An oak tree grown from an acorn flown over from Perth, Australia has been planted in the grounds of the University of Hull.
The tree was the last to be put in the ground of six oaks germinated from acorns sent over from Tranby House, which was built by some of the first settlers to Western Australia.
The acorns came from two giant oaks which were planted at Tranby House using acorns taken over from East Yorkshire by the early settlers from this area.
Tranby House was named after the ship which took the settlers from this region to settle Western Australia.
The Tranby sailed from the dock which is now Queen’s Gardens in September 1829. The vessel carried 39 passengers and 14 crew, as well as farm animals and all their agricultural equipment.
Eight months later, the Tranby docked at Gages Road on the mouth of the Swan River where some of the first settlers to Western Australia unloaded their worldly belongings.
They also carried acorns, brought from back home.
The majority of settlers stayed on the Swan River in a place called Peninsula.
One of these was the Hardey family, who built a farmhouse and worked the land. They named their home after the boat which brought them to Australia.
Within the grounds of Tranby House, they planted two acorns which grew into great oak trees.
Today Tranby House still exists and is one of the oldest houses in Western Australia. It is now owned and looked after by the National Trust for Western Australia.
The story of the early settlers to Western Australia formed chapter in a series of short accounts of Hull and East Yorkshire’s historic global links pulled together by Dr Robb Robinson, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Hull, in a collection called Far Horizons, From Hull to the Ends of the Earth.
The collection was housed on a website of the same name where a couple in Western Australia, Chris and Geoff Ellis, read the story and contacted Dr Robinson.