BUSSELTON

town, southwestern Western Australia, on the south shore of Geographe Bay, southwest of Bunbury. The locality was settled by the Bussell family, who established its Cattle Chosen stock station there in 1832. In 1871 the first railway in Western Australia was built from Busselton into the forest nearby, to carry timber to the port. The town was the site in 1921 of one of the first attempts at group settlement of British immigrants under a policy proposed by Sir Thomas Mitchell, then state premier. The surrounding area has dairy, potato, fat-lamb, pig, and bee farming, lumbering, and beach-sand mining for ilmenite. Situated on a rail line and the Bussell Highway to Perth (148 miles northeast), Busselton centre has a foundry and plants that produce fibrous plaster, cement slabs, and prefabricated steel. Its small port has been largely superseded by Bunbury for commercial shipping, but its beaches and mild climate make Busselton a growing resort. Pop. (1991) 8,936.