Sir Frederick Weld GCMG Governor 1869-74.
Escape of John Boyle O'Reilly.
February. Arrival of HRH the Duke of Edinburgh in HMS Galatea, staying as a guest of the harbourmaster, Lieutenant Croke, R.N., under whom he had formerly sailed as a midshipman.
21 June. Telegraph line to Perth opened, the first office being an old cottage standing back from the road at the rear of where the Madrid Restaurant now stands in High Street. The first operator was W. Holman, who had been an officer of Mrs. Habgood’s barque Zephyr, and the first messenger was WT John, then a boy. The first telegraph cadet was Horace Stirling who was appointed to take charge of the Fremantle office. He was afterwards closely allied with telegraph extension throughout the State and was a keen observer and a well known historian. In April, 1871, the Government bought out Stirling and Fleming, by whom the line had been constructed.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 6 August, 2015 and hosted at freotopia.org/timeline/1869.html (it was last updated on 19 December, 2018), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.