Crawley is an affluent western suburb of

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

, the

capital city A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, Department (country subdivision), department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. Whole area is part of the

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a State (administrative division), state, province, divi ...

of the

City of Perth A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

and previously shared between the

City of Subiaco The City of Subiaco is a local government area in Western Australia. It covers an area of approximately 7 km² in inner western metropolitan Perth and lies about 3 km west of the Perth CBD. The City includes the historically working- ...

and City of Perth. It is about from the

Perth CBD Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

via

Mounts Bay Road Mounts Bay Road is a major road in Perth, Western Australia, extending southwest from the central business district along the north bank of the Swan River, at the base of Kings Park. Route description Mounts Bay Road runs between William Str ...

. The earlier name of the locality was Crawley Park. It was named by an early landowner Henry Charles Sutherland, whose mother's maiden name was Crawley. It is home to the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

, the state's oldest

university A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

River-side features

The

Crawley Edge Boatshed The Crawley Edge Boatshed, commonly referred to as the Blue Boat House, is a boathouse located on the Swan River at Crawley in Perth, Western Australia. A well known landmark, the boatshed was built in the 1930s, and since the 1940s has been ...

is a well-recognised and frequently photographed site in Crawley. It is thought to have been originally constructed in the early 1930s. It has changed hands several times, and after being refurbished in the early 2000s, it was re-launched by triple solo-circumnavigator of the world,

Jon Sanders Jon Sanders (born 1939Jon Sanders was sixty six in 2005 in Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian yachtsman. Early years Born to Colsell Sanders, a professor at the University of Western Australia, and Dorothy Lucie Sanders, a well-kno ...

, and single solo-circumnavigator

David Dicks David Griffiths Dicks, OAM, CitWA, (born 6 October 1978) is an Australian sailor. He became the youngest person to sail non-stop and solo around the world. In February 1996, at the age of 17, he set out from Fremantle, Western Australia in his ...

. A statue called ''

Eliza ELIZA is an early natural language processing computer program created from 1964 to 1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph Weizenbaum. Created to demonstrate the superficiality of communication between humans and machines, E ...

'' is also located in

Matilda Bay Matilda Bay or Crawley Bay (known originally as Currie's Bay, then Sutherland's Bay) is a natural bay in the Swan River in Western Australia, adjacent to the Perth suburb of Crawley. It extends from Pelican Point to Mounts Bay Road below Kin ...

in the Swan River, in Crawley. Created by Tony and Ben Jones, the statue was unveiled on 15 October 2007, to commemorate

Crawley Baths Crawley Baths was a public swimming facility, in Matilda Bay, near Crawley, Western Australia along Mounts Bay Road. The timber structure was opened on 7 February 1914. The opening ceremony was conducted by Premier John Scaddan and included a s ...

's prime competition and recreational swimming venue from 1914-1964. ''Eliza'' is often dressed up in clothing to represent special occasions. The

Royal Perth Yacht Club The Royal Perth Yacht Club (RPYC) is a yacht club in Perth, Western Australia. It is the third oldest yacht club in Australia after the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria and the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

re-established on the shore of Pelican Point in Crawley after moving from its location in Perth, in 1953.

World War flying boat base

The Swan River at Crawley was utilised before the war as a

flying boat A flying boat is a type of fixed-winged seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in that a flying boat's fuselage is purpose-designed for floatation and contains a hull, while floatplanes rely on fusela ...

landing location. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the bay in the Swan River at Crawley was the location of a flying boat base, for

Patrol Wing A Patrol Wing (PatWing) was a United States Navy aviation unit with the commander of a Patrol Wing known as the Commodore, the ComPatWing or COMPATWING. From 1 November 1942 to 30 June 1973 Patrol Wings were designated "Fleet Air Wings". On 26 Mar ...

10, which had to leave

Surabaya Surabaya ( jv, ꦱꦸꦫꦧꦪ or jv, ꦯꦹꦫꦨꦪ; ; ) is the capital city of the Provinces of Indonesia, Indonesian province of East Java and the List of Indonesian cities by population, second-largest city in Indonesia, after Jakarta. L ...

in Java. The base was also known as Pelican Point due to the feature in the river being the defining and identifiable location from the air, at the end of the bay. After the war the base was decommissioned, following opposition to a plan to re-develop and expand it. It was also the start point for

The Double Sunrise The Double Sunrise service was formed in 1943 to re-establish the Australia–England air link that had been cut due to the fall of Singapore in 1942. The service initially operated from its base in Nedlands, Western Australia near Perth, to th ...

squadron, which was formed in 1943 to keep the air route between Australia and the United Kingdom open.

Population

In the 2016

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

, there were 4,095 people in Crawley. 35.6% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were China 15.8%, Singapore 7.1%, Malaysia 5.1%, England 3.5% and Indonesia 3.1%. 47.9% of people spoke only English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 19.3%, Cantonese 3.6% and Indonesian 2.9%. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 42.0% and Catholic 11.9%. The median age is 24, much younger than WA's median as well as national, which are 36 and 38 respectively. CC-BY icon

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These UWA residential colleges are located in this suburb: St Catherine's College, St George's College, St Thomas More College, Trinity Residential College and University Hall.

River-side features

World War flying boat base

Population

References

Further reading