Editing Perth (section)

=== Convict era and gold rushes ===
[[File:FremantlePrisonYard.jpg|alt=|thumb|Built by convicts in the early 1850s, [[Fremantle Prison]] is a UNESCO [[World Heritage Site]].]]
[[File:2023-10-11-Perth-Mint-01.jpg|thumb|[[Perth Mint]], built in 1899 to refine gold from the gold rushes]]
In 1850, at a time when [[penal transportation]] to Australia's eastern colonies had ceased, Western Australia was [[Convict era of Western Australia|opened to convicts]] at the request of farming and business people due to a shortage of labour.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.regionalwa.com.au/WAinfo/PerthHistory.htm |title = :: REGIONAL WA:: Western Australia: History |date = 23 December 2003 |access-date =26 February 2008 |publisher=Regional Web Australia|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130411021319/http://www.regionalwa.com.au/WAinfo/PerthHistory.htm|archive-date=11 April 2013}}</ref> Over the next eighteen years, 9,721 convicts arrived in Western Australia aboard [[List of convict ship voyages to Western Australia|43 ships]],{{Sfn|ps=none|Wood|2016|p=9}}{{Sfn|ps=none|Edwards|2010|p=79}} outnumbering the approximately 7,300 free settlers.<ref name="nma23">{{cite web |title=Founding of Perth |date=2023-05-04 |website=National Museum of Australia, Government of Australia |url=https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/founding-of-perth |access-date=2024-06-16 |quote=Between 1850 and 1868 around 10,000 British convicts arrived at the colony. By 1868 the total population was 17,000, with convicts outnumbering settlers, 9700 to 7300. }}</ref>

The designation of Perth as a city was formally announced by [[Queen Victoria]] in 1856. However, despite this recognition, Perth remained a tranquil town. A description from 1870 by a Melbourne journalist depicted it as:<ref name="historyofCOP">{{cite web |url = http://www.cityofperth.wa.gov.au/documentdb/63.pdf |title = History of the City of Perth |access-date = 26 February 2008 |date = 23 March 2005 |publisher = [[City of Perth]] |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080228075541/http://www.cityofperth.wa.gov.au/documentdb/63.pdf |archive-date = 28 February 2008 |url-status = dead }}</ref><ref>'Western Australia. (From the Argyle's Special Correspondent) IV-Perth' (1870, March 18). The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, p. 3.</ref>
{{blockquote |text=a quiet little town of some 3000 inhabitants spread out in straggling allotments down to the water's edge, intermingled with gardens and shrubberies and half rural in its aspect ... The main streets are macadamised, but the outlying ones and most of the footpaths retain their native state from the loose sand—the all pervading element of Western Australia—productive of intense glare or much dust in the summer and dissolving into slush during the rainy season.}}

With the [[Western Australian gold rushes|discovery of gold]] at [[Kalgoorlie]] and [[Coolgardie]] in the late 19th century, Western Australia experienced a mining boom.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.constitutionalcentre.wa.gov.au/ResearchAndSeminarPapers/LaunchingTheShip/Pages/TheGoldrush.aspx|title=The Goldrush|website=The Constitutional Centre of Western Australia|access-date=6 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140909031011/http://www.constitutionalcentre.wa.gov.au/ResearchAndSeminarPapers/LaunchingTheShip/Pages/TheGoldrush.aspx|archive-date=9 September 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref> Perth became a key hub for supplying the goldfields, and the newfound prosperity helped finance the construction of important public buildings, roads and railways. Perth's population grew from approximately 8,500 in 1881 to 61,000 in 1901.<ref>Abjorensen, Norman; Docherty, James C. ''Historical Dictionary of Australia''. Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. {{ISBN|9781442245020}}, p. 292.</ref>