June 1, 2025 • 22 mins
Damian Sheppard- State Records Office -
‘Strange Tales from the Burbs’
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
This is Remember When with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The State Records Office, as you well and truly know,
regularly join us on Remember When to share a few
tales from the state archives with us. And this week
we welcome back Damian Shepherd, State Archivist, to talk about
some strange tales from the archives about Perths suburbs. Oh,
I'm intrigued, Damien, tell us more savey.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, great to be back with you and your listeners. Yeah,
my team regularly come across some quirky stories about Perth
suburbs and their history, so I thought we'd explore some
of those tonight. I've got some tales of weird names,
of course, some dodgy behavior in the burbs, and a
nonsolved mystery that we hope your listeners can help out with. Now,
(00:56):
some of these tales are from beyond Perth. I'm cheating
a little bit, so apologies in advance for any implications
that everywhere in WA is a suburb of Perth, because
of course it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
As a big state, indeed it is. And you know,
I must have known, I must have had a premonition
you were going to talk about something like this, because
it was only on the show last week that I
passed the comment that, you know, we live in one
of the most wonderful places on earth, and we generally
live in a suburb, and I wonder how much do
we know about that suburb, why it was called, what
(01:29):
it was called, and who was it named after? And
I think you know that I don't think we know
enough about our own backyard, if I can put it
that way.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I know what you mean, and the history of our suburbs,
and there's some there surrounds, sometimes some very interesting names,
of course, and I think you've been talking about that
with listeners as part of other conversations, but it's definitely
a favorite for clients that the State records offered. So
these days, I guess listeners are probably aware that there's
(01:58):
a careful process to formal name places across way. It's
overseen by what's called the Geographic Names Committee, and that
was actually established way back in nineteen thirty six as
the Advisory Committee on the Nomenclature of Towns after approaches
the government from the WA Historical Society, and the chair
of that original committee was doctor J. S. Batti, who
(02:22):
was also the State Librarian, and by nineteen thirty six,
he was also the chancellor of the University WA and
Chairman of the State Archives. Boord so busy chap fascinating
history of his own that perhaps we could buil about
some other time. But before nineteen thirty six, naming places
was what you might kindly call a bit of a
free for all. So I was sort of leading to
(02:43):
some pretty interesting place names, sometimes not actually, and basically
people just made up the names and they ended up
being used if they sort of stuck through common usage.
So there's some pretty good examples. And I'm going to
cheat a little bit and go outside per first, but
we'll come back. So way down near Denmark that's in
WA of course, not a per suburb, but there were
(03:04):
two places that went by the names of Hell's Hole
and another one called Cold and Wet. Now they might
have been astutely named, particularly Cold and Where, I guess,
but it seems the locals weren't so keen on that name.
So by nineteen twenty three, before there was a geographic
names committee, the Denmark Tourist Association decided to rename Hell's
Hole to Somerset Hill, which I'm sure would be familiar
(03:27):
to quite a lot of our listeners tonight, and there
was the place called Cold and Wet was actually on
the Denmark railway line, and thats just died right up
until nineteen ten. All the place exist, of course, but
the name was still used up to nineteen ten, and
it was named It was renamed marty Up for a while,
then to Yonger and then finally to Burnham, which people
(03:49):
again might be familiar with. Now heading a little bit
further north, we near Bunbury, there was a place known
for a while as wood Wood, which is one of
my favorites. That was home to a hindermill for quite
a while, and apparently it had a reputation for a
super tough game of footy, apparently more fighting than gameplay,
and some pretty wild Saturday night dancing. Must have been
(04:10):
quite a place to visit. And then further north again
at mandra as the little old town of the first
half of last century transitioned to the big one that
we know today from around the nineteen seventies. It's interesting
to see not necessarily the place name, but the local
road names as well. That's a whole nother story, of course,
but some of the roads there start getting this Italian flavor.
(04:33):
So we've got the Baldy Drive and Galileo Loop. Hello
if you live on those I guess you could see
a connection today with the canal development, evoking a sort
of Venetian feel if you like. So back in Perth
proper probably our favorite at the SORI, and some listeners
might be familiar with this one. The part of Maylands
was actually known for about one hundred years as Pineapple
(04:56):
or the Pineapple Estate. The backstory is that apparently one
of the earliest that was bought a pineapple to Perth.
Don't think it too much of that now, but back
then perhaps that was more exotic days before modern quarantine laws,
and they cultivated them in the area. So kind of
got this name which stuck for quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well better dead. It was a symbol of wealth. If
you had a pineapple, you were well off way back
in the day. Interestingly enough, Damian, you mentioned that place
names would sometimes come about because they got repeated and
they stuck, but sometimes through to today, there's plenty of
disagreement about naming. Do you see any of that in
(05:36):
your archives?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, absolutely, we sure do. And look, it still hits
the news, doesn't it. When places sort of get renamed.
