Onslow

Onslow is a coastal town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 1, 386 kilometres (861 mi) north of Perth.

Onslow is a coastal town in the Pilbara region of Western Australia, 1,386 kilometres (861 mi) north of Perth. It has a population of 848 people and is located within the Shire of Ashburton local government area.

Onslow was gazetted on 26 October 1885 as a town to serve the port at Ashburton Roads, at the mouth of the Ashburton River, exporting wool from sheep stations of the Pilbara hinterland. It was named after the then Chief Justice of Western Australia, Sir Alexander Onslow (1842–1908).Wool continued to be the major industry for the next eighty years, despitethe extraordinary extremes of drought and flood that characterize the region and are related to the passage or absence of cyclones.

Although a large jetty was built at the original site of Onslow (Old Onslow), repeated cyclone damage and the silting up of the river caused increasing problems with the loading and unloading of visiting ships. The cargo was transferred by lighter from the ship in Ashburton Roads to the jetty, then by horse-tram from the jetty across 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) of marshland inland to the town. This led the state government in 1923 to develop a new town and jetty 18 kilometres (11 mi) north-east at Beadon Point. The new townsite was gazetted on 10 January 1924, and the residents of Old Onslow moved across in 1925. The new location for Onslow's jetty was better protected from storm damage with the townsite more conveniently located on the coast.On 15 May 1943, Onslow became the most southerly town in Australia to be bombed by Imperial Japan in World War II, when a single plane bombed the airfield. However, there was no damage or casualties.Since the war, the declining purchasing power of wool has, despite consistently good rainfall on the inland sheep stations since the late 1960s, led to a change in focus of Onslow's economy from wool to tourism. It is an access point for Coral Coast activities, such as scuba diving on the coral reefs offshore from the town.