Due to it’s mention by Karl Marx in “Das Kapital”, the Swan River Colony is remembered has a failure. Yet almost every stamp of the successor Western Australia colony has a swan on it. The survivors of the Swan Colony proved themselves hardy men however, so why shouldn’t the descendants want them remembered. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
Of the 123 stamp issues of Western Australia, 6 of them do not have a portrait of a swan. The 6 others all featured Queen Victoria. During this period there were a lot of Aborigine and after the time of the Swan River Colony a lot of UK convicts arrived. So a fairly small swath of the population is being represented by the swan. Apparently influential, and it is not like all those in the American West come from cowboy stock. The black swan is native to Australia but the colony began at the mouth of the Swan River.
Todays stamp is issue A10, a 2 Pence stamp issued by the British Colony of Western Australia in 1890. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $3.00 used. If the same stamp was unused, the value goes to $37.50. This shows that even in a small colony, stamps could be printed for use rather than just revenue generation.
It is thought that the aborigine indigenous people arrived in Western Australia 40,000 years ago when sea levels were much lower. I have never understood how proclaimed indigenous people can arrive. There is no doubt that the there first title is theirs however. The first European was Dutch Explorer Dirk Hartog in 1616. He kindly left a plaque on a post before he left. Much of the early European exploration including Hartog were sailing ships headed for the Dutch colony at Batavia,(modern day Jakarta) but blown off course. The first British claim to the area was made in 1791 by George Vancouver, the Royal Navy Captain more famous for his work on the northwest North American coast.
In the early 19th century, the British worried of France establishing a colony in western Australia. New South Wales sent a small detachment of soldiers, administrators, and convicts in 1826. The going was rough as the area was very dry with few sources of fresh water. After a survey British Captain James Sterling returned to Britain and promoted the area as a free colony. This meant not convicts with land granted to British colonists agreeing to the adventure. The Swan River mouth was thought the best place for the water.
New South Wales sent out a party to check on the colony and reported back that they had found a few near starving people but that the new colony had been abandoned. This was not true. Most of the colonist ships coming from Britain rerouted to other parts of Australia. A few ships still came and the colony struggled on finally getting sheep herding established.
In 1850 the Swan River Colony was reorganized as Western Australia and the large scale importation of convicts began. This was used as an example by Karl Marx that a dependent labour class was necessary for a capitalist colony to work. History suggests that Marx had a valid and damming point. The Western Australian Colony was also helped along by the discovery of gold. The colony had 100,000 residents when it joined Australia in 1901. Aborigine were not counted in the early censuses, but I am not sure if modern reporting adjusts the old census to include guesses of the number of Aborigine.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another while imagining the hardship and adventure of the Swan River Colony. Take a listen to the old Zombies song “Imagine the Swan”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1CIjBHKsUI . Bet the Zombies didn’t realize they were singing about Australia, but the lyrics work. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.