The first recorded European contact was in 1616, when Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog landed on the west coast, having been blown off course while en route to Batavia, current day Jakarta.

An expedition on behalf of the New South Wales colonial government, led by Major Edmund Lockyer,[2] landed at King George Sound, and founded what became the port city of Albany.

The desire of Western Australians to revert to complete self-governance, separate from the Commonwealth, culminated in 1933 with a successful referendum for secession supported by 68% of electors.

[citation needed] In 1999 Charles Dortch identified chert and calcrete flake stone tools, found at Rottnest Island, as possibly dating to at least 50,000 years ago.

[6][7] A 2018 study using archaeobotany dated evidence of continuous human habitation at Karnatukul (Serpent's Glen) in the Carnarvon Range in the Little Sandy Desert from around 50,000 years ago.

[citation needed] Aboriginal people were well established throughout Western Australia by the time European ships started accidentally arriving en route to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the early 17th century.

An army detachment was sent from Sydney headed by Major Edmund Lockyer with eighteen soldiers, one captain, one doctor, one storekeeper and twenty-three convicts.

[2] On 21 January 1827, the whole of Australia was claimed as British territory for the first time when Major Lockyer formally annexed the western portion of the continent in a ceremony on King George Sound.

[2] In March 1831, the penal settlement was withdrawn, and the control of King George's Sound was transferred from New South Wales to the Swan River Colony.

[18] Major towns of the colony developed slowly into the port city of Fremantle, the main settlement of Perth 20 kilometres (12 mi) upriver, and Guildford.

While Western Australia was initially a "free settlement", economic problems for settler capitalists led them to seek the transportation of British convicts.

John Forrest led two major expeditions: In 1872, controversial explorer Peter Egerton Warburton made a journey from Alice Springs to the Western Australian coast.

An Act granting self-government was passed by the British Parliament in 1890, giving the Colony independence from the UK in matters other than foreign policy, defence and "native affairs".

Governor Broome had earlier warned the British Colonial Office that Western Australians could not to be trusted in matters relating to Aboriginal persons.

He travelled by train from Albany to Perth and towns en route lit bonfires and people gathered at railway sidings to celebrate his arrival and the new constitution.

In the late 19th century there was talk of the gold-rich region around Kalgoorlie seceding from Western Australia, as a colony or state called Auralia.

[23] In 1899, Forrest succeeded unilaterally passing the Constitution Amendment Act, taking control of Aboriginal Affairs without approval of the British House of Commons.

However, Western Australia was reluctant to join the union, doing so only after they were offered a five-year transitional period on inter-state tariffs and a transcontinental railway line.

It was not to recover until after World War II when the Federal Government's postwar immigration policy saw a huge influx of migrants, nearly all of them from Europe, in the period 1947 to 1970.