1900 JOHNSTON Harry Upper Gascoyne Meekatharra

Lithographic map of the Gascoyne with hand drawn annotations including that of the Electoral District boundaries laid on linen. Shows the Murchison River with its small tributaries and RHB Downes exploration tracks of 1899. We assume that these maps were used to define new electoral boundaries and may be unique, being the amended and updated copies of maps to the 1st November 1900. There is a signature in ink to the bottom right with the initials NSB 1/11/00 presumably that of the Chief Draughtsman. The map encompasses the area from Birringarra and Tching Range in the west to Peak Hill in the East and Meekatharra in the south west. All Crown Leases and landholders are named. This is the later amended copy of another map in the collection titled North Murchison – NookawarraThe map was printed for the Department of Lands and Surveys on the authority of Hon Geo Throssell MLA Minister for Lands under the supervision of Harry F Johnston Surveyor General of Western Australia.Harry F Johnston was born at Bunbury on 24 April 1853, a grandson of M. W. Clifton and son of a surveyor. Entering his father’s profession he joined the Western Australian Lands and Surveys Department in 1883, conducting important surveys in the Kimberleys in 1883-84 and 1901. He became Surveyor-General in 1896 and, during a period of rapid expansion of land settlement, oversaw the mapping of most of Western Australia’s goldfields and the opening of the agricultural south-west. He was first chairman of the Workers’ Homes Board created in 1912. He died following a shooting accident at his home at Swan View on 14 June 1915, survived by his wife Maria Louisa (Minnie), née Butcher and six sons.