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The human history of Western Australia commenced between 40,000 and 60,000 years ago with the arrival of Indigenous Australians on the north-west coast. The first inhabitants expanded the range of their settlement to the east and south of the continent. The first recorded European contact was in 1616, when Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed on the west coast. Although many expeditions visited the coast during the next 200 years, there was no lasting attempt at establishment of a permanent settlement. Most of the explorers of this period concluded that the apparent lack of water and fertile soil made the region unsuitable for colonisation.
In 1826, the first British military outpost was established at King George Sound. This was followed by the establishment of the Swan River Colony in 1829, with townsites at Fremantle and Perth - later to become the state's capital. The harsh conditions faced by the settlers resulted in population growth being minimal until the discovery of gold in the 1880s. Since the gold rush, the population of the state has risen steadily, with substantial growth in the period since World War II.
Western Australia gained the right of self-government in 1890, and joined with the five other states to form the Commonwealth of Australia in 1901. The desire of Western Australians to revert to complete self-governance, separate from the Commonwealth, culminated in 1933 with a successful referendum for secession. The results of the referendum were ignored by the British parliament, however.
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When. Australia's first inhabitants arrived on the northwest coast 40,000 to 60,000 years ago the sea levels were much lower. The Kimberley coast at one time was only about 90 km from Timor, which itself was the last in a line of closely spaced islands for humans to travel across.[1] Therefore this was a possible (even probable) location for which Australia's first immigrants could arrive via some primitive boat. Other possible immigration routes were via islands further north and then through New Guinea.
Over the next tens of thousands of years these Indigenous Australians slowly moved southward and eastward across the landmass. The Aborigines were well established throughout Western Australia by the time European ships started accidentally arriving en-route to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the early 17th century.
The first European to sight Western Australia was the Dutch explorer, Dirk Hartog, who on 26 October 1616 landed at what is now known as Cape Inscription, Dirk Hartog Island. Before departing, Hartog left behind a pewter plate affixed to a post. The plate was subsequently discovered, replaced and repatriated to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Another early visitor was Englishman William Dampier who in 1699 sailed down the western coast of Australia. He noted the lack of water and in his description of Shark Bay in his account "A Voyage to New Holland", he expresses his frustration:
A number of sections of the Western Australian coastline were given names which did not last past the exploratory era in names of features - such as Eendrachtsland. However some names such as Leeuwin's Land materialised at a later date as Cape Leeuwin.
Below is a timeline of significant events from the 1616 landfall of Dirk Hartog until the eventual settlement of the Swan River Colony in 1829:
The first formal claim of possession for Britain was made by Commander George Vancouver RN (later captain) on 29 September 1791 on the spot he named Possession Point, at the tip of the peninsula between the waters he also named—Princess Royal Harbour and King George III Sound at Albany ("The third" (III) was later dropped from the Sound's name).
In the early 19th century the British became concerned about the possibility of a French colony being established on the coast of Western Australia and thus, in 1826, the New South Wales governor Ralph Darling established a settlement at King George Sound. A penal settlement in the area was considered but rejected. Instead, a small detachment headed by Edmund Lockyer with 18 soldiers, one captain, one doctor, one storekeeper and 23 convicts were sent as a labour force.
After the formal declaration in 1829 of the Swan River Colony (some 410 km to the North West) (see below), control of King George Sound was transferred from New South Wales to Western Australia and continued under a Government Resident. Captain James Stirling decreed that the settlement would be named "Albany" from 1832.
The Swan River Colony was the name given to the British colony established on the Swan River by Captain James Stirling in 1829. The colonists first sighted land on 1 June, the official Proclamation was made on 18 June, and the foundation of the colony took place on 12 August. The two separate townsites of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle and the Western Australian capital city Perth.
Much of the land around the Swan River Colony was unsuitable for agriculture and it was inevitable that the colony would have to expand beyond the Swan River area after the most fertile locations were quickly settled. Some highlights of the first couple of decades are below:
At its start in 1829, the Swan River Colony had its foundations as a "free settlement". However, the initial settlers had many difficulties which compelled them to seek help from the British, in an offer to accept convicts. Western Australia therefore became a penal colony in 1850. Between then and 1868, over 9000 convicts were transported to Western Australia on 43 convict ship voyages.
Sheep farming was the most successful early agricultural activity, becoming quite productive in the Avon Valley in the 1830s. It spread to the Pilbara in the 1860s; the Murchison and Gascoyne were settled during the 1870s.
Other notable events that occurred later in the 19th century include:
The first gold discovery in Western Australia was at Halls Creek in 1885. This gold rush was short lived though with further discoveries soon at other locations culminating in the major discoveries at Coolgardie in 1892 and Kalgoorlie in 1893 (see section below).
