The establishment of the Swan River colony came in 1829, quite some time after the area had first been discovered by Europeans. Indeed, going back to the early seventeenth century, land which was later to become Western Australia had been sighted by the Dutch. The British were not initially interested in looking to the west but eventually they did adopt an expansionist policy, which was to result in Western Australia being colonised.

The Dutch were also involved in the first sighting of the area of land which was to become Perth. In 1697 Willem de Vlamingh and the crew of his ships stopped here for a while. De Vlamingh named the river they found the Black Swan River, after some of his men found swans further up the river. This name was later altered to Swan River. They then set off on their merry way and the area was left very much untouched.

A group of French visited the spot next in 1801 whilst they were engaged in an expedition under the command of Nicolas Baudin.

But it was not until the arrival onto the scene of Captain James Stirling that serious claims to the land were made, and the notion of creating a settlement was considered. He had explored the area around the Swan River in 1827, and was confident that a settlement here would be a great success, particularly if he were to be made Governor. After much wheeling and dealing, the British Government agreed, and with the help of private enterprise, the colony was founded.

It was some years after Major Edmund Lockyer had established a British presence by starting the outpost at King George Sound in 1826, that Captain Fremantle established the site of Fremantle in May of 1829.

Just a few months later on the 1st June in 1829, Governor Stirling and his family arrived at Swan River. It was decided not to make Fremantle the main settlement. Instead Stirling moved further upstream, believing they would better be able to defend themselves if attacked.

The official founding of Perth followed, taking place on the 12th August in 1829, when other locations had been dismissed as suitable town sites. It was named after the Colonial Secretary whose constituency was Perth in Scotland.

As with many of Australia's early settlements, the Swan River colony had not been well organised and soon met difficulties. Hoping to encourage agricultural development of the colony, a scheme was created where settlers were given a land grant of 15 acres for every three pound of capital they held; capital being livestock, equipment, or government pension entitlements.

This seemingly generous proposition led to the taking of large holdings of land, and by 1830 there were 1500 people established on the banks of the Swan River where the capital of the State, Perth, would one day rise. However, it was this same policy which would mark the beginnings of major problems for the region, which were to be based on an experiment in colonisation by free settlement.

There is much speculation as to why the site of Perth was chosen. Possible explanations include its beauty in comparison to other suitable sites which were perhaps more practical choices, yet not as picturesque as the Perth site; and another possibility is Perth's close proximity to the fertile lands on the upper Swan River that Stirling and other members of the colonial elite had chosen as their own.

The town was soon fashioned in a manner comparable to that of New Town of Edinburgh; its lateral streets running parallel to the river -streets named in honour of those at the head of London's political hierarchy. The city of Perth was driven by Stirling's vision.

Settlers were given occupation rights to the land, but ownership and transfer rights were withheld until every acre of the grant had been 'improved' to the value of at least one shilling and sixpence.

These 'improvement' quotas were met by cultivation, draining and fencing etc. and fines were to be imposed on settlers who failed to improve at least a quarter of their grant within three years of occupation. Similarly, grants not wholly improved within ten years were to be resumed by the Crown.

A number of settlers found they had been given too much land and could not manage it, while others found they did not get the land they wanted. The settlers soon discovered that the coastal soils were poor and that much of the interior lands of Western Australia were too low in phosphate to support wheat.

On the main however, settlers had bought too much land and found that the extra money would have been more wisely spent improving smaller parcels of land.

Irrespective of that, the colonists had made a start in the right direction by growing wheat which would provide food for the struggling colony; and in 1838 the Swan River settlement produced 22,000 bushels of wheat.

Wool became another of the colony's concerns, and the first export was sent to London in 1832, building to 2665kg of wool exported in 1835. In 1843 grape and fruit growing were introduced into the areas and later, barley, oats, rye, maize and potatoes were cultivated in considerable amounts. But there remained no doubt that the young colony was struggling.

By the end of the 1840s Perth boasted a number of fine public buildings, many designed by H.W. Reveley in the late Georgian style. The most prominent among them was the two-storeyed government house built in 1834-64, with a Doric portico and single-storey wings, and a commissariat later used as the Supreme Court House.

Adjacent to the commissariat was Perth's first Court House, completed in 1839. Today this building is claimed as Perth's oldest and is used as the Law Society Museum. A number of substantial houses were also built in the late 1830s and early 1840s, but unfortunately most of these were destroyed in the gold-rush boom. In the mid 1840s substantial churches were built including a Congregational church in St Georges Terrace, and a Catholic convent adjoining the cathedral site.

The town had been divided into east and west; one section a focus for trade and commerce, the other government administration buildings and public places. St Georges Terrace fronting the river bank soon became Perth's finest street. An official policy required that buildings erected on the Terrace were to be of at least two hundred pounds in value, and was where some of Western Australia's elite families set up home. It is the city's many beautiful buildings which still grace the streets of Perth, which constitute one of the many attractions of the metropolis.

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