WAPlanned settlement
Kelmscott
One of the Swan River Colony’s earliest townsites.
1830Townsite founded on the Canning River
WHAT STARTED IT
Kelmscott straddles the Canning River where the coastal plain meets the Darling Scarp. Governor Stirling’s exploring party chose a town site on the Canning in November 1829, and in 1830 the new town was named Kelmscott, after the Oxfordshire birthplace of Archdeacon Thomas Scott.
WHAT SUSTAINED IT
A soldiers’ barracks was the first building, and the town became a stopping place on the road south: from 1836 a new route, King George’s Sound Road, ran from Kelmscott to Albany. It remained the district’s main town, giving its name to the Kelmscott Roads Board, until Armadale grew around the railway in the 1890s.
TURNING POINTS
1830The Colonial Secretary directs on 30 June that the town to be laid out on the Canning be named Kelmscott.
1834Kelmscott is listed among the colony’s townsites in new rules for selling town allotments.
1836A new road, King George’s Sound Road, is built from Kelmscott to Albany.
1894The Kelmscott Roads Board is created; it first meets in March 1895.
2011Bushfires in the Kelmscott and Roleystone area on 6 February destroy or badly damage 72 homes.
WHAT IT DOES NOW
A south-eastern suburb of Perth in the City of Armadale, spreading across the Canning River from the plain up into the scarp. Albany Highway, the old road south, runs past its shopping areas.