Albany became the first settlement in Western Australia, known in its early days as Frederickstown, with the arrival of Major Edmund Lockyer and a contingent of convicts, soldiers, a surgeon and storekeeper in the brig Amity on Christmas Day, 1826.

Today Albany is a thriving regional centre and popular tourist destination, boasting many wonderful, well preserved buildings from earlier times; so well preserved in fact that they are still in use today.