Place: Wynyard
Details
Three ex-convict Alexander brothers established a settlement, Alexandria, on the west, or Table Cape, side of the Inglis River in the 1850s. They bought large areas of farmland on Table Cape and built several small ships. Shortly afterwards, Wynyard town, on the east side of the river, was laid out, but lagged well behind Alexandria. After the Inglis River was bridged in 1861, Alexandria began to fade and Wynyard, with better wharfing, became the district's centre of commerce. It handled more shipping than Burnie in the late nineteenth century and its population reached 500 by 1900. In the twentieth century Burnie flourished and Wynyard largely stagnated, though employment was provided by a butter factory and in the 1990s a Danish factory which builds windmills for windfarms.
Kerry Pink