The Perth Town Hall, situated on the corner of

Hay Hay is grass, legumes, or other herbaceous plants that have been cut and dried to be stored for use as animal fodder, either for large grazing animals raised as livestock, such as cattle, horses, goats, and sheep, or for smaller domesticat ...

and

Barrack Barracks are usually a group of long buildings built to house military personnel or laborers. The English word originates from the 17th century via French and Italian from an old Spanish word "barraca" ("soldier's tent"), but today barracks are u ...

streets in

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 ...

, Western Australia, is the only

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

built by

convicts A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. Upon completion it was the tallest structure in Perth.

History

Richard Roach Jewell Richard Roach Jewell (1810 in Barnstaple, Devon, England – 1891 in Perth, Western Australia) was an architect who designed many of the important public buildings in Perth during the latter half of the nineteenth century. He was employed to sup ...

and James Manning in the Victorian Free Gothic style, the hall was built by

convict A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former convict ...

s and free men between 1867 and 1870. Its decorations contain a number of convict motifs, including windows in the shape of the

broad arrow A broad arrow, of which a pheon is a variant, is a stylised representation of a metal arrowhead, comprising a tang and two barbs meeting at a point. It is a symbol used traditionally in heraldry, most notably in England, and later by the Britis ...

, and decorations in the shape of a hangman's rope. The foundation stone for Perth Town Hall was laid on 24 May 1867 by Governor Hampton in a ceremony involving a lot of pomp and parade. However, there were torrential downpours. The ceremony went on anyway with an official procession from Government House and a mock battle performed by the Volunteer Regiments, Enrolled Forces of Pensioners, and the WA Country Regiment. HAY ST

In the 1929 centenary of Western Australia one of the events in the city of Perth was the placing of a commemorative plaque in the northwest corner of the building by the Governor Sir William Campion. For many decades in the 20th century, shops were built into the sides of the ground floor, and the public lavatories accessible from Barrack Street were the only ones available for some distance. The shops included a pharmacy, bank, lunch bar and other shops. All these businesses and the attendant structures were removed prior to the renovation of the hall. At the time of its centenary in 1970,Phelps, Delys (1969) ''100 years : a history of the Perth Town Hall'' originally printed in the

Royal Western Australian Historical Society Royal Western Australian Historical Society has for many decades been the main association for Western Australians to collectively work for adequate understanding and protection of the cultural heritage of Perth and Western Australia. It was fou ...

's Journal. - reprinted by the Perth city council in 1970 the ground floor was still full of commercial businesses. The Town Hall was restored in the late 1990s at the base in an award-winning

restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

to repair the interior of the hall and the

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

es at its base, which were "modernised" in the middle of the 20th century.

References

External links

Town Hall fact page, City of Perth

Pre-1910 photo showing original arches
* (including 1980s photo showing 20th century alterations) {{Cinemas in Western Australia Town halls in Western Australia Buildings and structures built by convicts in Western Australia State Register of Heritage Places in the City of Perth Landmarks in Perth, Western Australia Gothic Revival architecture in Perth, Western Australia Victorian architecture in Western Australia Government buildings completed in 1870 Cultural infrastructure completed in 1870 Cathedral Square, Perth City of Perth 1870 establishments in Australia Clock towers in Australia