Beeliar

Beeliar is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn.

Beeliar is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn. The name refers to the Beeliar people, a group of Aboriginal Australians who had land rights over the southern half of Perth's metropolitan area.The suburb contains the Thomsons Lake Nature Reserve.

"Beeliar" is a Noongar word that translates to "river" or "water running through". The suburb was named after an early settler-colonialist, Robert Menli Lyon, who recorded and interacted with the local Aboriginal group in the area circa the nineteenth century. Before European contact, the suburb was occupied by the Beeliar group of the Whadjuk nation, who are part of the broader Noongar language region. The Noongar peoples have Dreaming stories related to the creation of the landforms in Beeliar and had lore that outlined the maintenance and care of the land. Oral history records and archaeology account for the Beeliar-Noongar belonging to the Beeliar suburb and its neighbouring areas.The region of Beeliar was also included in the Swan River Colony, which was the first colony not established for convicts. The suburb was first governed by Captain James Stirling. Following Stirling's retirement, Beeliar was part of the frontier wars. Beeliar was home to Yagan and his father, Midjegoorong, who were notable figures during this period.From the twentieth century, the suburban boundaries of Beeliar were modified gradually. Bibra Lake, which was still a feature within the Beeliar boundary during this time, was a site for the Australian Women's Army Service station during World War Two.Since the post-war era, Beeliar has undergone several council projects, such as the Wetlands Education Centre of Cockburn (established in the 1980s), and gradually developed into a modern metropolitan suburb by the 1990s. The 1990s were when the most modern changes to the Beeliar boundaries occurred, which partially split Beeliar’s region into a new suburb, Yangebup.Since the 1990s, environmental and land rights concerns have been a local geopolitical issue. Beeliar citizens have voiced their concerns to the council about protecting the suburban geographic features, such as the various wetlands (including Thomsons Lake).

Using the oral history transcripts and the few written records by early settler-colonialists, scholars suggest that Beeliar and its surrounding suburbs of the local council (City of Cockburn) were the lands of the Noongar/Nyungar peoples. Carbon dating has also revealed that Noongar people have occupied the area for at least 28,000 years. Specifically, at Hope Road, Beeliar Wetlands, archaeologists have found “fossiliferous chert artefacts underlying artefacts made from quartz”, which they believe to date approximately to the mid-Holocene period, and argued that there was “repeated wetland occupation” from this era.The pre-contact Beeliar Aboriginal group spoke the Noongar language, and the geographic nation that the Beeliar people belong within is the Whadjuk nation. Historians and archaeologists have estimated the Noongar peoples to live in the Whadjuk region, including the Beeliar suburb, for "well over 40,000" years. Historians Leonard Collard and Clint Bracknell (2012) claim that the Noongar language may have "dialectic differences" across different groups due to how far the region extends over south-west Western Australia. Lyon's records also regard the local Aboriginal peoples of the Beeliar area being a distinct "language" group as well as a district. Collard and Bracknell (2012) identify through Norman Tindale's (1974) records that there were twelve "socio-dialectic groups" around the area and that "Beeliar is one clan of the Whadjuk group". Shellam (2012) identifies four dialectal groups within the Whadjuk: “Beeliar (south of Swan River), Mooro (north) and Beeloo (east)".

Scholars have identified the Beeliar area as having "major" sites for traditional Noongar ceremonies as well as a popular meeting area for "a number of major travel routes" between Noongar groups. Before European contact, Beeliar had "long-established trails" that connected "freshwater wetlands", which also functioned as a path to connect different Noongar groups to "social and cultural obligations", such as ceremonies, trade, and creating bush medicine. According to scholars, the different Noongar groups would travel to trade to places as far as Uluru and would commonly trade “stones and ochres and all sorts of different things” that weren’t grown in Beeliar.The Museum of Perth (n.d.) recorded that in the pre-contact era, winter rainfall would create one giant swamp, called Yoordgoorading, which "may have connected to Lake Thomson and Lake Poulett". During the hot seasons, with minimal rainfall, the land would dry, "which allowed the Noongar people to practice their traditional low-intensity firing regime in the area. Burning the area while the swamps were dried out cleared dead plants, increased water access for birds and cycled nutrients to the soil, which improved the yield and taste of plant foods eaten by Noongar people". In sum, the lands of Beeliar and its connecting suburbs were agriculturally cared for by the local Aboriginal groups.

