Alfred Wernam Canning was a Western Australian government surveyor. Born at Campbellfield

Campbellfield, Victoria

Campbellfield is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 16 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume. At the 2006 Census, Campbellfield had a population of 5,401.-History:...

 north of Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, he started work in New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 as a cadet surveyor and in 1893 joined the Western Australian Department of Lands and Survey.

In 1901 a royal commission resulted in Canning being commissioned to survey a route for a barrier fence across the State. Construction of the fence, known as the No. 1 Rabbit Proof Fence

Rabbit-proof fence

The State Barrier Fence of Western Australia, formerly known as the No. 1 Rabbit-proof Fence, the State Vermin Fence and the Emu Fence, is a pest-exclusion fence constructed between 1901 and 1907 to keep rabbits and other agricultural pests, from the east, out of Western Australian pastoral...

 was completed in 1907. When completed it was the longest line of unbroken fence in the world.

Canning is best known for surveying a stockroute for bringing cattle 1500 km overland from the Kimberley

Kimberley region of Western Australia

The Kimberley is one of the nine regions of Western Australia. It is located in the northern part of Western Australia, bordered on the west by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Timor Sea, on the south by the Great Sandy and Tanami Deserts, and on the east by the Northern Territory.The region...

 district to the goldfields in 1906 and 1907. He returned the following year to commence construction of 51 wells which were set one days march (20 km) apart to feed travelling livestock. The route was competed in 1910 and runs from Halls Creek

Halls Creek, Western Australia

Halls Creek is a small town situated in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is located between the towns of Fitzroy Crossing and Turkey Creek on the Great Northern Highway...

 to Wiluna

Wiluna, Western Australia

Wiluna is a complex town in the Mid West region of Western Australia. It is situated on the edge of the Western Desert at the gateway to the Canning Stock Route and Gunbarrel Highway. It is the service centre of the local area for the local Aboriginal people, the pastoral industry, mining, and...

.

Canning received a hero's welcome on his return to Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

, however his cook Edward Blake alleged the party had ill-treated Aboriginals, coerced Aboriginal men to locate water by force feeding them salt, destroyed water holes and kidnapped Aboriginal women for sex. After Premier Newton Moore

Newton Moore

Major-General Sir Newton James Moore KCMG , was the eighth Premier of Western Australia and a member of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1918 to 1932....

 failed to act on his claims Blake took them to the newspapers which prompted Moore to call a Royal Commission.

"It was necessary at times to use chains on our guides but we padded them to make sure they did not chafe the men's necks...they were happy with the arrangement."
—Evidence given before the Royal Commission by surveyor Hubert Trotman

The Commissioner of police admitted that police were forced to chain the guides due to their unwillingness to join the expedition. The continued chaining was justified on the grounds that they would have run off jeopardising the expedition. After three weeks of questions and replies the Royal Commission exonerated the expedition members of all charges.

In 1929 at the age of 68, Canning was commissioned to complete a restoration of the wells.

The Canning Stock Route

Canning Stock Route

The Canning Stock Route is one of the toughest and most remote tracks in the world. It runs to Halls Creek from Wiluna, both in Western Australia. With a total distance of around it is also the longest historic stock route in the world...

 is named after him, as well as Canning Highway

Canning Highway

Canning Highway is a mostly 4 lane single carriageway major arterial road in Perth, Western Australia. The speed limit is 60 km/h. It is located south of the Swan River and links Perth with Fremantle, running between The Causeway in Victoria Park and Queen Victoria Street in...

 and the Federal Division of Canning

Division of Canning

The Division of Canning is an Australian Electoral Division in Western Australia. The division was created in 1949 and is named for Alfred Canning, the Western Australian government surveyor who surveyed the Canning Stock Route...

. A number of other place names in Western Australia are also named Canning but attributed to George Canning

George Canning

George Canning PC, FRS was a British statesman and politician who served as Foreign Secretary and briefly Prime Minister.-Early life: 1770–1793:...

, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...

in 1827.

He died in Perth in 1936, a public collection was started to raise funds for a memorial to Canning but the memorial was never built at that time. However a memorial was made in the 1950s.

Further reading

• Warwick, Mark (1993) Alfred Canning and the Rabbit-Proof Fence. Bushdriver, vol. 16, no. 5. (Describes Canning's journey to find a route for the rabbit proof fence from Starvation Harbour on the south coast to Wallal in the far north-west).

External links

• Westprint Canning Stock Route Map at www.mapsdownunder.com.au
• Historical Encyclopedia of WA - WA Snapshots at www.encyclopedia.uwapress.uwa.edu.au