Royal Harbour, Oyster Harbour and the coast as far as Bald Island, to the east. During this visit, the Casaurina was beached in Princess Royal Harbour for repairs.
Australian-born explorer Phillip Parker King visited King George Sound in 1822 on the Bathurst.
On 26 October 1826, Frenchman Dumont d'Urville in the L'Astrolabe visited King George Sound before sailing along the south coast to Port Jackson.
Later in 1826, on Christmas Day, a British Army expedition, led by Major Edmund Lockyer arrived on the Amity, from Sydney, and founded a military base. Lockyer rescued Aboriginal women from offshore islands, who had been kidnapped by sealers operating in the Great Australian Bight as sexual slaves, and apprehended the culprits, sending them east to stand trial. As a result, the local Minang Noongar organised a corroboree in his honour, cementing the good relationships established earlier between local Aboriginal groups of the area and European explorers.
On 7 March 1831 the King George Sound and colony was made part of the Swan River Colony and a free settlement.
Albany was officially named by Governor Stirling at the beginning of 1832, at the time that political authority passed to the Swan River colony. It is named after Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, and son of King George III.
Albany was also the final destination in 1841 of explorer Edward John Eyre, after being the first person to reach Western Australia by land from the East (Adelaide).
Until the opening of the Port of Fremantle in 1900, Albany was also home to the only deep-water port in Western Australia, Princess Royal Harbour. This is the largest natural harbour in Western Australia and also on the entire south coast of the Australian mainland, outside of Melbourne. This facility meant that, for many years, the first port of call for the mail from England was at Albany. This put Albany in a privileged position over Perth and it remained that way