In 1829, the Swan River Colony was declared by Captain James Stirling. This colony’s boundaries – including the future city, Perth, and the suburb, Beeliar – extended into the Whadjuk nation. This colony was the first not to be established for convicts. Stirling was the governor over the colony from 1829–1832 and 1834–1838. During this period, the colony did not consistently count the local Aboriginal people of the region. The inconsistent census data from this period has impacted how scholars understand the records for the following period and how this affected the Beeliar Noongar demographic.

Frontier conflict, commonly referred to as the frontier wars, was a phenomenon that occurred across Australia, including in Beeliar. In May 1833, a Beeliar man named Midjegoorong was "executed by firing squad, without trial".Following this execution, Midjegoorong's son Yagan had a bounty imposed on him by the local government. On 15 August 1833, two local shepherds found Yagan and killed him.

A new era for the Swan River Colony emerged after Stirling resigned in 1838. During this new era, which lasted until 1860, an influx of British convicts and settlers moved to the region. The occupation of more people led to roads, infrastructure and housing being created. By extension, this led to the creation of new suburbs within the metropolitan region of Perth, such as Beeliar. Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal writer Robert Menli Lyon, one of the first settler-colonialists from Britain, recorded the region of Beeliar as "the district of Midjegoorong" in 1833. He outlined the boundaries of this area as being "north-south from the Swan and Canning Rivers to Mangles Bay, and east-west from the sea to the Darling Scarp". It was not until the following decade that this region came to have a permanent non-Indigenous occupation.

In the 1840s, Beeliar was officially occupied by British colonialists as a suburb. A prominent reason for Beeliar to be established as a suburb was the need to establish agriculture in response to the increase of population across the city of Perth. The Beeliar Wetlands was the prime focus for the settler-colonialists in the suburb. One of the water reserves within Beeliar Wetlands, named Bibra Lake, was initially used for "dairying and market gardening and the inevitable rubbish dumping".

In the 1890s, the loosely defined "Beeliar" district became sectored into new suburbs. The government outlined the new boundaries southeast of Bibra Lake to be the new suburb of Jandakot. Beeliar, as a suburb, continued to be sanctioned north, west, and south of Bibra Lake, with popular markets found at "Thomsons and Kogolup Lakes" (City of Cockburn, n.d.).

By 1913, after the new boundaries of Beeliar were defined, the state government installed interconnecting drains between several water features, including the Beeliar Wetlands and Thomsons Lake. Oral history records reveal that many Beeliar citizens remember a “different” state of nature in the Wetlands, claiming that the instalment of pipes led to the "semi-dryness" of the Beeliar Wetlands.During 1930–1945, an Australian Women's Army Service station was set up next to Bibra Lake.

Following the war, Bibra Lake hosted more civilian infrastructural developments. This included the eventual construction of a "water park, ice rink and skateboarding park" surrounding Bibra Lake. Scholars have found that the mid-1900s also attracted Aboriginal peoples and groups to the region to participate in the booming industry of the suburb. According to historians, Beeliar and its surrounding suburbs had "some of the first Aboriginal housing schemes" in the state.

In 1967, approximately 84% of the electoral Division of Fremantle, which includes Beeliar, voted "Yes" in the referendum to allow Aboriginal people to be included in the population count.In the 1980s, the Wetlands Education Centre of Cockburn was established. This institution relies on the sites of Beeliar Wetlands, as well as Thomsons Lake (which is located within the suburb’s newer boundaries) for its research and educational excursions. Historians have claimed that the Noongar peoples of the Beeliar area continued to camp and regularly practice ceremonies “through [to the] the 1980s”. In addition to the Wetlands Education centre being established in the 1980s, the state government also agreed to develop Beeliar Regional Park.

The naming of the suburban region, Beeliar, was officially approved by the state government on 2 December 1993. However, similar to Bibra Lake, which became a separate suburb from Beeliar, the Beeliar suburban boundaries have continued to evolve and change as new suburbs are established since the mid-20th century. Two years after the approval of the name "Beeliar", the suburb was redefined again and shared the land with another suburb, named Yangebup. Beeliar Drive cuts through Beeliar Regional Park and marks the boundary between the two suburbs. Thus, only a portion of the Beeliar Regional Park still belongs within the suburb of Beeliar.