George Cheyne

George Cheyne (8 April 1790 5 June 1869) was an early settler in the Great Southern region of Western Australia. Cheyne was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1790, the fourteenth of seventeen children. His father, John Cheyne was a doctor and his mother was Margaret Edmonstone. George Cheyne married Grizzel Melville on 16 December 1830, at the Parish Church, in Clerkenwell, London. He arrived in Fremantle aboard the Stirling with his wife and daughter, and a cargo of merchandise including a prefabricated house, 14 merinos, cattle and a pair of rabbits. He intended to settle in the area along the Swan or Canning Rivers as a farmer but found the best land was taken. Undeterred he pressed on to King George Sound and found business sites around Albany and selected land around the Kalgan River, Moorilup and on Mistaken Island.