Clarkson

Clarkson is an outer suburb of Perth, Western Australia, 34 kilometres north of the Perth's CBD. Select MORE for information on the suburb, its neighbourhood and rich history.

While mostly a residential area, Clarkson also functions as a town centre, serving many surrounding areas with a vast amount of amenities and facilities. The suburb has a railway station on the Joondalup Railway Line and also is a major public transport hub for surrounding suburbs.

Clarkson is bounded to the west by Mindarie (Marmion Avenue) and to the north by Merriwa and Ridgewood (Hester Avenue). The railway line divides Clarkson from the Neerabup National Park in the east. South of Clarkson is Tamala Park, which is uninhabited. It is approximately 2 kilometres away from the Indian Ocean and the coastlines of Claytons Beach and Quinns Beach.

Clarkson has a population of over 14,000 people and is predicted to grow at an exponential rate, peaking at around 18,000 in 20 years.

Around 40 per cent of Clarkson's population were born overseas and a significant British-born population is present (15 per cent), although this is a smaller proportion compared to some nearby suburbs, such as Mindarie. Most other major immigrant groups in Clarkson hail from Anglophone countries, such as New Zealand and South Africa.

Clarkson is part of the City of Wanneroo local government area and sits within the City’s Established Coastal Place Management Area.

The suburb's name honours the Clarkson’s, a family of sheep farmers who held leases of land in the area since the 19th century.

Clarkson was originally gazetted as "Mindarie" by the Shire of Wanneroo in 1979, but the two names were transferred in 1985 at the request of the Smith Corporation, who went on to develop the Mindarie Keys Marina three years later.

The first permanent settler with European ancestry in the area was Bernard Drummond Clarkson, a sheep-farmer who also held land in Toodyay. Clarkson first acquired a pastoral lease in 1888 of 18,000 acres in the areas comprising modern-day Mindarie, Clarkson, Quinns Rocks and Merriwa. The leases were known as the Mindarie Pastoral Company, and the lands were primarily used for sheep-herding by subsequent generations of the Clarkson family.

The ruins of the Clarkson’s first homestead and home of the Mindarie Pastoral Company are today preserved in Riverlinks Park on Connolly Drive.

The Mindarie Pastoral Company leases were sold by John Clarkson in 1952, with the land subdivided for redevelopment taking place in 1959. There was no further development or settlement in the area until the early 1990s, following the completion of the adjacent Mindarie Marina and subsequent nearby residential dwellings.

Outside of Clarkson's main commercial zone in the south-west, the suburb consists mostly of residential, detached bungalow housing with vast amounts of parkland. There is a strip of two-storey apartment blocks along Ocean Keys Boulevard, immediately opposite the railway station, and another strip of apartments closer to the shopping centre on Ningaloo Bend.

(Historic information courtesy of Wanneroo Community History Centre)

Area: 6.6 km2 (2.5 sq mi) Population: 14,163 (2021 estimate from 2016 Census) Local Government Area: City of Wanneroo Phone: 08 9405 5000 Email: enquiries@wanneroo.wa.gov.au