History of Albany

Aboriginal Occupation

Long before Europeans considered the possibility of the existence of a Great South Land, the Aboriginal Mineng people had occupied the area which surrounds King George Sound and Oyster and Princess Royal Harbours. Radiocarbon dating of material exposed during archaeological excavation of Aboriginal sites near Oyster Harbour dates this occupation as far back as 18,850 years ago.

The Mineng became familiar with Europeans through contact with English and French explorers and visiting ships’ crews over a period of several decades. When the settlement at King George Sound was established in 1826, the Mineng, armed with their familiarity with European ways, quickly established a cooperative relationship with the settlers which led to a period of relatively harmonious coexistence.

The Europeans recognised the people’s claim to the surrounding lands, shared their houses with the Mineng and took part in their ceremonies. The Mineng were at first suspicious but eventually welcomed the settlers as another tribe and allowed them to settle. The Mineng people acted as guides, instructors and informants on all things to do with their territory.

The Europeans were few in number and confined themselves to the shores of Princess Royal’ Harbour. Their world vision was dominated by the sea and they were not interested in expanding their settlement or exploiting the resources upon which the Mineng depended. In turn the Mineng tolerated the European presence and may have derived some social prestige for their community by allowing the new arrivals to occupy a small part of their land.

The transfer of settlement control to the Swan River Settlement in 1831 was followed by the arrival of settlers from Britain, India and the Swan River Colony. These new arrivals had different ideas about the land. No longer was it seen as being occupied by other people, but rather as an empty space to be dominated and exploited. The period of peaceful coexistence came to an end.

European Exploration

The first recorded sighting of the south coast of Western Australia and the entrance to King George Sound was in January and February 1627 by Hans Thyssen and Pieter Nuyts on board the Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) ship, Gulden Zeepaerdt. The following year Hessel Gerritz, cartographer to the VOC, produced the first recorded map of the south coast showing a bay and islands which could be King George Sound. Eighty years later in 1718 Joan Pieter Purry , a former employee of the VOC, proposed to colonise the south coast “..that coast, called Nuyts land.“

The next recorded visit by a European was not for another 164 years. Commander George Vancouver and his sloop-of-war Discovery, accompanied by the armed tender Chatham commanded by Lieutenant Broughton. sailed into the sound which they named after King George Ill. Vancouver landed and took possession of the south west corner of New Holland for Great Britain.

A succession of British and French explorers followed Vancouver. Flinders in 1801, Baudin and Freycinet in 1803, King in 1818, 1821 and 1822 and D’Urville in October 1826. Over this period the Sound also became a port of call for British, American and Australian colonial whaling and sealing vessels.

European Settlement

The settlement of King George Sound was formed with the arrival of Major Edmund Lockyer and a small staff which included his son - also named Edmund - in the position of storekeeper, and a military detachment commanded by Captain Wakefield ... " 
On 21st. January 1827, nearly a month after arriving, He proclaimed the occupation of the territory. The date was his birthday.A salute was fired from two cannonades unloaded from the Amity and the Union flag was flown. The settlement of King George III Sound remained part of New South Wales until 7th March 1831 when it was handed over to the Swan River Colony. In 1832, Captain James Stirling visited the settlement. 

Lockyer suggested naming his outpost 'Frederick's Town', but the name was not officially adopted and the outpost remained better known as 'The Settlement on the Sound'. In 1831 after  formal inclusion in the Colony of Western Australia,  Stirling required the settlement to be called Albany from the new year of 1832.

Frederick Augustus,  Duke of York and Albany (1763-1827), second son of King George 111.  He was a  Commander-in-Chief credited with founding the Royal Military College. Also an active  politician and notorious gambler,  known according to the diarist Creevey as 'a good tempered idiot'. His gambling and other debts totalled more than 1-million pounds sterling at the time of his death.  He had expected to pay his debts on becoming king  but died too soon.

Lockyer had sailed from Sydney under instruction from MacLeay, the New South Wales Colonial Secretary ‘...to establish a settlement at King George Sound on the south west coast of New Holland.‘ 

Industry - Whaling

For a while it seemed that the Settlement’s fortunes would be found in the land. This did not happen. Mineral deficiencies in the soil and the prevalence of poisonous plants ensured that farming opportunities were limited. Within a few years the settlers realised that the sea offered better short term prospects. They turned to trade, sealing and whaling.

