The Pioneers of the Tingle.
A guide to the early European explorers, settlers and pioneers who came to the Walpole-Nornalup region — from a French admiral charting the coast in 1791 to the Group Settlers carving farms out of karri forest a century later.
From charted coast to settled forest.
The Walpole-Nornalup region has a remarkably late settlement history. While the Swan River Colony took root in 1829 and Albany was already established further east, the dense karri and tingle forests, lack of arable land, and remoteness kept European settlement at bay for almost a century after the coast was first charted.
The story falls into clear chapters — French and British coastal exploration in the late 1700s and early 1800s; overland and river surveys from the 1830s; the arrival of the first permanent settler families from 1910; and the great Group Settlement push of the 1920s and 30s, when hundreds of families were balloted forest blocks they cleared by hand. Many didn't last. Those who did built the community Walpole knows today.
We acknowledge the Menang and Bibbulmun Noongar people as the Traditional Owners of the Walpole-Nornalup region, whose connection to this country stretches back tens of thousands of years before the events described below. The name Nor-Nor-Nup — "place of the black snake" — is theirs, as are the songlines, knowledge of plants and animals, and stewardship of the land that European arrivals slowly learned, and continue to learn, to recognise.
Walk in their footsteps.
Pioneer Park, on the northern shore of the Walpole Inlet, marks the site of the original 1930 settlers' camp. The Walpole-Nornalup & Districts Historical Society holds extensive records and stories — pop in to the museum on your visit.
Visit the Historical Society ↗