Ravensthorpe

Ravensthorpe is a town 541 km south-east of Perth and 40 km inland from the south coast of Western Australia.

Ravensthorpe is a town 541 km south-east of Perth and 40 km inland from the south coast of Western Australia. It is the seat of government of the Shire of Ravensthorpe. At the 2006 census, Ravensthorpe had a population of 438.In 1848, the area was surveyed by Surveyor General John Septimus Roe who named many of the geographical features nearby, including the nearby Ravensthorpe Range that the later town was named after.

There was one of the Western Australian Government Railways isolated branch lines between Hopetoun and Ravensthorpe. This line opened in 1909.Alluvial gold was discovered at the Phillips River in 1892. At the goldfield a de facto town emerged, known as Phillips River. The government completed construction of a copper and gold smelter about 2 km south east of the town in 1906, used to cast copper and gold ingots.

A temporary pastoral lease ("Free Run") was registered by James Dunn senior in 1868. His five sons and daughter started sheep farming at the property, Cocanarup (20 km west of the present town), in 1871, after George and John Dunn drove a herd from Albany. In 1873 the family was granted a permanent lease of 4,049 hectares (10,010 acres).The region is infamous for the Ravensthorpe Massacre, also called the Cocanarup Massacre, where many Noongar people were massacred in revenge for the fatal spearing of John Dunn in 1880. Dunn had allegedly raped a 13 year old Noongar girl.By 1901, the population had climbed to over 1,000 and the government gazetted the town, renaming it Ravensthorpe. The area continued to prosper and the population grew accordingly, by 1909 the population was over 3000. The prosperity was short-lived; World War I took its toll on the town and by 1918 the local copper smelter had closed and many of the copper and gold mines had closed. The population of the town in 1968 was approximately 800 people.

Ravensthorpe has a semi-arid climate (BSk) with a Mediterranean rainfall pattern.