The Museum of Perth chronicles the social, cultural, political and architectural history of Perth.
British Colonisation - Invasion (1829 - 1849)
Portrait of Captain James Stirling, 1829. State Library of Western Australia, 6173B
The resulting ‘Swan River Mania’ and the early failure of the settlers to thrive, led to Karl Marx in Das Kapital describing Perth as an object lesson in how not to establish a colony, where the availability of land meant masters struggled to maintain their workforce. It was certainly true that the early tenor of the colony was often one of disappointment and difficulty.
After a brief reconnoitre in 1827, Captain James Stirling, a young Scotsman, decided that the Swan River was the place best suited to establish a colony that he suggested calling ‘Hesperia’, indicating ‘a Country looking towards the setting Sun.’ Once he’d convinced familial allies in the British parliament to proceed with the colony, like with any real estate venture, the news of the impending establishment of Perth in 1829 was met with a deal of spruiking back in Britain, with flyers and advertisements taken out, designed to attract a caste of motivated and largely urban Britons, as a colony untainted by the ‘convict stain.’
This painting by George Pitt Morison depicts the ceremony that was held on 12 August 1829 a few metres from the present Town Hall. A tree was chopped down to mark the official foundation of Perth. State Library of Western Australia, 6173B
The soils were not as fertile as promised, and the colony struggled to feed itself. This ‘bad news’ from Perth meant a slowing of migration to the point where the population remained static (at 2000) for much of its first decade, and where the scarcity of food led to conflict with the Whadjuk Nyungar, who had been dispossessed from their own sources of sustenance. Reprisal murders by warriors Midgegooroo and Yagan in particular led to reprisal raids by settler and soldier, and massacres occurred. The Whadjuk resistance and resilience is perhaps best demonstrated by the story of Fanny Balbuk, who according to Daisy Bates, the Irish Australian who recorded Indigenous culture in the first half of the twentieth century, despite the Georgian village built upon Balbuk’s traditional land, she continued to keep to her ‘straight track to the end. When a house was built in the way, she broke its fence palings with her digging stick and charged up the steps and through the rooms.’
This is the second town plan of Perth that was created in 1838. It shows the wetlands and swamps that existed across the land. The Colonists soon realised the soil around these areas were much more fertile than the Swan Coastal Plain and was highly desirable for market gardening. Over a period of 25 years from 1833 most of the swamps were drained, divided into lots and sold. State Library of Western Australia, 6173B.