George Kersley, Sr.

George Kersley Sr. (1817-1906) was a pioneer of Western Australia in the Beverley and Dumbleyung districts.

Kersley was born in Medstead, Hampshire in England on 19 January 1817 and was baptised on 17 February 1817 at St Andrew's Church. He was the son of George Kersley of Farringdon and Elizabeth Knight of Headley (daughter of Daniel Knight and Martha Upsdale). His mother Elizabeth Knight (born 1796 Headley) was a relative of the famous novelist Jane Austen whose brother Edward Austen Knight was adopted by the Knight family. Jane Austen would often visit his parents on her walks to Farringdon and Alton. His father George Kersley (born 1790 Farringdon) was the fourth son of John Kersley (b.1755) a gentleman of Farringdon, and Olive Lee Yalden. Kersley (b.1817) grew up at the Kersley Manor House in Farringdon (where his grandparents John (1755-1849) and Olive Kersley (née Yalden, 1757-1840) lived) and his father's farm in Medstead.

Kersley was the eldest of nine children.

Kersley arrived with his brother Richard Kersley (b.1820) to the Swan River Colony in Western Australia on the Ganges in 1841. By 1844 he was in partnership with James Bartram. Bartram and Kersley firstly leased Avon Dale from Mr Carey in 1844 (August 15) when Bartram was only 17 and Kersley was 27. One document about the Avon Dale research station states:

Nicholas Carey was from Frogmore, on the island of Guernsey. He had arrived in the Swan River Colony in 1830-1831 and was living at York by 1835. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1837. Carey visited Britain between 1841 and 1843 and, in 1844, he leased Avondale to James Bartram and George Kersley for four years, for an annual rental of £35 and improvements. The improvements included a 'good and substantial dwelling house with a stone foundation and rammed earth walls' to the value of £100 sterling, a barn worth £50 and 50 acres (20 ha) of land cleared. The southwest portion of Location 14 was the site of soldiers barracks, a mud brick structure built in the 1830s and most likely used by the lessees of Avondale. In 1849, Carey returned to Britain after appointing Charles Wittenoom as his agent in the Colony. A letter written in December 1849, just before he left, mentions stables, as well as the barn, both of which were till under construction. In 1852, Bartram and Kersley renewed their lease of Avondale for another five years.The buildings they constructed were most likely those marked on a 1910 survey map of the property and situated some distance northwest of the current Homestead.

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