Torbay

Torbay is a small town and a bay in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Albany.

Torbay is a small town and a bay in the Great Southern region of Western Australia, 20 kilometres (12 mi) west of Albany. Torbay is within the City of Albany local government area. The Torbay townsite was gazetted in 1910.The Torbay area is on the eastern fringe of the karri forest region, and with some notable blocks of remnant tall forest. Large granite outcrops are also common. Beaches on the bay tend towards fine white sand. Where streams occur, they are clear but stained dark brown in colour from high-tannin-content vegetation.

Children in the area usually attend schools in Albany, travelling there by school bus. There is also a local independent school, the Woodbury Boston Primary School.

The town is named after Tor Bay, a bay on the coast to the south originally named by Captain Matthew Flinders in 1801 after Tor Bay in Devon, the home port of Admiral Richard Howe's Channel Fleet, for whom Flinders had served as a midshipman from 1793 to 1794. Admiral Howe's nickname was "Lord Torbay". Flinders identified a number of local features with Lord Howe-related names, including Torbay (the bay), Torbay Inlet, Torbay Head and West Cape Howe(originally named Cape Howe by George Vancouver), to avoid confusion with James Cook’sCape Howe in New South Wales.

Pre-settlement explorers of the Torbay area included: Matthew Flinders, Robert Brown, Ferdinand Bauer and William Westall (Dec. 1801); Thomas Wilson (Dec. 1829); Roe and Stirling (Nov. 1835);and Charles Codrington Forsyth of HMS Pelorus (1838).

In November 1835, Roe and Stirling explored the Tor Bay area, scoping the area for shipbuilding. From the late 1830s to the 1860s an industry building vessels of up to 150 tons was established at Port Harding (Migo Island), using timber from the Guarinup Hills, half a mile behind the beach.

A shore whaling station was established on the beach at Tor Bay behind Migo Island in 1844. Whales were taken during the periods 1844-1846 and 1861-1864.

In 1886 railway contractors C & E Millar established sawmills at Bornholm to supply timber for the construction of the Great Southern Railway (Beverley to Albany railway). Timber was initially shipped out by lighter, schooner and the small steamer Active from Port Harding (Migo Island) to Albany, and later by tramline to Elleker. In 1889 the Torbay Estate, of 22,000 acres, was granted to Millars in consideration of extending the railway from Elleker to Torbay and establishing working sawmills there. The two Bornholm mills were shifted to Torbay and enlarged.

A prosperous timber settlement was in evidence at Torbay for about six years. The estate concession extended from Wilgie Hill, at the Albany end of Torbay, to Youngs, the timber being hauled by tramline from 20 miles beyond Torbay as far as Hay River, before the mills were finally moved. By 1895 most of the suitable timber at Torbay had been felled. The railway was again extended to Denmark in 1896. In 1898 Millars Karri and Jarrah Forests Limited offered the Torbay Estate back to the government provided they could retain ownership of the strip of land occupied by the Elleker-Torbay railway, which under their contract was to revert to the government after 14 years. The land was subdivided and sold for agricultural purposes in 1900.

Millars' Elleker-Torbay-Denmark railway line closed on 31 May 1905. During negotiations over the sale of the railway line the State leased the line and WAGR rail services began on 3 May 1907. In 1908 Millars sold the railway to the state government. Line extension works beyond Denmark were started in 1926 and on 11 June 1929 the first passenger service ran to Nornalup. The Nornalup-Denmark-Torbay-Elleker rail service was permanently shut down on 30 September 1957 and the rails were lifted in 1963.