A New City Emerges

In 1856, Queen Victoria proclaimed Perth a City and by the 1860s the physical and social shape of Perth had largely been determined. The administrative, political, business and military centre was the immediate vicinity of the old domain, on the corner of Barrack Street and St. Georges Terrace. Hay Street was also developing as a lesser commercial and shopping precinct, while further north the Wellington Street area contained artisans’ work-shops, cottages, stockyards and the like. Perth’s ‘port’ was at the foot of William Street, and provided the people of Perth with trading links with the greater port settlement of Fremantle and the inland village port of Guildford.