Two of the earliest books printed in Perth, Western Australia in 1841 and 1843

1. Report on the statistics of Western Australia in 1840; With Observations. By the Colonial Committee of Correspondence [and]

2. Journal of the Agricultural & Horticultural Society of Western Australia for the year 1842. Volume the First [all published]

Perth, Western Australia, Francis Lochee, 1841 [and] 1843.

1.: 44, xxix pp., [1 p. errata], lacking the folding statistical table. With a printer's device on the title page: a Masonic emblem with Lochee's initials inside a heart and with three Masonic crosses radiating from the heart centre.

2.: 52 pp, lxii pp., with errata slip bound in at end.

In a contemporary half calf volume with gilt spine title: 'Tracts miscelan. 5'. Spine rubbed, bottom spine end frayed, corners bumped, some staining to boards. Internally, some mild browning here and there, else very good.

Bookplate of George's Meeting Congregational Library, Colyton (Devon) on inside upper board. The volume also contains ten English tracts on farming (incl. the scarce The Cottage Farmer, by Edward Lance, ca. 1842); the Corn Laws (several by the Anti-Corn-Law League incl. the scarce and important Tenant farmers and farm labourers. Speech in the House of Commons 12 March 1844 by Richard Cobden, a co-founder of the League); as well as tracts on education.

The 1841 Report and 1843 Journal are the fifth and seventh book printed and published in Perth, Western Australia.

The 1841 Report offers a most comprehensive account of the Swan River settlement with chapters on the physical description and boundaries of the settlement, on roads, the Aboriginal people (2 ½ pp. by George Fletcher Moore, author of several articles on Aborigines and of an Aboriginal vocabulary), religion, crime, agriculture (incl. Annual reports of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society, incl. the York branch, with the Governor's replies), shipping, commerce, finance, the bank, land, labour, colonisation, Australind, naval timber, petitions, list of public departments and officials. The appendix is largely devoted to 19 pages of sailing directions by Surveyor-General John Septimus Roe.

The 1843 Journal contains a list of office bearers of the society, rules, reports, statistical tables, the first report of the Registrar-General, meteorological tables, remarks on the Aborigines (2 pp. by Charles Symmons), on citrus trees (9 pp. by W. Tanner), iron ore (2 pp. by J. W. Gregory), wool, lime, horticulture, as well as minutes of annual and quarterly meetings, (incl. York branch and Vineyard Society), a wage table (noting that 'for printers there is no certain employment'), a price table for agricultural produce, and a 20-page Chronicle of the principal events - essentially the first history of Western Australia. * The publisher of these books, Francis Lochee (1811-1893), was a lawyer, editor and banker, the descendant of a Huguenot family. He sailed to Western Australia in the Britomart in 1838. Governor John Hutt became a close friend and persuaded him to become the first Freemason initiated in the Colony. In 1846 Lochee became manager of the Western Australian Bank, a position he held until 1889.

The 1841 Report is inscribed 'George's Congregational Library, Colyton, from W. Tanner'. William Tanner (1801 - 1845), a wealthy gentleman agriculturalist, emigrated to Western Australia with his wife Hester and their six-month old baby. They arrived on the Drummore on 1 February 1831 with 31 servants and labourers. He was granted 35,000 acres on the Swan River. The Tanners visited England in 1837/38, returning in the Britomart with Francis Lochee as fellow passenger. Together they pursued farming ventures and began the publication of the weekly journal 'The Inquirer' from 1840. In 1843 he contributed an article on citrus trees to the Journal of the Agric. and Hort. Soc. (see above). Poor health and a financial recession forced William Tanner to return to England in 1844. He died at Colyton, Devon the following year (see Application to be registered as the Proprietor of an Estate by his granddaughter, printed in The West Australian on 8 October 1900).