On the 17th of January, 1827, Captain James Stirling, of H.M.S.  Success, left Sydney, intending to survey those portions of the west coast unvisited by Lieutenant King, and also to investigate the nature of the country in the neighbourhood of the Swan River with a view to its suitability for settlement.  Stirling was accompanied by Charles Fraser, who had considerable experience as adviser upon Australian sites for settlement.  Both Stirling and Fraser reported favourably on the Swan River; and the latter waxing enthusiastic on its eligibility, it was decided to found a new colony there.

In 1829, Captain Fremantle of H.M.S.  Challenger hoisted the British flag at the mouth of the Swan River, and thenceforth the whole of the Australian continent was under British sway.  Captain, now Lieutenant-Governor, Stirling arrived a month later in the transport Parmelia, and the free colony of Western Australia was launched on its varied career.

The names first mentioned in the annals of land exploration in Western Australia are those of Alexander Collie and Lieutenant William Preston, who together explored the country on the coast between Cockburn Sound and Geographe Bay.  This was in November, 1829, and in the following month Dr. J.B.  Wilson, who came to the Sound with Captain Barker on the abandonment of Raffles Bay, made an excursion from the Sound and discovered and named the Denmark River.

In a passage in a letter written by R.M.  Davis, of the medical staff, to Charles Fraser, the botanist, there is a detailed reference to this trip:—­

“Dr. Wilson, who came here with Captain Barker, started in a direction to Swan Port (Swan River) with a party of men, and in eleven days went over at least two hundred miles of ground.  He says, without fear of contradiction in future, that there is far greater proportion of good land in this direction than in any other part of Australia that he had been in, and also wood of large growth, with innumerable rivers.  He ascended a very high mountain, which he called Mount Lindsay, in honour of the 39th regiment.”

On the 22nd of March, 1830, we first hear of the exploring feats of Lieutenant Roe, R.N., the Surveyor-General of the new colony.  Captain John Septimus Roe was born in 1797, and entered the navy.  He accompanied Captain P. King to explore the north and north-west coasts of Australia, in 1818, and was a member of King’s expedition in 1821.  He was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia, and held that position for forty-two years.  He is commonly styled the father of western exploration.  He died at Perth on May 28th, 1878.  Mrs. Roe, who accompanied her husband to Western Australia in 1829, pre-deceased him in 1870.