It's human nature after all, to have different opinions. So
turning to connections from the suburbs to Perth City, in
nineteen fifty three, there were calls to rename the Causeway
as the Willem Debauning Causeway, and that was competing with
a call at the same time from the RSL to
(06:00):
the Queen's Causeway, along with Riverside Drive as Elizabeth Drive,
just ahead of the Queen's visit to Wa in nineteen
sixty four. And it's really interesting to think about than
how naming sort of played out more recently with Elizabeth
Key of course. And then there's also a statue of
William de Blaming near what we still call the causeway
(06:22):
on the Burswood Park Herriage Charm. I'm sure people have
passed him by. Back then, most people coming to w
A were still coming from the UK, so local place
names tended to follow from the old country if you
call it that. Safety Bay south of Perth, for example,
was set to be renamed or set to be named Liverpool.
And there were countless Yorks and Margaret Rivers all over
(06:43):
the state for a long time, so they didn't really
have that sort of uniqueness to them. Over time, apparently
there were about one hundred Yorks, but there's only one
caliberon and so the interesting thing is around the time
you get federation, the use of Aboriginal names becomes much
more popular, although they are often weren't true to the
actual words and used by original people. They were translations,
(07:04):
of course, made by often by surveyors moving through a
country and asking local Aboriginal people what they called features
in the landscape, maybe a bend in the river, the
valley or a hill. A really good example is Cawgolei,
so not imperfectain. But back in eighteen ninety four the
Lands Department proposed to call it hanans Fined for obvious reasons,
(07:25):
and that Cabina actually overruled that, opting for the name Calgoli,
which derives apparently from the optional name for the native
silkie pair that car cooler. So early adoption of those names,
which have a much more sort of unique flavor to them.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
They do. Indeed, now you mentioned dodgy behavior in Perth suburbs.
Have you found much about that in your archives?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yes, so, I sort of this is quite an interesting one,
and I'm sure there's still some dodgy behavior first ofs
from time. But I have to say, looking at the archives,
it seems we've got nothing on the last couple of centuries,
so maybe we've actually improved a little bit in our behavior.
But I'm going to go to the old police records now.
They are really quite fascinating, and I hate to single
(08:08):
out any particular suburb, of course, but have to start somewhere.
So that's going to be Bayswater. Apologies for the Basy folks.
So looking at the police files from about one hundred
years ago, so we're going back to the twenties and thirties,
there are reports of regular nude bathing in the river.
Might be a bitchually a bit at the tub, but
you can imagine a time before hot showers than modern bathrooms.
(08:31):
So yeah, imagine you're heading home from work. You've got
a hard summer's day work in the local factory or
probably even a farm in that part of the world,
and there's no air conditioning, so you want to call
off and have a bit of a wash. You're going
to take a wash in the river. Unfortunately, that was
happening right alongside the old pal Mal Promenade in Baisi
(08:52):
offending the young couples taking an evening stroll, probably older
couples too, free sort of frightful things to see. There
this correspondence from the Basy Road Board to the Commissioner
of Police that advises them that they want to nip
this evil in the bud. You know, highly offensive stuff.
But it wasn't the only problem behavior. There are also
(09:13):
reports of children roaming the neighborhood with small rifles and
shooting up sanitary pans. So I guess they're talking about
the outhouses, which I'm sure was great fun for the kids,
but not so much for the occupants of the outhouses. Well,
and that would have been where you've gone if you
were living in those houses didn't have them inside of them.
(09:33):
So according to the archives, people would also take their rifles,
believe it on us, take their rifles up to Kingspark
for a spot of shooting. So it's just absolutely well
things they had a control, really, it doesn't it, mind you.
On the flip side, justice could be pretty harsh back then.
There's this police charge sheet from the Victoria from Victoria
Park in nineteen thirty four, and there's a mugshot of
(09:55):
this poor young guy there. He looks about fifteen, probably
even younger, and with riding a bicycle with no hands,
absolutely criminal offense there. So it sort of worked this
both ways. Back then, in the twenties and thirties, the
population of places like Daisy was nothing like it is today,
and that area was essentially sort of semi rural, so
(10:17):
there was no police station there, and so a lot
of these reports are coming through sort of making a
case for there to be a police station there. In fact,
back then in the twenties and thirties, there was just
one police officer assigned to the district and he was
equipped with a pushbike that was his equipment, and a
police station actually didn't get established there until nineteen fifty five,
a long long time later. So moving down the river
(10:40):
a little bit, we get to Nedlands and Crawley, and
there were back then in that area there was still
only about one hundred and twenty five houses or dwellings
in the area, so very sort of scattered through that area.
