The Swan River Colony

Swan River Colony

The Swan River Colony was a British settlement established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia. In 1832, the colony was officially renamed Western Australia, when the colony's founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling,...

, established in June 1829, was the only British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 colony

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

 in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 established on the basis of land grants to settlers. Under the conditions stipulated by the Colonial Office

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies

The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet level position responsible for the army and the British colonies . The Department was created in 1801...

, settlers would be granted land in proportion to the value of assets and labour that they brought to the colony. To ensure "productive" use of land, settlers were not given full title to their grants until they had been sufficiently "improved". The system of land grants continued until 1832, after which crown land

Crown land

In Commonwealth realms, Crown land is an area belonging to the monarch , the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it....

 was disposed of by sale at auction.

Land grants for settlers

Under the initial land grant conditions, settlers were granted 40 acres (162,000 m²) of land for every £3 of assets invested in the colony. Assessment of the value of assets was left to the discretion of the authorities, whose valuations were inaccurate and inconsistent. One settler observed a tendency to overvalue cattle while undervaluing general cargo, and Statham (1981) cites an example where two rabbits entitled a settler to a grant of 200 acres (809,000 m²).

For the purposes of assessing land entitlements, assets had to be physical capital applicable to land use; money was not assessed. In consequence, many settlers maximised their land entitlements by arriving with large amounts of expensive capital but very little cash. This gross overcapitalisation caused the financial ruin of many early emigrants, and had a lasting deleterious effect on the colony's economy

Economic system

An economic system is the combination of the various agencies, entities that provide the economic structure that defines the social community. These agencies are joined by lines of trade and exchange along which goods, money etc. are continuously flowing. An example of such a system for a closed...

. Moreover, much of the larger machinery that was imported was useless in Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

n conditions.

Settlers were also entitled to 200 acres (809,000 m²) of land for every adult introduced at their expense, with lesser entitlements for children. This condition had the effect of encouraging settlers to bring out indentured servants, and some brought out more than they were capable of employing and supporting in the long term. Indentured servants received their keep, but earned no wages until they had paid off their passage; thus the widespread use of indentured servants tended to immobilise the labour workforce and reduce the market for goods and services.

When the first settlers arrived at the colony, it was quickly discovered that the quantity of good land had been greatly exaggerated. In fact the only good farmland near the site of the colony was a narrow corridor of alluvial soil along the Swan

Swan River (Western Australia)

The Swan River estuary flows through the city of Perth, in the south west of Western Australia. Its lower reaches are relatively wide and deep, with few constrictions, while the upper reaches are usually quite narrow and shallow....

 and Canning

Canning River (Western Australia)

The Canning River is a major tributary of the Swan River in south western Western Australia.-Source and route:With headwaters on the Darling Scarp, the Canning meanders through suburbs of Perth on the Swan Coastal Plain, including Cannington, Thornlie, Riverton, Shelley, Rossmoyne and Mount...

 rivers, and much of this was immediately taken up by government officials and military personnel. The vast amounts of land promised to settlers was so far out of proportion to the available good land that Stirling was obliged to limit the amount of river frontage per grant, forcing the Surveyor-General John Septimus Roe

John Septimus Roe

John Septimus Roe was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, and a Member of Western Australia's Legislative and Executive Councils for nearly 40 years.-Early life:...

 to grant long thin "ribbon" allotments each with a small amount of river frontage. Stirling also limited the amount of land that each settler could claim near Perth

Perth, Western Australia

Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....

, with the balance of their entitlements to be claimed further out, in areas yet to be declared available for selection.

Improvement conditions

To ensure that land holdings were used productively, and to discourage speculation, settlers were initially granted only right of occupation. Full ownership of the land, including the right to sell, was withheld until every acre had been improved by at least one shilling

Shilling

The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...

 and six pence

Penny

A penny is a coin or a type of currency used in several English-speaking countries. It is often the smallest denomination within a currency system.-Etymology:...

, through clearing, fencing, cultivation, and so on. Settlers who failed to improve at least a quarter of their grant within three years could be fined, and land not wholly improved within ten years would be resumed by the crown.

