This week in 1829 the City of Perth was founded. (Lisa Scafidi has just alerted me to this fact.) A hundred and thirty five years earlier, in 1696, Dutch explorer Willem de Vlamingh landed here. For many thousands of years before that the original inhabitants had built a strong relationship with this place.
The early European settlers nearly starved. South Perth Mill was built to grind wheat, grown where the Royal Perth Golf Club now resides. The mill was our first industrial development.
The mill and the peninsular represent many things in both Colonial and Indigenous history. For this reason the proposed museum here will show both lines of history. Recognition of this is important to our future. Our old buildings, artefacts, oral and written history, works of art, our people and much else make up this history. My recent blog on preserving Heritage House asks about ways to show our respect for South Perth’s heritage in its many lines.
Susan Harris and others have written about early farms, bird nesting sites, an old fig tree, Canning River wrecks, dreaming and learning trails, artists such as May Gibbs and very much more. Susan’s thoughts about the depth of our shared heritage, what that might include and how we might preserve and understand it can be downloaded here.
In any case, the matter is a broad one and we do things better in this city when we all contribute to the conversation. A motion to Council next week asks us to investigate building a community reference group around heritage matters. There are other views developing around this theme as we begin to appreciate heritage value in a time of rapid change. Do you have something to add? Click on Comments below or just email me, to have them published here.
