Western Australia
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
one of the states of the Commonwealth of Australia; includes all that portion of the continent situated W. of lon. 129° E. The territory measures 1,480 miles from Cape Londonderry in the N. to Peak Head in the S., and about 1,000 miles from E. to W. The total estimated area is 975,920 square miles, thus making it the largest of the former Australian colonies. The really occupied portion is confined mainly to the coast region and to gold-mining settlements in the interior. Capital. Pe apital, Perth, on Swan river; pop. about 100,000. Topography. The rivers in the S. W. are the Blackwood, Murray, Swan, Murchison, etc.; farther N., the Gascoyne, Ashburton, Fortescue, De Grey, Fitzroy, etc., none of them navigable at all seasons. The interior of Western Australia is in great part sterile, with extensive tracts of scrub and salt marsh; but the colony is as yet imperfectly known. The S. W. has vast forests, which supply valuable timber for exportation, especially that known as jarrah. The Kimberley and N. districts contain boundless pastures, and there are lands suitable for the growth of sugar, tobacco, wheat, etc. In other parts are soils and climates admirably adapted for the cultivation of silk, olives, the vine, etc. Minerals. Gold is found at Kimberley and Yilgarn, and at several places between these districts, the chief fields being the Murchison, the Ashburton, and the Rilbarra. The Coolgardie field became prominent in 1895. The total value of the gold export of 1918 was about $20,000,000. Copper and lead are found in abundance. The other chief minerals are coal, tin, and iron. The pearl fisheries are rising in value. Government. In 1890 responsible government was conferred on the colony by the British Parliament in a new constitution (amended in 1893, 1899, and 1911), vesting the administration in a governor and Parliament. The latter consisted of a legislative Council or Upper House and a Legislative Assembly or Lower House. Education is compulsory, but not free. In 1900 female suffrage was carried by the amendment to the constitution. The estimated revenue for 1920 was over $25,000,000; expenditure, over $30,000,000; debt, about $185,000,000. History. Western Australia was first settled in 1829 as the Swan River Settlement, and for many years the population was very small; but in the year 1891 it had risen to 49,782. In 1850 it was made a convict station, and remained such till the abolition of transportation in 1868. Since that time it has been making gradual progress. Pop. about 300,- 000. See AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH,
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 put the population at about 300,000 and called the interior "in great part sterile" and "as yet imperfectly known"; Western Australia now has roughly 2.9 million people, about four-fifths of them in greater Perth. The gold that dominated the 1921 account — $20,000,000 of exports in 1918, after Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie — has been overtaken by Pilbara iron ore, mined at industrial scale since the 1960s and now shipped in the hundreds of millions of tonnes a year, with offshore gas from the North West Shelf close behind. Politically the state came far closer to leaving the federation than the entry hints: in a 1933 referendum a large majority of voters backed secession, though Britain declined to act. The Aboriginal peoples of the state, absent from Collier's account, won recognition of continuing land rights through the High Court's Mabo decision in 1992 and the Native Title Act that followed.
Written for this edition, 2026.