But along the river there were these camps. Apparently by
the early twenties they are about eighty camps that have
been set up along the river there where the local
(11:00):
blokes would come in for a weekend getaway and a
few more than a few drinks. So the police report
that these chaps are getting in the words in the
book are beastly drunk and going up to the local
tea rooms and singing that's been terrible. And apparently they
were going about in bare feet, short pants and only
wearing a jersey exclamation mark. By this time there were
(11:23):
also trans of course running through the area, and at
one stage in the nineteen twenties there's this report of
a wild brawl on one of the trams, and that
seems to be the trigger then, so in nineteen twenty one,
Medlands actually get the police station and the report seemed
to sort of quiet down in the archives there. So
just looping back for a moment then to place names.
(11:45):
The interesting thing about Nedlands. People might have heard this,
but you can trace that back to Colonel John Bruce
apparently who acquired land near dal Keith turned the last
century and he gave it to his son Edward, who
he named who called Ned of course, so you probably
guessed that eventually became known as Ned's Land.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Indeed, I never knew that. How about that? As I said,
we've lived in and around these suburbs for a long
time and probably didn't have a clue as how they
came to be called what they were. We're going to
need to take a breakdownan and we'll continue this fascinating
discussion in just to tick until midnight on Perth six PR.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
This is remember when with Harvey Degan.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Welcome back everybody, and we're having a fascinating chat to
Damian Shepherd, state Archivist from the State Records Office, about
the history of some of the suburbs and some of
the outlying areas of Perth and other parts of Western Australia,
how they got to be named what they were and
all those sort of things. And the river of course
has always played a very important role, hasn't it in
(12:56):
our lives here? So what else were people up to?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's right, I guess Perth sort of grew up,
grew out and along the river, particularly in those early days,
so west and east, and the sort of stories in
the archives sort of follow that pattern a little bit.
So by the time he gets to the early in
nineteen hundreds down we conduct the story at Dale Case
before the break So heading back there again, there's this
(13:23):
artesian board that's set in the area, and it comes
to feed into this hot pool there, the Keys Hotpool,
so a bit like Baisy this becomes this popular bathing spot,
and apparently that was clothing optional for some people. So
the local mirror newspaper reports a series of what they
call hijinks, including midnight skinny dips. So this is early
(13:46):
in the very early nineteen hundred, so very off for
the time. It would be pretty pretty bad now, but
this was a time before many people had motor cars,
of course, though there were also these lots more There
are a lot more stories of ferries traveling up and
down the river, and of course there were a lot
more sort of ferry stops up and down the river.
It's really interesting to see it sort of coming back
(14:07):
into public discussion again. But there's this great postcard in
one of the archive files from the Como Jetty in
nineteen twenty two, and it shows this elaborate shelter there
that looks a bit like the sort of Arc de
Triomph or something, but it took us a while to
work out what it was. But it's actually just a
shelter for people there. So you get these fairies traveling
(14:28):
up and down to these spots and they'd go into
the bridges of course, so on the dodgy behavior front,
there are reports in the police files of pickpockets around
the ferry stops. You know, you get a few more people,
so you're going to get the pickpockets there. You can
imagine as we get into depression year at years as well,
pretty tough time. But even reports of children dumping sacks
of wheat or coal dust on ferries as they passed
(14:50):
down the bridges absolutely shocking. But even more worrying reports
of people using dynamite for fishing in places like Como
the nineteen twenty so I can't I can't imagine that
type of fishing was very peaceful and relaxing, well especially
for the fishing course, but absolutely astounding they have a
fair spare stick of dynamite here and there and go
(15:13):
fishing with that. Hard to get your head around.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well yeah, indeed, of course you've brought back some memories
there with the tram stops and phone boxes. You'd never
see a phone box anymore public phone box of course,
they've disappeared over the years, and also some less well
known features. Can you tell us about those damien yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's easy to forget about those things that were once
very familiar to people. I mean a lot of us
will remember things I mentioned phone boxes. We don't see
so many of those these days. But sometimes there are
these kind of mysterious structures as well. I've seen some great,
great stuff. I've read about some great stuff to do
with sort of water towers and things like that. But
often I've thought, what's over the fence there, and you
(15:53):
see this unmarked building, if it's like a historical building,
and you wonder about the history and how important they
are or were back in the day. So we've got
this really interesting story about one of those sort of
structures in the archive. So way back in November nineteen
oh five, there's this young scientist that travels from Perth
from Bremen in Germany to undertake research of international significance
(16:18):
in suburban to Bayswater of all places. It is quite
quite a mystery. So the backstory to this one is
that as the earth rotate, it actually wobbles a little bit,
and there's this international program to measure the sort of
degree of the wobble. Back in the late eighteen ninety
eighteen nineties and they set up this series of international
(16:39):
latitude stations. So they back then they're using nighttime measurements,
they're looking at the stars and they're sort of tracking
how the Earth is moving there. And so two stations
are established in the Southern Hemisphere, one in Argentina and
one in Bayswater and Earth. So the mystery is why Bayswater,
(16:59):
given it's well, it's elevated lightly although person you know,
pretty flat really, and it's at the right latitude, but
we don't quite understand how it came to be with
sort of global importance there, So that's a little bit
of a mystery. So it's at the corner of Hamilton
and Station Street and there's this small observatory that's built there.
