ABSTRACT
In 1891, the first stage of a substantial museum, art gallery and library complex was opened in Perth, Western Australia. The collection gathered together and displayed geological material, indigenous artefacts, local and imported flora and fauna, and reproductions of European artworks. Curatorial and governmental aims of the institution were exemplified as creating a broad network of relationships between wealth, imperial culture and the instruction of its population. Such civic institutions were thereby crucial to the invention of local and imperial identities of peoples and places.
