The Perth Town Hall, situated on the corner of Hay and Barrack streets in

Perth Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...

, Western Australia, is the only

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually house ...

built by convicts in Australia. Upon completion it was the tallest structure in Perth.

History

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

s and free men between 1867 and 1870. Its decorations contain a number of convict motifs, including windows in the shape of the broad arrow, and decorations in the shape of a hangman's rope. The foundation stone for Perth Town Hall was laid on 24 May 1867 by Governor Hampton in a ceremony involving a lot of pomp and parade. However, there were torrential downpours. The ceremony went on anyway with an official procession from Government House and a mock battle performed by the Volunteer Regiments, Enrolled Forces of Pensioners, and the WA Country Regiment. HAY ST

In the 1929

centenary of Western Australia In 1929, Western Australia (WA) celebrated the centenary of the founding of Perth and the establishment of the Swan River Colony, the first permanent European settlement in WA. A variety of events were run in Perth, regional areas throughout the ...

one of the events in the city of Perth was the placing of a commemorative plaque in the northwest corner of the building by the Governor Sir William Campion. For many decades in the 20th century, shops were built into the sides of the ground floor, and the public lavatories accessible from Barrack Street were the only ones available for some distance. The shops included a pharmacy, bank, lunch bar and other shops. All these businesses and the attendant structures were removed prior to the renovation of the hall. At the time of its centenary in 1970,Phelps, Delys (1969) ''100 years : a history of the Perth Town Hall'' originally printed in the Royal Western Australian Historical Society's Journal. - reprinted by the Perth city council in 1970 the ground floor was still full of commercial businesses. The Town Hall was restored in the late 1990s at the base in an award-winning restoration to repair the interior of the hall and the

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vau ...

es at its base, which were "modernised" in the middle of the 20th century.

References

External links

Town Hall fact page, City of Perth

Pre-1910 photo showing original arches
* (including 1980s photo showing 20th century alterations) {{Cinemas in Western Australia Town halls in Western Australia Buildings and structures built by convicts in Western Australia State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Perth Landmarks in Perth, Western Australia Gothic Revival architecture in Perth, Western Australia Victorian architecture in Western Australia Government buildings completed in 1870 Cultural infrastructure completed in 1870 Cathedral Square, Perth City of Perth 1870 establishments in Australia Clock towers in Australia