Settlers were not permitted to average their improvements over their grant; the conditions specifically stated that every acre had to be improved by 1s 6d. This was to cause much inefficient use of capital in the early years of the colony, as settlers were forced to spread their efforts across their entire grant, rather than consolidating a smaller area first.

Despite the conditions, some settlers found creative ways to retain their land without working it. For example, when George Fletcher Moore

George Fletcher Moore

George Fletcher Moore was a prominent early settler in colonial Western Australia, and "one [of] the key figures in early Western Australia's ruling elite"...

 arrived in the colony in 1830, he obtained half of William Lamb's grant on the Swan River, by agreeing to perform the improvements necessary to secure title to the entire grant.

Other land grants

Although the land grants to settlers were conditional on their meeting improvement conditions, many unconditional grants were also made. A number of important officials and capitalists were granted large areas of land as reward for service; James Stirling

James Stirling (Australian governor)

Admiral Sir James Stirling RN was a British naval officer and colonial administrator. His enthusiasm and persistence persuaded the British Government to establish the Swan River Colony and he became the first Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Western Australia...

, Charles Fremantle

Charles Fremantle

Admiral Sir Charles Howe Fremantle GCB RN was a British Royal Navy officer. The city of Fremantle in Western Australia is named after him.-Early life:...

 and Thomas Peel

Thomas Peel

Mr. Peel, he moans, took him from England to Swan River, West Australia, means of subsistence and of production to the amount of £50,000. Mr. Peel had the foresight to bring with him, besides, 300 persons of the working-class, men, women, and children. Once arrived at his destination, "Mr. Peel was...

 were all recipients of such grants. In addition, military personnel were permitted to claim land in lieu of pay, and these grants did not have conditions attached. Much of the land obtained in this way was not developed, being instead held for speculative reasons. The large amounts of good land tied up in this way was often blamed later for the slow progress of the colony.

Changes to conditions

Land grant conditions changed a number of times in the following years. In 1830, in an attempt to discourage speculation, Stirling halved the rate of land grants to 20 acres (81,000 m²) per £3 of assets plus 100 acres (404,000 m²) per adult, and reduced the time limit for improvements from ten years to four. At the end of 1830 the new settlement had granted over 1 million acres (4,000 km²) to settlers, of which only 169 acres (684,000 m²) were actively being farmed.

In 1831, the Colonial Office published what became known as the Ripon Regulations, which declared that crown land in Australia would from 1832 onwards be sold rather than granted. In Western Australia, public opinion held that the abolition of land grants would end emigration to the colony. So concerned were the settlers that Stirling was sent to England to plead their case on this and other matters. He was largely unsuccessful, and the granting of crown land ceased in 1832.

Settlers who had previously been granted land continued to be bound by the grant conditions. In 1837, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies

Secretary of State for War and the Colonies

The Secretary of State for War and the Colonies was a British cabinet level position responsible for the army and the British colonies . The Department was created in 1801...

, Lord Glenelg

Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg

Charles Grant, 1st Baron Glenelg PC FRS was a Scottish politician and colonial administrator.-Background and education:...

, responded to constant complaints by settlers about the strict enforcement of improvement conditions, by introducing land surrender provisions that allowed settlers to claim title to part of their grant by surrendering the remainder. Glenelg's intention was to enforce concentrated settlement in accordance with Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield

Edward Gibbon Wakefield was a British politician, the driving force behind much of the early colonisation of South Australia, and later New Zealand....

's colonisation principles, which were in vogue at the time. However because most settlers had elongated grants of which only a small portion was productive, the effect was to allow many settlers to secure title to their productive land by discarding the unproductive land. Being no longer obliged to improve their holdings, settlers of means could then invest their time and money in discovering and buying good land further from the settlement. Thus the effect was to further disperse the colony, and to concentrate the colony's wealth in a few hands.

Effect on indigenous people

In the framing of the land grant conditions, no provisions were made for the indigenous

Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 people of the area, who were incorrectly thought to be nomads with no claim to the land over which they travelled. Most settlers refused the indigenous people permission to camp on or even pass through their grants. As more and more land was granted and fenced off, the indigenous people were increasingly denied access to their sacred sites and traditional hunting grounds. For example, by 1832 the Beeliar group were unable to approach the Swan or Canning Rivers without danger, because land grants lined the banks.