A commentator said at the time: “Hence to York, the chief settlement over the Darling Hills, is fifty miles east, and to Toodyay, forty miles north-east; and of course to keep in proper repair such long lines of communication, which are only now emerging from their primitive condition of bush tracks, requires a large supply of labour. York and Toodyay are at present the principal corn-producing districts of the colony, although a considerable breadth of the land in the southern districts, near Bunbury, has been within the last few years brought under cultivation, and produces excellent crops of corn.
York is presently situated in the rich valley of the Avon, and thence the farms and stations extend still fifty miles further. The high land at the back of the town of York, which appears in the Sketch (engraved upon the first page of the present Number) is known as Mount Bakewell, or more familiarly as “old Bakewell”; the inhabitants of York being justly proud of their handsome friend.”
The Illustrated London News was the world’s first illustrated weekly newspaper; the first issue appeared on Saturday 14 May 1842. It was published weekly until 1971 and then increasingly less frequently until publication ceased in 2003.