The first record of whaling at Albany was in 1800 with the arrival of the armed English whalers Kingston and Elligood. The crews caught several whales before leaving. These visits were followed by a succession of foreign and colonial whaling and sealing ships which took advantage of the sheltered waters, abundant fresh water and available wood supply.

Bay whaling started in King George Sound in 1835-36 and continued until the early 1890’s. American whalers called regularly until 1888. Their presence and obvious commercial success led to the purchase of an American whaling ship by a number of Albany’s leading citizens which they operated for nearly ten years. With the demise of the American whalers there was a period of hiatus until the arrival of the Norwegians who conducted shore whaling in King George Sound from 1912 to 1916.

After World War II, a worldwide shortage of fats led to the development of the modern whaling industry .The Albany Whaling Company commenced operations in 1947 and in 1952 was succeeded by the Cheynes Beach Whaling Company. Shore whaling continued at Albany until 1978 when a downturn in the industry and mounting pressure from the environment movement led to the closure of the whaling station.

Today the industry survives in the form of whale watching. Whaleworld, at the site of the of Cheynes Beach Whaling Company operation, gives visitors a glimpse into this once prosperous industry .

Steamships and Coal

With the opening of steam ship routes to Australia in 1852, Albany became a settlement of national importance. The strategic location of King George Sound with its sheltered waters and availability of fresh water and provisions meant that Albany was ideally located for the establishment of a steam service with the technology available at the time.

Steam ships arriving from Europe, Africa, India and Asia called at Albany to deliver mail, and bunker coal and water before sailing for east Australian ports. Similarly, vessels leaving for foreign ports would make Albany their last port of call to pick up fresh provisions and overseas-bound mail. The building of new port facilities reflected the importance of the port. Lighthouses paid for by the British Admiralty were erected in King George Sound. A pilot house, new jetties and a floating dock were built and prefabricated coal lighters imported from England.

In the midst of this development Albany became Western Australia’s principal international port, a role which she retained until August 1900 when the British Post Master General advised that the newly opened Port of Fremantle was to be become Western Australia’ s mail port. Despite this loss the Port of Albany survived, becoming a significant regional port after World War II.

Convicts

Albany’s first convict period from 1826-1831 began with the arrival of the convicts and their guards and ended with the transfer of settlement control to the Swan River Colony and the return of the convicts to Sydney. The convicts were employed in tending the vegetable gardens supplying the settlement and vessels which called at Princess Royal Harbour. Convicts were also employed to clear tracks, repair boats and as fishermen in the harbour. Separated from the infant Swan River colony by a vast expanse of unexplored country and from the other Australian colonies and rest of the world by ocean, there was little chance of escape.

The second period began in the early 1850’s. Transportation to Western Australia began with the arrival of the convict transport Scindian at Fremantle in June 1850. The following year the Colonial Government announced the establishment of a convict hiring depot at Albany. These convicts, like their predecessors were employed in a variety, of tasks, but particularly the building of public works. They built roads and bridges, public offices, lighthouses and wells. A few were employed in the pilot service.

In 1868 transportation to Western Australia ended but convicts remained at the Albany -hiring depot until 1872.

The Telegraph. Gold and Railways

Albany was connected to Perth by telegraph in 1872. In 1877 a line to the East was opened, connecting Albany to the Darwin-Adelaide-Melbourne line and the outside world. This greatly enhanced the town’s role as a transport and communication centre. When mail steamers arrived at the port, news reporters would race on board, collect the most recent British papers and interview any new arrivals. Armed with the latest ‘home’ news, the reporters would then race ashore to the telegraph office, hoping to be the first to get their copy to the Eastern States or up to Perth.

The opening of the Great Southern Railway in 1889 connected Albany, the colony’s port, to Perth. At the time it was one of Australia’ s longest railways. The railway fostered an economic upturn for the town. Land values increase and local shop owners and producers found their markets had greatly expanded.

