Perth - History

The city of Perth in Western Australia was named by Captain James Stirling in 1829 after Perth, Scotland, in honor of the birthplace and parliamentary seat in the British House of Commons of Sir George
Murray, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies.

The first inhabitants of Australia arrived from the north approximately 40,000 to 60,000 years ago and eventually spread across the whole landmass. These Indigenous Australians were well established in the area around Perth by the time European ships started accidentally arriving en-route to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the early seventeenth century.

Before the establishment of the Swan River Colony, the indigenous Noongar people occupied the southwest corner of Western Australia, hunting and gathering. The lakes on the coastal plain were particularly important to the Aboriginal people, providing them with both spiritual and physical sustenance.

The area in which Perth now stands was called Boorloo. Boorloo formed part of Mooro, the tribal lands of Yellagonga, whose group was one of several based around the Swan River, known collectively as the Whadjug. The Whadjug was a part of the greater group of 13 or so dialect groupings which formed the south west socio-linguistic block still known today as Noongar (“The People”), or sometimes by the name Bibbulmun.

After settlement in 1829, the European settlers gave the name “Third Swamp” to one of a chain of wetland lakes stretching from Claisebrook to Herdsman Lake. Nearly seventy years later, in 1897, 15 hectares of Third Swamp would be gazetted as a public park and two years later renamed Hyde Park. Hyde Park is now one of Perth's most attractive and popular parks.

From 1831, hostile encounters between European settlers and Noongars – both large-scale land users with conflicting land value systems – increased considerably. This phase of violence culminated in events such as the execution of Whadjug tribal chief Midgegooroo, the murder of his son Yagan and the massacre of the Pindjarep people.

By 1843, when Yellagonga died, his tribe had begun to disintegrate and had been dispossessed of their land around the main settlement area of the Swan River Colony. They retreated to the swamps and lakes north of the settlement area including Third Swamp, formerly known by them as Boodjamooling.

Third Swamp continued to be a main campsite for the remaining Noongar people in the Perth region and was also used by travellers, itinerants and homeless people. By the goldrush days in the 1890s they were joined by many miners en route to the goldfields. As Perth expanded with the gold rush the Noongar people moved to Lake Gnangara where they were isolated from the European community until changes in the laws that recognised Aboriginal people during 1960s. The camp remained occupied until the early 1980s when it was converted to a school for Aboriginal children.

The first explorer to have a favourable opinion of the Swan River was Captain James Stirling who, in March 1827, explored the area in HMS Success which first anchored off Rottnest, and later in Cockburn Sound. Stirling arrived back in England in July 1828, promoting in glowing terms the agricultural potential of the area. His lobbying was for the establishment of a "free settlement", unlike the other penal settlements at New South Wales, Port Arthur and Norfolk Island. As a result of these reports, and a rumour the French were about to establish a penal colony in the western part of Australia, the Colonial Office assented to the proposal in mid-October 1828.

The first ship to reach the Swan River was the HMS Challenger captained by Charles Fremantle on 25 April 1829. After anchoring off Garden Island, Fremantle declared the Swan River Colony for Britain on 2 May 1829. The Parmelia under Captain Stirling arrived on 1 June, and the official foundation of the colony took place on 12 August, with the chopping down of a tree by wife of the captain of the Sulphur, Mrs Helen Dance. The two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into Perth and the port city of Fremantle.

Much of the remaining land around the Swan River turned out to be quite sandy and unsuitable for agriculture and so the first reports of the colony were not as glowing as Stirling had been to suggest. These reports along with the difficulty of clearing land to grow crops was a factor in the initial slow growth of Perth during the first couple of decades. By 1850 the population of the whole colony had only increased to 5,886. Agriculture developed away from Perth in places like the Avon Valley and along the southwest coastline.

Perth was still seen as the administrative centre for the colony of Western Australia though.

Some events that occurred in the first few years of Perth's history are below:
The Round House, built in 1831

    * 1831: The Round House is the oldest surviving building in Perth and was completed this year.
    * 1831: It took seven men 107 days to dig a canal 280m in length and 4m deep thus creating Burswood Island.
    * 1833: Relations between the Europeans and Aborigines were not always amicable with many intercultural skirmishes. Yagan, a senior warrior of the local Aboriginal tribe near the Swan River was murdered on 11 July of this year after a bounty was issued for his capture following the murder of a couple of settlers.
    * 1837: The colony's first brewery was established at the corner of Spring Street and Mounts Bay Road in Perth.
    * 1841: 10 January The first service was held in the All Saints Church
    * 1843: The first causeway across the Swan River was completed, little more than a primitive timber bridge.
    * 1848-1850: After 19 years of settlement, growth was very slow. The population of the area around Perth was still only about 1400.