(17:21):
So they start these observations back in Berlin and then
they're sort of communicating with doctor Hessen in Perth in
Bayswater there, and he's working away for three years on
doing this. You can just imagine the painstaking sort of
effort he would have gone to. And they're sort of
doing this sort of hand computation as they go. So
(17:41):
perf and based Water are much smaller places than you
can imagine how intrigued the locals would have been seeing
that said up. So there's this German guy working away
at night in this this sort of little shed. And
we've got this one photo that appears in the Western
Male on the fourteenth of April nineteen o six, and
it just looks like this little weatherboard shed. But they
in the photo it's opened up and you can see
(18:01):
like a sort of bud light instrument on a plymph
or a pedestal inside. Must have looked very, very curious. Anyway,
doctor Hesson actually becomes quite well known in the neighborhood
and highly regarded in the scientific community, makes some friends
and is in Perth for a while. But then the
mystery deepens even greater because the day before his Duke
(18:23):
returned to Germany in February nineteen oh nine, he goes
off to Lake munger and tries to take his life
with a revolver. Amazingly, he's able he survives the event,
although he's in this intense pain I can just imagine,
and he managed to communicate with the ground the mayor
and comes to his rescue. So he's only twenty seven
and he recoups recuperates for several months in Perth, and
(18:46):
then sails back to Europe eventually where he continued his work,
but sadly, he did die after a short illness at
the relatively young age still of forty nine, so he
had a few more years there, but did die young.
So it's quite a mysterious story. The reasons for why
he was he was there in that particular location, doing
it at that location, and then his file up actions
(19:09):
quite quite an interesting mystery there. So the one thing
we could say is all of that research did sort
of count to, you know, building scientific knowledge. So that's
that's a that's a nice sort of side to that story.
I guess community continues to be important to this day.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's so interesting, Damon. I think you mentioned the mystery
is the start of the program. What's that all about now?
The others?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, so we've we've had a few little mysteries along
the way there. That one quite a mysterious story. But
I've got I've got one more that patch listeners can
help us with. So a few years ago, our team
at State Records Office ganned and mapped out online a
whole series of historical plans that were drawn up by
what was then the Metropolitan water Works board between nineteen
(19:53):
oint five and the nineteen seventies as part of actually
part of the roll out of the installation of sewerage
scheme through the metropolitan area during the twentieth century. And
it's quite bizarre to see these old maps with a
huge amount of features in them. They've just the amount
of detail is incredible. They've mapped out water features and
(20:15):
everything from chuck pens or fowl yards as they're called
on the maps. They've got our houses of course, lots
of those, minus the poptholes from the local hooligans, pats,
tennis courts, fish ponds, aviaries and the earliest swimming pools.
So well before you know that was kind of established
as a more popular thing in Perth. And this very
(20:39):
mysterious set of underground urinal not quite sure what that
is exactly, probably don't really want to think about it.
That was a bit odd. But the other feature that
we've wandered about is the good old Aussie barbecue and thought, well,
you know, the right time. We're probably past the summer,
but it's interesting time to think about it. So my
challenge and invitation to listeners is to help us there
(21:00):
by visiting this site which we call retro maps. You
can easily just google that. Put retro maps in State
Records Office. You'll find it and see if you can
find barbecue in there, perhaps the Perth first backyard Barbecue.
Let us know if you do find it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Oh, I reckon, our listeners will come good on that one.
They usually do, you know. Oh gosh, and how can
our listeners find out more about what we've talked about tonight, Damien?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, so look, I think listeners might find it quite
interesting to have a bit of a play with retro maps.
So go have look at that. If your house isn't there,
please don't be too distressed. It really is Perth early years.
So these maps were drawn up between nineteen oh five
and the nineteen seventies, so you know that's mostly along
the river, but they do reach quite far up the
(21:49):
river into the eastern suburbs, but not much north and
south unfortunately, but worth a have having a look. And
then from the library collection, going back to the sort
of police for I can recommend Dom Pashley's book from
the year two thousand called Policing Our State, which includes
these sort of fascinating stories of policing from Perth suburbs
(22:09):
in days past. And there's also Dodgy Perth by one
of our clients online fascinating and a great laugh mostly
at ourselves of course, of course, so we're still unearthing
fascinating stories on Perth Path which we'd love to share
through our Facebook page and on our web page under
stories from the Archives. So that's sro WA dot gov.
(22:31):
But are you encourage people to go have a look what.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
A fascinating discussion we've had tonight. Well, you always come
up with something brilliant and you've excelled yourself tonight, Damien.
So thanks for that. And while I look forward and
I know our listeners look forward to the next time
we chat on remember when.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Thanks Harvey, looking forward to it.
