Yairabin
The WA Heritage Council’s “inHerit” website states, “The building is important for its connection with the first European settlement of the area and for its association with pioneering families. The building is a fine example of the style, construction methods and use of bunding materials in this period.”
When Thomas Haddleton (snr) died at ‘Coompatine‘ in 1903, he left an estate totalling nearly 3000 pounds. Coompatine was divided equally between William and Job, while Charles was left a 40-acre block near his farm at Woodanilling and Arthur 40 acres at Yairabin and conditional purchase blocks here totalling 302 acres.
Tom Haddleton was eventually to buy Yairabin off his brother Arthur, a bachelor, who lived west of the road at Yairabin and moved to Katanning after the sale of his holding of 300 acres. From Yairabin, Tom Haddleton’s children attended the Cartmeticup school. In about 1920, the Tom Haddleton’s bought ‘Naveena‘ from Rod McKay and the family left Yairabin for their new farm.
Tom Haddleton
Here the younger children attended Glencoe School. After about six years they old this property and moved back to Yairabin. By this time, Arnold, the eldest of the six children, had taken up shearing and the next son, Ned, went farming at Pingrup. Ned spent 10 years there coming home in 1938 to live on ‘Narrawater‘. Ned lived here eight years and sold the farm and returned to Yairabin. For many years, Jimmy Ah Sing, a Chinaman, lived on Yairabin. A fine gardener, he grew all the Haddleton’s vegetables in his garden near the willow tree, some 200 yards east of the old house. Jimmy lived in a bush hut at the garden.
The abundance of water at Yairabin ensured that the Haddleton’s had plenty of callers during the dry seasons. As many as 30 carts a day would come to get water.
The house site was close to Oxley Road and about 100 metres SE of Yairibin Well. A hand fashioned gate marks the old entrance which leads to two huge Moreton Bay fig trees.
Footnotes
Conditional Purchases were introduced in 1862 as a way of getting small landholders on the land. They selected a portion of land, paid an initial deposit of %10 of the value, and then had to pay it off. The conditions were that they had to reside on the property, and they had to improve it – build a house, fences, etc. They could select land before it was surveyed, so by the time the surveyor came around there was often some improvements already built, which the surveyor often described and marked on the plan.
The Glencoe property pioneered by Michael Cronin in 1874 was an outpost of European settlement for many years. The isolation broken only by the passing of the occasional sandalwood cutter or carter. In time several families ventured into the area and the opening of the Great Southern Railway in 1889 brought a new impetus for settlement.