Thomas Peel

…still the idea persisted, with Thomas Peel—kinsman of the future prime minister Sir Robert Peel—investing heavily. But colonization was grim work in a hot, dry land, with the government reluctant to expend resources. Western Australia’s story for decades was survival, not success.

In 1829 the financier Thomas Peel was granted a 250,000-acre (101,172-hectare) area of land stretching from Cockburn Sound to the Murray River in what is now the Peel Region. As settlers moved into the area and took tribal lands near the river for farming, the Bindjareb resorted to taking…