This is Remember When with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The State Records Office, as you well and truly know,
regularly join us on Remember When to share a few
tales from the state archives with us. And this week
we welcome back Damian Shepherd, State Archivist, to talk about
some strange tales from the archives about Perths suburbs. Oh,
I'm intrigued, Damien, tell us more savey.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah, great to be back with you and your listeners. Yeah,
my team regularly come across some quirky stories about Perth
suburbs and their history, so I thought we'd explore some
of those tonight. I've got some tales of weird names,
of course, some dodgy behavior in the burbs, and a
nonsolved mystery that we hope your listeners can help out with. Now,
(00:56):
some of these tales are from beyond Perth. I'm cheating
a little bit, so apologies in advance for any implications
that everywhere in WA is a suburb of Perth, because
of course it's not.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
As a big state, indeed it is. And you know,
I must have known, I must have had a premonition
you were going to talk about something like this, because
it was only on the show last week that I
passed the comment that, you know, we live in one
of the most wonderful places on earth, and we generally
live in a suburb, and I wonder how much do
we know about that suburb, why it was called, what
(01:29):
it was called, and who was it named after? And
I think you know that I don't think we know
enough about our own backyard, if I can put it
that way.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
I know what you mean, and the history of our suburbs,
and there's some there surrounds, sometimes some very interesting names,
of course, and I think you've been talking about that
with listeners as part of other conversations, but it's definitely
a favorite for clients that the State records offered. So
these days, I guess listeners are probably aware that there's
(01:58):
a careful process to formal name places across way. It's
overseen by what's called the Geographic Names Committee, and that
was actually established way back in nineteen thirty six as
the Advisory Committee on the Nomenclature of Towns after approaches
the government from the WA Historical Society, and the chair
of that original committee was doctor J. S. Batti, who
(02:22):
was also the State Librarian, and by nineteen thirty six,
he was also the chancellor of the University WA and
Chairman of the State Archives. Boord so busy chap fascinating
history of his own that perhaps we could buil about
some other time. But before nineteen thirty six, naming places
was what you might kindly call a bit of a
free for all. So I was sort of leading to
(02:43):
some pretty interesting place names, sometimes not actually, and basically
people just made up the names and they ended up
being used if they sort of stuck through common usage.
So there's some pretty good examples. And I'm going to
cheat a little bit and go outside per first, but
we'll come back. So way down near Denmark that's in
WA of course, not a per suburb, but there were
(03:04):
two places that went by the names of Hell's Hole
and another one called Cold and Wet. Now they might
have been astutely named, particularly Cold and Where, I guess,
but it seems the locals weren't so keen on that name.
So by nineteen twenty three, before there was a geographic
names committee, the Denmark Tourist Association decided to rename Hell's
Hole to Somerset Hill, which I'm sure would be familiar
(03:27):
to quite a lot of our listeners tonight, and there
was the place called Cold and Wet was actually on
the Denmark railway line, and thats just died right up
until nineteen ten. All the place exist, of course, but
the name was still used up to nineteen ten, and
it was named It was renamed marty Up for a while,
then to Yonger and then finally to Burnham, which people
(03:49):
again might be familiar with. Now heading a little bit
further north, we near Bunbury, there was a place known
for a while as wood Wood, which is one of
my favorites. That was home to a hindermill for quite
a while, and apparently it had a reputation for a
super tough game of footy, apparently more fighting than gameplay,
and some pretty wild Saturday night dancing. Must have been
(04:10):
quite a place to visit. And then further north again
at mandra as the little old town of the first
half of last century transitioned to the big one that
we know today from around the nineteen seventies. It's interesting
to see not necessarily the place name, but the local
road names as well. That's a whole nother story, of course,
but some of the roads there start getting this Italian flavor.
(04:33):
So we've got the Baldy Drive and Galileo Loop. Hello
if you live on those I guess you could see
a connection today with the canal development, evoking a sort
of Venetian feel if you like. So back in Perth
proper probably our favorite at the SORI, and some listeners
might be familiar with this one. The part of Maylands
was actually known for about one hundred years as Pineapple
(04:56):
or the Pineapple Estate. The backstory is that apparently one
of the earliest that was bought a pineapple to Perth.
Don't think it too much of that now, but back
then perhaps that was more exotic days before modern quarantine laws,
and they cultivated them in the area. So kind of
got this name which stuck for quite a long time.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well better dead. It was a symbol of wealth. If
you had a pineapple, you were well off way back
in the day. Interestingly enough, Damian, you mentioned that place
names would sometimes come about because they got repeated and
they stuck, but sometimes through to today, there's plenty of
disagreement about naming. Do you see any of that in
(05:36):
your archives?
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Yeah, absolutely, we sure do. And look, it still hits
the news, doesn't it. When places sort of get renamed.
