Wyndham

The most distant town in the state from Perth, Wyndham is located in the Kimberley region, 3216 kilometres north northeast of Perth and 100 kilometres northwest of Kununurra. In 1885 gold was discovered in the Kimberley, and in March 1886 John Forrest was sent to the Kimberley to select a site for a townsite to service the goldfield. Governor Broome decided it would be named Wyndham, and the townsite was gazetted in September 1886. The town grew rapidly as a port for the Kimberley goldfields, and although the goldfield soon declined, Wyndham remained as a port for the growing pastoral industry of the region.

Wyndham is named after Major Walter George Wyndham (b 1857), the younger son by her first marriage of Mary Anne Broome, wife of the Governor of Western Australia 1883-1890. Wyndham was the son of Mary Anne and Captain George Robert Barker of the Royal Artillery, and changed his name to Crole-Wyndham because of an inheritance.