Boddington
Postcode: 6390
Boddington is a town and shire in the Peel region of Western Australia, located 120 kilometres (75 mi) south-east of Perth. The town sits on the road from Pinjarra to Williams on the Hotham River.
The town owes its name to an early settler, Henry Boddington, who was a farmer and shepherd in the 1860s and 1870s and leased land in the area in 1875, later moving to Wagin. His name became associated with a pool in the Hotham River at which he frequently camped. The original settled locality was called Hotham, 2km west of the town at what is now the end of Farmers Avenue, named for the Farmer family, and a post office and school were established.
When the Hotham Valley Railway was being constructed in 1912 to meet demand created by the local timber industry, a townsite was chosen adjacent to the town, and subsequently gazetted. The town was built in the 1920s, with a school, hospital, council offices, post office, shops and agricultural hall. A railway bridge was built over the upper reaches of the Murray River in 1949, then known as “Asquith Bridge”, and was used for carting railway timber to the Banksiadale Sawmill.
The area declined slowly over time, and the Dwellingup fires of 1961 devastated the local timber industry. By 1969, the railway had been closed and Boddington became a typical small service area for the surrounding district. However, the establishment of bauxite mining in 1979 to service Western Australia’s alumina production at Worsley, Kwinana and Wagerup, and the opening of the Boddington Gold Mine in 1987 created a thriving mining town.
Boddington is located 11 kilometres (7 mi) off Albany Highway and 123 kilometres (76 mi) southeast of Perth in the Darling Scarp. It has a population of about 1,000 and is the centre of a sheep and timber district as well as a service centre for the nearby bauxite and gold mines. It contains a TAFE centre, and each year in November hosts a four-day street carnival. In addition, a district high school (1920), National Australia bank, shopping facilities, accommodation (hotel, motel, caravan park), council offices and a telecentre are located within the town.
A Royal Historical Society plaque near the town marks the grave of a local Aboriginal named Quency Dilyan who helped explorers Alexander Forrest and H.S.Ranford during their expeditions in the area. Several scenic drives and bushwalking tracks have been set up by the shire council through state forests and wildflower country.
The nearby Boddington gold mine, southeast of the locality and presently owned by Newmont Mining (67%) and AngloGold (33%), commenced operations in 1987. It ceased mining operations on 30 November 2001 after all known economic gold oxide resources had been processed, and is currently in a “care and maintenance” phase. A bedrock resource (19.57 MOz) has been identified, and expansion of the facility to allow mining and processing of basement rock was approved in 2002. Construction began in May 2006.