It's human nature after all, to have different opinions. So
turning to connections from the suburbs to Perth City, in
nineteen fifty three, there were calls to rename the Causeway
as the Willem Debauning Causeway, and that was competing with
a call at the same time from the RSL to
(06:00):
the Queen's Causeway, along with Riverside Drive as Elizabeth Drive,
just ahead of the Queen's visit to Wa in nineteen
sixty four. And it's really interesting to think about than
how naming sort of played out more recently with Elizabeth
Key of course. And then there's also a statue of
William de Blaming near what we still call the causeway
(06:22):
on the Burswood Park Herriage Charm. I'm sure people have
passed him by. Back then, most people coming to w
A were still coming from the UK, so local place
names tended to follow from the old country if you
call it that. Safety Bay south of Perth, for example,
was set to be renamed or set to be named Liverpool.
And there were countless Yorks and Margaret Rivers all over
(06:43):
the state for a long time, so they didn't really
have that sort of uniqueness to them. Over time, apparently
there were about one hundred Yorks, but there's only one
caliberon and so the interesting thing is around the time
you get federation, the use of Aboriginal names becomes much
more popular, although they are often weren't true to the
actual words and used by original people. They were translations,
(07:04):
of course, made by often by surveyors moving through a
country and asking local Aboriginal people what they called features
in the landscape, maybe a bend in the river, the
valley or a hill. A really good example is Cawgolei,
so not imperfectain. But back in eighteen ninety four the
Lands Department proposed to call it hanans Fined for obvious reasons,
(07:25):
and that Cabina actually overruled that, opting for the name Calgoli,
which derives apparently from the optional name for the native
silkie pair that car cooler. So early adoption of those names,
which have a much more sort of unique flavor to them.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
They do. Indeed, now you mentioned dodgy behavior in Perth suburbs.
Have you found much about that in your archives?
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yes, so, I sort of this is quite an interesting one,
and I'm sure there's still some dodgy behavior first ofs
from time. But I have to say, looking at the archives,
it seems we've got nothing on the last couple of centuries,
so maybe we've actually improved a little bit in our behavior.
But I'm going to go to the old police records now.
They are really quite fascinating, and I hate to single
(08:08):
out any particular suburb, of course, but have to start somewhere.
So that's going to be Bayswater. Apologies for the Basy folks.
So looking at the police files from about one hundred
years ago, so we're going back to the twenties and thirties,
there are reports of regular nude bathing in the river.
Might be a bitchually a bit at the tub, but
you can imagine a time before hot showers than modern bathrooms.
(08:31):
So yeah, imagine you're heading home from work. You've got
a hard summer's day work in the local factory or
probably even a farm in that part of the world,
and there's no air conditioning, so you want to call
off and have a bit of a wash. You're going
to take a wash in the river. Unfortunately, that was
happening right alongside the old pal Mal Promenade in Baisi
(08:52):
offending the young couples taking an evening stroll, probably older
couples too, free sort of frightful things to see. There
this correspondence from the Basy Road Board to the Commissioner
of Police that advises them that they want to nip
this evil in the bud. You know, highly offensive stuff.
But it wasn't the only problem behavior. There are also
(09:13):
reports of children roaming the neighborhood with small rifles and
shooting up sanitary pans. So I guess they're talking about
the outhouses, which I'm sure was great fun for the kids,
but not so much for the occupants of the outhouses. Well,
and that would have been where you've gone if you
were living in those houses didn't have them inside of them.
(09:33):
So according to the archives, people would also take their rifles,
believe it on us, take their rifles up to Kingspark
for a spot of shooting. So it's just absolutely well
things they had a control, really, it doesn't it, mind you.
On the flip side, justice could be pretty harsh back then.
There's this police charge sheet from the Victoria from Victoria
Park in nineteen thirty four, and there's a mugshot of
(09:55):
this poor young guy there. He looks about fifteen, probably
even younger, and with riding a bicycle with no hands,
absolutely criminal offense there. So it sort of worked this
both ways. Back then, in the twenties and thirties, the
population of places like Daisy was nothing like it is today,
and that area was essentially sort of semi rural, so
(10:17):
there was no police station there, and so a lot
of these reports are coming through sort of making a
case for there to be a police station there. In fact,
back then in the twenties and thirties, there was just
one police officer assigned to the district and he was
equipped with a pushbike that was his equipment, and a
police station actually didn't get established there until nineteen fifty five,
a long long time later. So moving down the river
(10:40):
a little bit, we get to Nedlands and Crawley, and
there were back then in that area there was still
only about one hundred and twenty five houses or dwellings
in the area, so very sort of scattered through that area.