Albany’s fortunes increased further with the initial discovery of gold in the Kimberley and the subsequent West Australian gold rush, followed by later discoveries in the Yilgarn, Eastern Murchison, Eastern Goldfields and elsewhere. By 1898, 500 passengers a week were disembarking at the port from the Eastern colonies and abroad, generating an annual income for the town in excess of £50,000.

Defence

King George Sound, sitting astride one of the main shipping routes between Eastern Australia, Europe, India and Singapore, was quickly recognised as being of strategic importance with its protected waters and supplies of fresh water and provisions. Lockyer recognised this fact in 1826 and by 1849 the northern end of Vancouver Peninsular had been reserved for land fortifications. As the 19th. century progressed, suggestions were also made to fortify the northern side of Princess Royal Harbour with cannons to defend the P & O coal station. In the early-to-mid 1880’s the threat of another war between Russia and Britain over the issue of Afghanistan raised the spectre of a possible Russian sea-borne attack on the Australian colonies. In Albany this fear was allayed by the dispatch of two warships by the British Admiralty from Sydney to King George Sound. Coinciding with this paranoia, the Federal Council of Australian States agreed that; the fortification and defence of King George Sound and Princess Royal Harbour was of strategic importance to all of the Australian Colonies in the event of armed conflict with a foreign power.

In 1889-1890, agreement was reached to proceed with the construction of defence facilities. The following year military commanders from each of the Australian colonies came to Albany to plan the fortifications. They recommended the building of barracks, magazines, the installation of a battery of artillery supported by machine guns and a mine field laid across the entrance to Princess Royal Harbour. The fortifications were completed in 1892, with guns installed the following year. Albany’s strategic location attracted visiting war ships from all nations, as well as Australian troop ships and convoys en-route to conflicts in the Sudan, North Africa and the Boer War in South Africa.

During World War I, several convoys carrying ANZAC troops to Gallipoli and the Western Front assembled in King George Sound. For many troops, the Sound with its islands, rugged cliffs and brilliant white sandy beaches set against the dark green of the surrounding hills was their last sight of Australia. In 1918 a dawn service was inaugurated in Albany by a former military chaplain Arthur White, commemorating the departure of the ANZAC convoy. This tradition eventually extended throughout Australia, becoming part of the official ceremony of ANZAC day. Finally, during World War II, Princess Royal Harbour became for a short time a base for American submarines and sea planes.

Federation - Part of a Nation

From as early as 1883, Albany’s citizens had voiced support for Federation of the Australian colonies. Neglected by the Colonial Government in Perth, they saw themselves as having more in common with the interests of their eastern cousins in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. In the 1860’s there was a campaign to become part of South Australia.

In addition, Albany’s citizens were more inclined to celebrate the 26th January, New South Wales’ Foundation Day, than celebrate Western Australia’s Foundation Day in June. Geography also played its part. Before the opening of the railway to Perth in 1889, it was easier to get to the Eastern Colonies by sea than attempt an overland crossing to Perth.

As the century progressed Albany’s enthusiasm for constitutional change increased. The Town became one of the nation’s principal ports and a major naval and quarantine station. By joining with the other colonies there would be a chance to escape the indifference and neglect of the Perth authorities.

On a visit to Western Australia in March 1894, Sir Henry Parkes, one of the leaders of the Federation movement, visited Albany and addressed a gathering. Albert Hassell MLA, a descendant of one of the region’s pioneer families, was later elected as a delegate to one of the conventions, which shaped the course of Federation.

By 1897, interest in Federation had reached such a level that Albany’s press was proposing the town could become the Capital of the new Commonwealth. In 1899 a branch of the Federal League was formed. In addition, a Separation League was formed in response to the intransigence of the Premier, Sir John Forrest, who wanted to prevent Western Australians having a say in the decision as to whether the Colony should join the Commonwealth. Aligned with a similar League in the Goldfields the two groups pressed for independence from Perth and the opportunity to vote on the Federation issue.

Despite Perth’s objections, the vote on 31st July 1900 was overwhelming. In Albany, 914 people voted to join the Commonwealth with only 67 people registering No. In the process, the wide endorsement of Federation annulled the efforts of the Albany and Goldfields separatist movements and confirmed the existence of the State of Western Australia.

Please Visit Albany Historical Society Website - www.historicalbany.com.au

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