The western coast proved fatal to the Shenton family. In 1842 Mr. W.K. Shenton was drowned while proceeding from Fremantle to Bunbury in the schooner Devonshire. In March, 1867, Mr. G. Shenton was wrecked and drowned in the schooner Lass of Geraldton, from Fremantle, also bound for Bunbury. The vessel was capsized in a hurricane, and the crew of five men and the two passengers were lost, with the exception of the captain and a lascar. Mr. Shenton reached the colony in January, 1833, and associated himself with business pursuits. He was one of the most enthusiastic believers in the richness of the Victoria district, and rendered considerable monetary assistance to its graziers and farmers. The news of this catastrophe was received with sorrow.
Lieutenant-Colonel John Molloy, late of the Rifle Brigade, died at the Vasse on the 6th October, 1867, at the age of eighty-seven years. Since the foundation of Augusta in 1830 until March, 1861, Colonel Molloy had been its Resident Magistrate, with jurisdiction over the Vasse. His civil career was as distinguished as his military, and with the Bussell family, his name is indissoluble with early south-western history. Amid privations and discouragements, and the hundreds of contrary forces inseparable from early colonisation, he showed martial courage.
Another enterprising early settler died in 1867 in the person of Mr. J.H. Monger, on 12th November, at Perth. Mr. Monger on the Swan and at York succeeded in winning a respected position. On 19th May 1868, Mr. George Hayson, a large employer of labour, died at Perth; and on 14th May Mr. Walter Jones, aged ninety-one years, a pioneer of 1829, succumbed at Guildford. This large list shows how rapidly the older men were disappearing.
In 1861 an ordinance passed the Legislative Council providing for the organisation of a volunteer force. By September a company of sixty-four men was organised in Perth, another of seventy men at Fremantle, another at Guildford, and another at Pinjarra. At about the same time a corps was established at the Vasse, and one at York. Great interest was manifested in the new movement.
A money order office was opened for the first time in the colony in February, 1862; the maximum for orders was fixed at £10, and the minimum at 10s., issued at the rate of 4d. per £1, or a fraction thereof. Under an ordinance passed on 24th June, 1863, the Post Office Savings Bank was established on 1st September, 1863. The new institution was a great success, and within ten days held sixty-four deposits aggregating £680.
The Perth Benefit Building, Investment and Swan Society was established on 17th October, 1862. Shares to the value of nearly £6,000 were subscribed for at the first meeting. The first directors elected were Messrs. G.F. Stone (president), M. Dyett, R. Jewell, M. Smith, T. Farrelly, G. Glyde, W. Ryan, J. Farmanar, H.A.B. Middleton, B. Mason, E. Birch, and T. Almond; Mr. J. T. Reilly was first secretary.
Efforts were made in 1860–1 to establish in Western Australia a sanatorium for Indian troops. While in London Mr. J.S. Roe gave evidence before a Royal Commission appointed to fix upon a suitable site.
The Masonic body had been for some years established in Western Australia, and in March, 1861, the Government granted the fraternity a site adjoining the Mechanics' Institute for the purpose of erecting a hall. This structure was completed in 1867, and dedicated on 1st May amid demonstration.
In 1867 there were twenty-two churches and chapels in the colony; the cost of their maintenance being estimated at £2,624. The Bishop's School building was improved in 1861, but the institution proved a heavy burden on the Bishop. In 1862 a church was erected by the Anglican denomination at Geraldton, and on 16th February, 1864, the Cathedral at Perth was enlarged, and the new part consecrated. In January, 1863, Dean Pownall left the colony after ten years' service.
A Wesleyan Church, of early English architecture, was in course of erection in Perth, the foundation-stone of which was laid by Governor Hampton on 24th October, 1867.
The Catholic Cathedral in Victoria Square was completed in 1863, and in September, 1864, the Trinity Congregational Church in St. George's Terrace was opened; the structure cost £1,000. In 1867 there were forty-three public schools in the colony, the cost of maintaining which was £2,982. A new weekly journal—the Western Australian Times—was published in 1863.
Mention has already been made of some disastrous wrecks in 1861-8. Unfortunately they do not complete the list. On 14th June, 1861, the American barque Cochituate was wrecked on the Abrolhos Islands. The master and crew landed south of Champion Bay, and wandered about the country for fourteen days before they were rescued. They were reduced to a state of starvation, when a party of police, who had been informed of the disaster, found and gave them food and clothing, and conveyed them to Perth. The entire party was maintained at the public expense until an opportunity arose to ship them to the United States. The authorities received cordial thanks from the United States Government. In June, 1868, during heavy gales, the Emily at Port Irwin, the Albatross at Geraldton, and the Northumberland at Bluff Point were wrecked, and seven lives lost. In June, 1867, by the capsizing of a boat at Fremantle, five men were drowned, and among them Captain James Harding, the harbourmaster at Fremantle.
In June and July, 1862, tremendous floods occurred in different parts of the colony. On 6th July the road at the foot of Mount Eliza was covered by two feet of storm waters, and the low lands about Perth were inundated. Most of the gardens along the banks of the Swan at Perth were submerged. The jetty was under water. At York, where buildings were demolished on the 5th, the people floated on rafts down the streets, and at Toodyay, Northam, Bunbury, Champion Bay, and North Fremantle, sites believed to be above the reach of the highest floods were covered. The damage to roads, bridges, and private property was estimated at about £30,000. Several lives were lost, amongst them that of Lieutenant Oliver, of the 12th Regiment, who, while crossing the bridge at the Causeway, Perth, had his horse carried away. The horse swam ashore, but Lieutenant Oliver sank beneath the flood. This was the greatest flood since 1830.
A few murders by natives have already been chronicled for 1861-8. The white man was strong and the black weak, and the question was soon settled. By opening up the north-west country new and determined tribes of aborigines were encountered, whose subjugation, owing to the immense and, in some places inaccessible, area, was difficult and protracted. The native schools, while superintended by earnest, patient teachers, were not successful, and the aborigines in the old settled districts were quickly disappearing under the unuttered death sentence passed by settlement. The prison at Rottnest at this time had annually from fifty to one hundred inmates;
