Page:Cyclopedia of Western Australia, volume 1.pdf/117

Regulations for the colony were proclaimed. These provided that the territory should be divided into counties, hundreds, townships, and sections; each section to be 640 acres in extent, each township 25 sections, each hundred 4 townships, and each county 16 hundreds. In each county 600 sections were reserved by the Government for public expenses, educational support and endowment, cost of public works, and the administration of justice. Land was not to be open to location until surveyed, and was then to be granted only in complete sections. No allotment was to have river frontage of more than one-fourth its exterior boundary. No second location was to be granted to any person who had not fulfilled the conditions of improvement with regard to the first, and no grant was to be made to indentured servants or to persons coming to the colony at the expense of others. Three square miles w'ere reserved as the site of the town of Perth: these were to be split up into allotments of nine to ten acres each, to be held, according to instructions from the Colonial Office, on a twenty-one years' lease, with the right of the Government to resume if necessary for public purposes upon paying compensation, these leases to become freehold if not resumed within the period stated, and to carry at all times the right of sale or assignment. They were also to be subject to such rates as the Government might deem necessary to impose. The same conditions were to prevail with regard to Fremantle. Persons possessing land in the settlement at large were to have the right to a free grant in the vicinity of a township in the ratio of one acre for every 1,000 acres held by them. The general conditions as to the assessment of property upon which land would be granted and the quantity to be so granted, as laid down in the Colonial Office circular of January, 1829, were incorporated, and the following mode of procedure for taking up grants was laid down:—

"All persons who may be desirous to receive allotments of land are to make application to the Lieutenant-Governor according to a form which will be furnished to them at the office of the Colonial Secretary. If the application be admissible, it will be referred to the Board of Commissioners for the management of Crown property, who will report to the Lieutenant-Governor the extent of land to which the applicant may appear to be entitled, upon a strict examination into the value and description of property imported by him.

"The kinds of property on which claims may be founded are only such as are applicable to the improvement and cultivation of land, or necessary in placing the settler on his location; and the value thereof will be estimated by the Commissioners according to such fair standard of reference as they may see fit to adopt.

"On receiving the report of the Board the Lieutenant-Governor will accord permission to the applicant to proceed to select such land, to the extent recommended, as may suit his particular views, and having selected, the applicant is to make his selection known to the Surveyor-General by filling up the form which may be attached to the permission to select. This report of selection will be examined by the Surveyor-General and transmitted by him to the Lieutenant-Governor, with such remarks as may be necessary to enable the Lieutenant-Governor to decide on the propriety of the allotment being made, and if no prior claim to the land in question or other objection exist the applicant will receive a grant thereof, in the usual form of a primary conveyance.

"Land thus granted will belong in perpetuity to the grantee, his heirs, and assigns, to be held in free and common sociage, subject, however, to such reservations and conditions as may be stated in the conveyance."

Then follows the description of the liabilities in the way of rates and taxes to which the land is to be subject, and the provision that no settler could, without special permission, sell his land until he had improved it to the extent of 1s. 6d. per acre.

With regard to the kinds of property on which land could be granted it may be mentioned that one settler claimed an allotment on the ground that he possessed a half-share in a pair of rabbits!

The surveys of the town sites of Perth and Fremantle were quickly completed and on September 5 the first allotments were taken up. In Perth the purchasers, either on leasehold or in fee simple, were F. C. Irwin (the officer commanding the troops), Rev. J. B. Wittenoom (the Colonial Chaplain), May Hodges, George Leake, and P. P. Smith; in Fremantle the first allotments fell to William Lamb, John Hobbs, Lionel Samson, and Thomas Bannister. There was only one other lot sold in Fremantle in 1829, the purchaser being John Bateman, but in Perth there was more demand. There we find that during the remaining months of the year land was either leased or sold to John Septimus Roe (the Surveyor-General), Dr. Simmons, Wm. Shaw, John Morrell, John Tichbon, Thomas Davis, William Hoking, Thomas Bannister, James Henty, James McDermott, Samuel Cox, Richard Jones, Hugh Macdonald, David Paterson, George Embleton, William Leeder, Henry Trigg, William Nairne, Robert M. Lyon, and C. Browne.

In addition to making the necessary surveys in Perth and Fremantle Lieutenant Roe was able, during the first three months after his arrival, to make surveys of the surrounding country sufficiently accurate for the purpose of making grants in accordance with the regulations. The first of these, as shown by the records, were made on September 29 to the following grantees: R. H. Bland, 8,000 acres; Peter Brown (Colonial Secretary), 5,000 acres; Charles Boyd, 640 acres; W.