Draining the Swamps

When it is borne in mind that Perth has no natural drainage — that percolation and evaporation do for it what sewers do for other more populated cities; that the river on whose banks it is built has no appreciable tide, and that many acres around us in all directions are covered with marsh and bog, producing foetid, unwholesome miasma, all the year round, it is indeed matter for wonder how it is that pestilential fever is not forever stalking in our midst

Perth Inquirer, August 1873 cited in Hunt 1980

Drainage of the swamps began in 1833 for commercial purposes with the construction of drains to power Reveley’s and Kingsford’s mills. As Perth expanded northward, more swamps were drained for market gardens and new town lots. After 1834, wetlands increasingly diminished on Perth’s town plans. Whereas the 1833 town plan had plainly stated the presence of “fresh water swamps with rushy margins”, the 1838 maps show the swamps overlaid by roads and absorbed into the town plan with the effect of making the lakes vanish incrementally as if they had never existed (Morel-EdnieBrown 2008).

Wetlands were regarded as sources of disease and insect infestation. The lakes regularly flooded and were seen as an impediment to productivity. A list of public works needed in August 1848 included the draining of all the lakes behind Perth. The floods of 1842 and 1847 had covered the north side of Hay Street with a single sheet of water from Lake Kingsford to Claise Brook, while the run off down to Perth water had damaged St Georges Terrace premises and road (Stannage 1979).

From 1840 onwards, drainage works to alleviate flooding and to eradicate miasmas began in earnest, and the swampland was being sold for town lots. By 1845, the swamps were shown as irregular shapes on town plans and over half had disappeared off the map. Lakes Kingsford, Irwin, Sutherland and Henderson were named, but the remaining swamps were depicted as empty spaces, joined by drains (Morel-EdnieBrown 2008).

The drain through the swamp directly at the back of the town was all but completed yesterday, and appears, as for as it has been proceeded with, to have answered the purpose for which it was intended … A notification appeared in yesterday's Government Gazette, that the drainage having been completed, the swampy lands in the townsite are re-opened for selection, and the upset price of the 'rich garden ground' on lake Kingsford is fixed at £26 each lot

Perth Inquirer Aug 2, 1854

Perth Council Chairman Glyde remembered the time when the lakes, at present laid out as beautiful and profitable gardens well stocked with vegetables and various fruit trees were swamps covered with bullrushes, and he should be sorry to see them return to their original condition

PCC minute book, 23rd August, 5th September 1873 cited in Stannage 1979

More works took place in the 1870s and 1890s. By the end of the century, the swamp system would be subsumed into the formal grid of Perth. Claise Brook to the east, originally the mouth of the swamp system, functioned as an exit point for underground drains that, even today, carry water as part of the Claise Brook Catchment Area (Stannage 1979).