Pinjarra is situated 86 kilometres from Perth, Western Australia and 21 kilometres south-east from the coastal city of Mandurah, and is located in the Peel region of the Shire of Murray along the South Western Highway.
The town is close to the site of the infamous Battle of Pinjarra where between 14 and 40 Aboriginals were killed by British colonists headed by Governor Stirling in 1834.
The first Europeans to explore the Pinjarra area were Lieutenant Preston and Dr Alexander Collie in 1829. It was thought at the time that the Murray River was not navigable and the surrounding land not suitable for agriculture. By 1834 it was found that the land was heavily grassed and the soils consisted of rich loams.
Pinjarra is the hometown of a former State Premier – Sir Ross McLarty and possesses a rich history. In 1831, the location near a ford over the Murray River was reserved for a town site and surveys were conducted in 1836. The land was allocated to settlers the following year.
In the early maps, Pinjarra was often spelt “Pinjarrup” and for many years the spelling was accepted as “Pinjarrah”. The word Pinjarra was thought to be a corruption of the Aboriginal word “beenjarrup” meaning place of the swamp. However, there is a conflicting theory that the area was possibly named after the Aboriginal Pindjarup people who frequented the area.
Early in the 1900s, Kingsley Fairbridge established a farm school in the area under a British child migration scheme. Fairbridge Farm provided education for hundreds of orphaned British immigrant children between 1913 and 1981.
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