Electoral district of West Perth

West Perth Western Australia—Legislative Assembly
State	Western Australia
Dates current	1890–1962
Namesake	North Perth
Demographic	North Metropolitan

The Electoral district of West Perth was a Legislative Assembly electorate in the state of Western Australia. The district was named for its location immediately to the west of the central business district of Perth.

West Perth was created as one of the initial 30 single-member districts, and one of only six in the Perth-Fremantle area,^[1] and its first member, elected in 1890, was Timothy Quinlan, a Perth city councillor and publican at the Shamrock Hotel. Quinlan became embroiled in a controversy regarding provision of state aid to private schools, which he and fellow Catholic MLAs Thomas Molloy and Alfred Canning supported. The Catholic Vicar General, Father Anselm Bourke, established the Education Defence League with their assistance. However, the issue became a major one in the 1894 election amongst the voting public, and all three MLAs lost their seats, Quinlan losing to former Fremantle mayor Barrington Wood.^[2] Wood was defeated in the 1901 elections by George Leake, the former opposition leader who was able to form a ministry and become the third Premier of Western Australia. The seat had several other notable members—the first female member of Parliament in Western Australia, Edith Cowan; the Attorney-General in the second Mitchell Ministry, Thomas Davy, who was widely considered to be leadership material until his death while playing cards at the Savoy Hotel in 1933, and Robert Ross McDonald, the leader of the Nationalist Party from 1938 until 1946 and one of the key architects of the Western Australian division of the Liberal Party, established in 1945.

The seat was generally safe for non-Labor candidates and parties throughout its existence, although a redistribution following the abolition of the seat of Perth prior to the 1950 election, which extended the seat east to Barrack Street, enabled Labor to hold the seat for its final three terms. Its final member, Stanley Heal, successfully transferred to the recreated seat of Perth following West Perth's abolition in a redistribution in 1961 ahead of the 1962 election

Members for West Perth

Member		Party	Term
	Timothy Quinlan	Non-aligned	1890–1894
	Barrington Wood	Ministerialist	1894–1901
	George Leake	Oppositionist	1901–1902
	Charles Moran	Independent	1902–1905
	Frederick Illingworth	Ministerialist	1905–1907
	Thomas Draper	Ministerialist	1907–1911
	Eben Allen	Liberal	1911–1917
	Thomas Draper	Nationalist	1917–1921
	Edith Cowan	Nationalist	1921–1924
	Thomas Davy	Nationalist	1924–1933
	Robert Ross McDonald	Nationalist	1933–1945
		Liberal	1945–1949
		Liberal Country League	1949–1950
	Joseph Totterdell	Liberal Country League	1950–1953
	Stanley Heal	Labor	1953–1962

References

1. de Garis, Brian (1981). "Self-government and the evolution of party politics". In Stannage, C.T. A New History of Western Australia. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press. p. 336. ISBN 0-85564-170-3.
2. de Garis (1981), p.342-343.