But along the river there were these camps. Apparently by
the early twenties they are about eighty camps that have
been set up along the river there where the local
(11:00):
blokes would come in for a weekend getaway and a
few more than a few drinks. So the police report
that these chaps are getting in the words in the
book are beastly drunk and going up to the local
tea rooms and singing that's been terrible. And apparently they
were going about in bare feet, short pants and only
wearing a jersey exclamation mark. By this time there were
(11:23):
also trans of course running through the area, and at
one stage in the nineteen twenties there's this report of
a wild brawl on one of the trams, and that
seems to be the trigger then, so in nineteen twenty one,
Medlands actually get the police station and the report seemed
to sort of quiet down in the archives there. So
just looping back for a moment then to place names.
(11:45):
The interesting thing about Nedlands. People might have heard this,
but you can trace that back to Colonel John Bruce
apparently who acquired land near dal Keith turned the last
century and he gave it to his son Edward, who
he named who called Ned of course, so you probably
guessed that eventually became known as Ned's Land.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Indeed, I never knew that. How about that? As I said,
we've lived in and around these suburbs for a long
time and probably didn't have a clue as how they
came to be called what they were. We're going to
need to take a breakdownan and we'll continue this fascinating
discussion in just to tick until midnight on Perth six PR.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
This is remember when with Harvey Degan.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Welcome back everybody, and we're having a fascinating chat to
Damian Shepherd, state Archivist from the State Records Office, about
the history of some of the suburbs and some of
the outlying areas of Perth and other parts of Western Australia,
how they got to be named what they were and
all those sort of things. And the river of course
has always played a very important role, hasn't it in
(12:56):
our lives here? So what else were people up to?
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Yeah, that's right, I guess Perth sort of grew up,
grew out and along the river, particularly in those early days,
so west and east, and the sort of stories in
the archives sort of follow that pattern a little bit.
So by the time he gets to the early in
nineteen hundreds down we conduct the story at Dale Case
before the break So heading back there again, there's this
(13:23):
artesian board that's set in the area, and it comes
to feed into this hot pool there, the Keys Hotpool,
so a bit like Baisy this becomes this popular bathing spot,
and apparently that was clothing optional for some people. So
the local mirror newspaper reports a series of what they
call hijinks, including midnight skinny dips. So this is early
(13:46):
in the very early nineteen hundred, so very off for
the time. It would be pretty pretty bad now, but
this was a time before many people had motor cars,
of course, though there were also these lots more There
are a lot more stories of ferries traveling up and
down the river, and of course there were a lot
more sort of ferry stops up and down the river.
It's really interesting to see it sort of coming back
(14:07):
into public discussion again. But there's this great postcard in
one of the archive files from the Como Jetty in
nineteen twenty two, and it shows this elaborate shelter there
that looks a bit like the sort of Arc de
Triomph or something, but it took us a while to
work out what it was. But it's actually just a
shelter for people there. So you get these fairies traveling
(14:28):
up and down to these spots and they'd go into
the bridges of course, so on the dodgy behavior front,
there are reports in the police files of pickpockets around
the ferry stops. You know, you get a few more people,
so you're going to get the pickpockets there. You can
imagine as we get into depression year at years as well,
pretty tough time. But even reports of children dumping sacks
of wheat or coal dust on ferries as they passed
(14:50):
down the bridges absolutely shocking. But even more worrying reports
of people using dynamite for fishing in places like Como
the nineteen twenty so I can't I can't imagine that
type of fishing was very peaceful and relaxing, well especially
for the fishing course, but absolutely astounding they have a
fair spare stick of dynamite here and there and go
(15:13):
fishing with that. Hard to get your head around.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
Well yeah, indeed, of course you've brought back some memories
there with the tram stops and phone boxes. You'd never
see a phone box anymore public phone box of course,
they've disappeared over the years, and also some less well
known features. Can you tell us about those damien yeah,
that's right.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
It's easy to forget about those things that were once
very familiar to people. I mean a lot of us
will remember things I mentioned phone boxes. We don't see
so many of those these days. But sometimes there are
these kind of mysterious structures as well. I've seen some great,
great stuff. I've read about some great stuff to do
with sort of water towers and things like that. But
often I've thought, what's over the fence there, and you
(15:53):
see this unmarked building, if it's like a historical building,
and you wonder about the history and how important they
are or were back in the day. So we've got
this really interesting story about one of those sort of
structures in the archive. So way back in November nineteen
oh five, there's this young scientist that travels from Perth
from Bremen in Germany to undertake research of international significance
(16:18):
in suburban to Bayswater of all places. It is quite
quite a mystery. So the backstory to this one is
that as the earth rotate, it actually wobbles a little bit,
and there's this international program to measure the sort of
degree of the wobble. Back in the late eighteen ninety
eighteen nineties and they set up this series of international
(16:39):
latitude stations. So they back then they're using nighttime measurements,
they're looking at the stars and they're sort of tracking
how the Earth is moving there. And so two stations
are established in the Southern Hemisphere, one in Argentina and
one in Bayswater and Earth. So the mystery is why Bayswater,
(16:59):
given it's well, it's elevated lightly although person you know,
pretty flat really, and it's at the right latitude, but
we don't quite understand how it came to be with
sort of global importance there, So that's a little bit
of a mystery. So it's at the corner of Hamilton
and Station Street and there's this small observatory that's built there.