The early explorers opened up the inland but they were not followed by eager developers because all they found was desert.
Notable explorers of the interior were:
Until the 1870s the economy of the state was based on wheat, meat and wool. A major change in the state's fortunes occurred in the 1880s when gold was discovered and prospectors by the tens of thousands swarmed across the land in a desperate attempt to discover new goldfields. Paddy Hannan's discovery at Kalgoorlie, and the early discoveries at Coolgardie, sparked true gold fever. In 1891 the rush to the Murchison goldfields began when Tom Cue discovered gold at the town which now bears his name. In the years that followed dozens of gold towns - Day Dawn, Nannine, Peak Hill, Garden Gully, Dead Finish, Pinnicles, Austin Island and Austin Mainland - flourished only to be abandoned when the seams were exhausted and the gold fever moved on.
The influx of miners from the eastern states and from overseas increased the presence of trade unions in Western Australia. The Trades and Labor Council, Perth was established in 1891 with Perth Trades Hall opened in 1912. The first edition of the Westralian Worker appeared on 7 September 1900 and was followed shortly afterwards by the opening of the Kalgoorlie Trades Hall, the first such hall in Western Australia. A Trades Hall was opened in Fremantle in 1904.
In the late 19th century there was talk of the gold-rich regions around Kalgoorlie leaving the colony of Western Australia and becoming a state called Auralia if Western Australia did not join the Commonwealth.
As Lieutenant Governor, Stirling had sole authority to draft laws and decide day-to-day affairs. In 1832 he appointed a Legislative Council of four government officials to assist him, and in 1839, four appointed colonists were added.
By 1859, all the other Australian colonies had their own parliaments and colonists in Western Australia began pushing for the right to govern themselves. The British Colonial Office opposed this because of the slow rate of growth and the presence by then of convicts. Petitions asking for some of the positions in the Legislative Council to be filled by popularly elected colonists were presented to London in 1865 and 1869. In 1870 this was granted, although the Governor could still veto the Council's decisions.
In 1887 a new constitution including the right of self-governance was drafted and sent to London by Governor Broome for approval. It was argued that due to the increasing wealth which was being generated by gold rushes, Western Australia deserved self government. The Act granting self-government was passed by the House of Commons and assented to by Queen Victoria in 1890, giving complete autonomy in matters with the exception of Section 70 of the Act which established an Aboriginal Protection Board, under the control of the British Parliament, not the Western Australian one. Governor Broome had earlier warned the British Colonial Office that the Western Australians were not to be trusted in matters relating to Aboriginal persons. A further clause to the constitution stated that 5,000 pounds or one percent of state revenues, whichever was the greater, was to be allocated to Aboriginal persons for their welfare and advancement. Western Australians resented these clauses, and Western Australia has never honoured this clause to its own constitution. A previous Governor, Sir William Robinson, was re-appointed to supervise the change. He travelled by train from Albany to Perth and towns en route lit bonfires and people gathered at railway sidings to celebrate his arrival and the new constitution. His arrival in Perth on 21 October 1890 saw the city decorated with elaborate floral arches spanning the city's main streets and buildings were decked with banners and flags. John Forrest, who had argued Western Australians should accept Section 70 in order to obtain self government, attempted to have them changed by 1892. William Traylen MP argued that "as our revenue is growing up now, and the natives can scarcely be said to be increasing in numbers, we shall be paying a very undue proportion of our income as a colony for the purpose of supporting the Aboriginal native race". For years Sir John Forrest fought with Robinson over Section 70 and Western Australia unilaterally passed the 1899 Constitution Amendment Act, taking control of Aboriginal Affairs without approval of the British House of Commons.
Today a group of Aboriginal elders from the Kimberley, is arguing before the Supreme Court that the 1899 amendment was an illegal usurpation of British government power and one percent of accumulated Government revenues should be set aside for Aboriginal welfare as intended.
On 1 January 1901, following a proclamation by Queen Victoria, Western Australia, along with the other five British colonies of New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria, formed the federation of the Commonwealth of Australia, of which they each became component states. However, Western Australia was rather reluctant to join the union, doing so only after a railway line connecting the west coast to the east coast was offered.
The wealth generated from gold soon disappeared and by the early years of the 20th century the economy was once again dependent on wool and wheat. This dependency meant that a dramatic fall in wool and wheat prices in the late 1920s - early 1930s saw the state's economy collapse. It was not to recover until after World War II when the Federal Government's postwar immigration policy saw a huge influx of migrants, nearly all of them from Europe, in the period 1947 to 1970.
Important events in Western Australia included the following:
In a referendum in 1933, 68% of voters favoured secession. The Premier, Philip Collier, argued in London for secession but the British decided they could not grant it.
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