perth. The Shire covers an area of , and ...

is home to the

Newmont Mining Newmont Corporation is an American gold mining company based in Greenwood Village, Colorado. It is the world's largest gold mining corporation. Incorporated in 1921, it holds ownership of gold mines in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the D ...

owned Boddington Gold Mine and the

South32 South32 Limited is a mining and metals company headquartered in Perth, Western Australia. It was spun out of BHP Billiton on 18 May 2015. It is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange with secondary listings on the Johannesburg and Londo ...

operated Boddington Bauxite Mine. Due to its mining activities, the town is undergoing a significant growth phase. The Peel Development Commission predicts the population of Boddington will double by 2012 and up to 400 new residences will be required. The Boddington Shire have approved several land developments ranging from larger lifestyle lots to smaller lot residential developments. Developments include Huntley Rise Estate, Forrest Hill Estate and Banksia Private Estate.

Accommodation

Boddington has self contained accommodation located in the middle of town called Boddington Retreat.

Boddington Gold Mine

References

External links

Shire of Boddington

South 32
* {{Authority control Towns in Western Australia Shire of Boddington Mining towns in Western Australia Darling Range