Viewbank Farm 1860s

Viewbank is a heritage farm on the outskirts of Brunswick. Thomas Forrester Bedingfeld, a Medical Doctor, first owned the property and leased it to Benjamin Elmes in 1850.

Bedingfeld then sold the property to Elmes in 1862 for 153 Pounds.

On his death, the property was passed on to his widow, a daughter of William Crampton. John Crampton acquired the land in 1866 and named the property “Viewbank”.

The homestead was originally constructed for John Crampton and his family in the late 1860s after he acquired 500 acres of land for farming. Crampton (1831-1906) had arrived in the colony in 1842 and settled with his parents in Myalup before farming at Wedderburn Park for 15 years.

He then moved to this property with his second wife, Clemence. John Crampton had two children from his previous marriage, and he and Clemence had six more children.

In 1880, John Crampton applied for a publican’s license, an eating, boarding, and lodging house license, and a license to sell beer and wine at his premises at the Upper Brunswick River Bridge, but the outcome is unknown. The house was ideally located for travellers and served as the change-of-horses point for the mail coaches from Perth to the south west.

Whilst the horses were changed, it is recorded that John Crampton kept the mail in a tin trunk under his bed.

The landholding was purchased by Gordon Alexander Stewart in approximately 1940, and it has been known as Viewbank since. Stewart used the property primarily for dairying. He had previously worked as a pastoralist in the north of the state before moving with his family to Brunswick.

In 1966, Stewart sold the property to Francis and Margaret Devlin, and it was passed to their daughter Therese Hynes in 1990.