Swan River Mechanics' Institute

Established on 21 January 1851, the Swan River Mechanics' Institute was the Swan River Colony's first cultural centre. In time it was to house an extensive and well-used subscription library and a natural history collection including botanical, zoological and mineral specimens. In 1909 it was renamed Perth Literary Institute. The institute was located on the south-west corner of Pier and Hay Streets in Perth.

Its founding president was Surveyor-General John Septimus Roe, who held the position until his death in 1878. Other officers included Joseph Hamblin (Chairman), Bernard Smith (Treasurer) and Harry Hughes (Secretary). Roe's botanical collection which was kept at the institute won him membership of the Linnean Society of London. The second president was Sir Luke Leake who held the position until his death in 1886.

Although ostensibly formed for the educational benefit of the working classes, the Mechanics' Institute was mostly dominated and sponsored by men of the middle class and tended to pursue mostly literary goals as well as providing a recreational facility for that group. Hay describes the activities: "the educated gentry 'improved' the workers through the medium of occasional lectures, discussion classes which emerged from literary meetings, the establishment of a reading room and a project to build a scientific museum". Institute rules prevented discussion of current political issues; in 1856 a carpenter by the name of Joseph Chester was expelled from the Institute for criticising government policies.

The Swan River Mechanics' Institute was the first such organisation formed in the colony, followed closely by the Fremantle Mechanics Institute on 8 August 1851. Other mechanics' institutes were formed in Albany in 1853, Busselton and York in 1861, Guildford (as a branch of the Swan River Mechanics' Institute) in 1862, Greenough in 1865, Northam and Toodyay in 1866, and Bunbury in 1867.Ex-convicts were unacceptable Mechanics' Institute members and hence a number of alternative Working Men's Associations arose in the 1860s which catered for working classes. Membership was by subscription, and required no qualification other than that the applicant be a respectable member of the community.

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