An Ideal City - A Nation Needs a Capital - Other Australian capitals in 1900

Other Australian capitals in 1900

Sydney

Sydney had been established in 1788 as a convict settlement. Its earliest street pattern was that of a military camp set around Sydney Cove. By 1900 Sydney was a bustling mercantile town distinguished by fine parks and gardens such as Hyde Park and the Botanic Gardens.

Hobart

Hobart Town was established in 1804 on the Derwent River, below Mount Wellington. The town grew slowly until the 1830s and 1840s, with the development of New Town. Hobart was proclaimed a city in 1842. The 1860s saw the erection of many imposing public buildings.

Brisbane

The city of Brisbane, on the banks of the Brisbane River, grew from the penal colony at Moreton Bay, established in 1824. It became a colonial capital in 1859. The architecture of the city was a unique response to the sub-tropical location.

Perth

Perth began as a settlement on the Swan River in 1829, and was Australia’s first colony of free settlers. Proclaimed a city in 1865, it grew rapidly during the gold rushes of the 1890s. Perth Park, set aside as a public reserve, was renamed King’s Park in 1901.

Melbourne

Founded in 1835 and the financial capital of the new nation, ‘Marvellous Melbourne’ was the grandest of the Australian 19th-century colonial capital cities. It had gold, wool and manufacturing to finance its splendid architecture. Built on a grid plan, Melbourne also had significant parklands in the Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens, and the Botanic Gardens alongside the Yarra River. Elegant Collins Street was an antipodean version of a Parisian boulevard.

Adelaide

Adelaide boasts the most distinctive town plan of the colonial capitals and one which has guided development to the present day. Colonel William Light surveyed and laid out Adelaide in 1837, and designed a belt of parklands dividing the city centre from North Adelaide. Light’s plan was a model for Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City concept for limited town growth.