Harvey

Harvey is a town located in the South West of Western Australia along the South Western Highway, 140 kilometres (87 mi) south of Perth, between Pinjarra and Bunbury.

Harvey is a town located in the South West of Western Australia along the South Western Highway, 140 kilometres (87 mi) south of Perth, between Pinjarra and Bunbury. It has a population of 2,750. Harvey Town is known for its dairy industry and oranges.

Harvey's name is derived from the nearby Harvey River, named by Governor James Stirling in 1829, soon after the river's discovery by explorers Alexander Collie and Lieutenant William Preston RN.

Although not positively known, the river is most likely named after Rear Admiral John Harvey. In 1817–18, Harvey was Commander in Chief of the West Indies Station – Stirling served under him while in charge of HMS Brazen, and Harvey recommended him for promotion. Stirling named a number of Western Australian features after his former navy colleagues.According to James Battye, Stirling selected 52 square kilometres (12,800 acres) known as Wellington Location 50A and established the Harvey River Settlement. The only improvement he made to the land, as far as is known, was the erection of a hunting lodge near the present town of Harvey, known as "The Hut", featuring a shingled roof, jarrah walls and hexagonal paving blocks. In the 1880s, this hut became the childhood home of children's author May Gibbs. Stirling called the area around the town of Harvey "Korijekup", using the Noongar name meaning "place of the red-tailed black cockatoo".

The area was settled slowly over the remainder of the 1800s. During the 1860s, Australind, originally the site of a failed grandiose settlement scheme, was the centre of the Harvey District community. In 1863, a road was gazetted from Pinjarra to Brunswick Junction, which was built by convicts between 1864 and 1876 - it was called the "foothills route" and later became the South Western Highway.

Harvey was developed as a private town in the 1890s by a group of investors following the opening of a railway station there in 1893. However, Cookernup, little more than a railway stop today, had a greater population, and had a telegraph office and school years before Harvey.

The population of the town was 93 (66 males and 27 females) in 1898.In 1926 the Harvey Road Board sought the declaration of a townsite, but this did not occur until 1938.

In February 2006, EG Green & Sons, the owner of the Harvey Beef brand since 1919 and responsible for about 90% of Western Australia's beef exports, went into administration. In April, however, the brand was rescued by a new consortium who acquired EG Green & Sons and recreated it as Harvey Industries.In 2010, Harvey gained national attention when 19-year-old Jessica Moloney became a finalist in the popular Fox8 show Australia's Next Top Model. She came in fourth place in Cycle 6 of the series.

Harvey experiences a mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and wet winters.