No. 5 - Burnie

Burnie's history is closely tied to the establishment of the Van Diemen's Land Company (VDL Company) in the early 19th century. In 1824, a group of wool merchants, bankers, investors, and woollen mill owners gathered in London to explore the idea of creating a land company in Van Diemen's Land, following the model of the Australian Agricultural Company in the Colony of New South Wales. With backing from William Sorell, a former lieutenant governor, and Edward Curr, who had recently returned from the colony, they established the VDL Company, with William Burnie its inaugural Governor of Company. They applied to Lord Bathurst for a grant of 500,000 acres (200,000 ha), while Bathurst approved a smaller allotment of 250,000 acres (100,000 ha), the company received a Royal Charter in 1825, giving it broad authority to cultivate land, and build housing and wharves to support colonial development within a 250,000-acre (100,000 ha) area in North-West Tasmania.

Oakleigh Park, close to Burnie’s business centre, is the birthplace of Burnie and the cradle of the northwest coast. In 1827, chief surveyor of the VDL Company, Henry Hellyer, camped beside Whalebone Creek there. With approval from the Company’s chief agent, Edward Curr, Hellyer selected Emu Bay as the port to service the Company’s inland holdings at Hampshire and Surrey Hills, located around 50 kilometres (31 mi) inland. A year later, government surveyor John Helder Wedge recommended Emu Bay be reserved as an official township due to its strategic value for shipping. Still, the VDL Company was already occupying the area. At that time, the Emu Bay settlement consisted of a store, a small jetty, a sawpit, and a few huts. Hellyer also cut the Old Surrey Road through dense rainforest, establishing the first road on the Northwest Coast, starting from the South Burnie beach.

However, Burnie’s settlement wasn’t peaceful. Between 1828 and 1832, Tarenorerer, a Tommeginne woman who had escaped from sealers, became the leader of the Emu Bay people (Plairhekehillerplue). She led a resistance against settlers during the Black War, attacking VDL Company employees until she was eventually captured. Alexander Goldie, the first superintendent of the Company's land assets around Emu Bay, led armed attacks against the Plairhekehillerplue clan. In 1828, Goldie and his men massacred several people inland from the settlement and in August 1829 they murdered a native woman at Emu Bay by shooting her and cutting her neck with an axe. Goldie then kidnapped the woman's five-year-old daughter and another woman. After an investigation, Goldie resigned from his position. Meanwhile, the VDL Company faced difficulties. By 1833, sheep farming at Surrey Hills had failed due to cold conditions, resulting in the near abandonment of the area.

Throughout the 1840s, the VDL Company began leasing bush blocks to tenant farmers, although Burnie’s growth remained slow. In 1843, the town was surveyed by Nathaniel Kentish and renamed after William Burnie, then serving as one of eighteen directors of the VDL Company. By 1853, Burnie had a population of approximately 200, with basic services such as a doctor and clergyman located in Port Sorell, and a lawyer and banker in Launceston. Transport and communication systems were rudimentary at this time, with no metal roads or established wharves. Nevertheless, the first official birth registrations in Burnie began that year.

Burnie’s first school was opened in 1862 by Mrs. Mary Morris in West Burnie, followed by the construction of the first government school on a rocky hill off Wilmot Street. In 1875, the VDL Company established its headquarters in Oakleigh (now Oakleigh Park), which remained in Burnie until the early 1950s. Burnie became the base for developing the region’s road and rail infrastructure.

Source: Burnie - Wikipedia