Beverley, Western Australia

Beverley Western Australia
RAAF De Havilland Vampire at Beverley museum.
Beverley
Coordinates	32°06′32″S 116°55′34″E / 32.109°S 116.926°E / -32.109; 116.926Coordinates: 32°06′32″S 116°55′34″E / 32.109°S 116.926°E / -32.109; 116.926
Population	848 (2006 census)
Established	1868
Postcode(s)	6304
Elevation	232 m (761 ft)
Location	133 km (83 mi) SE of Perth
LGA(s)	Shire of Beverley
State electorate(s)	Central Wheatbelt
Federal Division(s)	Pearce
Mean max temp Mean min temp Annual rainfall 25.2 °C 77 °F 10.2 °C 50 °F 420.4 mm 16.6 in

Beverley is a town in the Wheatbelt region of Western Australia, 133 kilometres (83 mi) south-east of the state capital, Perth, between York and Brookton on the Great Southern Highway. It is on the Great Southern railway line.

The town is believed to be named after Beverley in Yorkshire, from where some of the earliest explorers of the Avon valley originated, including Colonial Surgeon Charles Simmons, an early landowner in the district. Land at Beverley was set aside for a townsite in 1831, just two years after the Swan River Colony's foundation, after a glowing report to Governor James Stirling by Ensign (later Lieutenant) Robert Dale, who made three trips to the York-Beverley area. The district was surveyed in 1843.

While settlers arrived from the 1860s onwards, and a town was established in 1868, it wasn't until the arrival of the Great Southern Railway in 1886 that the town started to grow, and with the completion of the railway in 1889 to Albany, Beverley became an important centre. By early 1898 the population of the town was 190, 93 males and 97 females.

In 1908, the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme was extended to supply the town with water, and by World War I, the town had four hotels, four banks, two bakeries, two tailors, three tearooms, a jeweller and two hairdressers, amongst other businesses, and in 1938, a new town hall opened.