(17:21):
So they start these observations back in Berlin and then
they're sort of communicating with doctor Hessen in Perth in
Bayswater there, and he's working away for three years on
doing this. You can just imagine the painstaking sort of
effort he would have gone to. And they're sort of
doing this sort of hand computation as they go. So
(17:41):
perf and based Water are much smaller places than you
can imagine how intrigued the locals would have been seeing
that said up. So there's this German guy working away
at night in this this sort of little shed. And
we've got this one photo that appears in the Western
Male on the fourteenth of April nineteen o six, and
it just looks like this little weatherboard shed. But they
in the photo it's opened up and you can see
(18:01):
like a sort of bud light instrument on a plymph
or a pedestal inside. Must have looked very, very curious. Anyway,
doctor Hesson actually becomes quite well known in the neighborhood
and highly regarded in the scientific community, makes some friends
and is in Perth for a while. But then the
mystery deepens even greater because the day before his Duke
(18:23):
returned to Germany in February nineteen oh nine, he goes
off to Lake munger and tries to take his life
with a revolver. Amazingly, he's able he survives the event,
although he's in this intense pain I can just imagine,
and he managed to communicate with the ground the mayor
and comes to his rescue. So he's only twenty seven
and he recoups recuperates for several months in Perth, and
(18:46):
then sails back to Europe eventually where he continued his work,
but sadly, he did die after a short illness at
the relatively young age still of forty nine, so he
had a few more years there, but did die young.
So it's quite a mysterious story. The reasons for why
he was he was there in that particular location, doing
it at that location, and then his file up actions
(19:09):
quite quite an interesting mystery there. So the one thing
we could say is all of that research did sort
of count to, you know, building scientific knowledge. So that's
that's a that's a nice sort of side to that story.
I guess community continues to be important to this day.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's so interesting, Damon. I think you mentioned the mystery
is the start of the program. What's that all about now?
The others?
Speaker 1 (19:32):
Yeah, so we've we've had a few little mysteries along
the way there. That one quite a mysterious story. But
I've got I've got one more that patch listeners can
help us with. So a few years ago, our team
at State Records Office ganned and mapped out online a
whole series of historical plans that were drawn up by
what was then the Metropolitan water Works board between nineteen
(19:53):
oint five and the nineteen seventies as part of actually
part of the roll out of the installation of sewerage
scheme through the metropolitan area during the twentieth century. And
it's quite bizarre to see these old maps with a
huge amount of features in them. They've just the amount
of detail is incredible. They've mapped out water features and
(20:15):
everything from chuck pens or fowl yards as they're called
on the maps. They've got our houses of course, lots
of those, minus the poptholes from the local hooligans, pats,
tennis courts, fish ponds, aviaries and the earliest swimming pools.
So well before you know that was kind of established
as a more popular thing in Perth. And this very
(20:39):
mysterious set of underground urinal not quite sure what that
is exactly, probably don't really want to think about it.
That was a bit odd. But the other feature that
we've wandered about is the good old Aussie barbecue and thought, well,
you know, the right time. We're probably past the summer,
but it's interesting time to think about it. So my
challenge and invitation to listeners is to help us there
(21:00):
by visiting this site which we call retro maps. You
can easily just google that. Put retro maps in State
Records Office. You'll find it and see if you can
find barbecue in there, perhaps the Perth first backyard Barbecue.
Let us know if you do find it.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Oh, I reckon, our listeners will come good on that one.
They usually do, you know. Oh gosh, and how can
our listeners find out more about what we've talked about tonight, Damien?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, so look, I think listeners might find it quite
interesting to have a bit of a play with retro maps.
So go have look at that. If your house isn't there,
please don't be too distressed. It really is Perth early years.
So these maps were drawn up between nineteen oh five
and the nineteen seventies, so you know that's mostly along
the river, but they do reach quite far up the
(21:49):
river into the eastern suburbs, but not much north and
south unfortunately, but worth a have having a look. And
then from the library collection, going back to the sort
of police for I can recommend Dom Pashley's book from
the year two thousand called Policing Our State, which includes
these sort of fascinating stories of policing from Perth suburbs
(22:09):
in days past. And there's also Dodgy Perth by one
of our clients online fascinating and a great laugh mostly
at ourselves of course, of course, so we're still unearthing
fascinating stories on Perth Path which we'd love to share
through our Facebook page and on our web page under
stories from the Archives. So that's sro WA dot gov.
(22:31):
But are you encourage people to go have a look what.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
A fascinating discussion we've had tonight. Well, you always come
up with something brilliant and you've excelled yourself tonight, Damien.
So thanks for that. And while I look forward and
I know our listeners look forward to the next time
we chat on remember when.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Thanks Harvey, looking forward to it.
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