WEBVTT - SRO's Damian Sheppard, 01 June 2025 0:00:09.680 --> 0:00:14.240 This is Remember When with Harvey Degan on Perth six PR. 0:00:15.360 --> 0:00:18.079 The State Records Office, as you well and truly know, 0:00:18.440 --> 0:00:21.439 regularly join us on Remember When to share a few 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.120 tales from the state archives with us. And this week 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:27.600 we welcome back Damian Shepherd, State Archivist, to talk about 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:32.720 some strange tales from the archives about Perths suburbs. Oh, 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.160 I'm intrigued, Damien, tell us more savey. 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:39.040 Yeah, great to be back with you and your listeners. Yeah, 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.440 my team regularly come across some quirky stories about Perth 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.199 suburbs and their history, so I thought we'd explore some 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:48.720 of those tonight. I've got some tales of weird names, 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:52.400 of course, some dodgy behavior in the burbs, and a 0:00:52.520 --> 0:00:56.400 nonsolved mystery that we hope your listeners can help out with. Now, 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.000 some of these tales are from beyond Perth. I'm cheating 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.880 a little bit, so apologies in advance for any implications 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.959 that everywhere in WA is a suburb of Perth, because 0:01:06.000 --> 0:01:06.640 of course it's not. 0:01:06.720 --> 0:01:09.360 As a big state, indeed it is. And you know, 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:11.959 I must have known, I must have had a premonition 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:13.920 you were going to talk about something like this, because 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:16.440 it was only on the show last week that I 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.680 passed the comment that, you know, we live in one 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.160 of the most wonderful places on earth, and we generally 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:26.039 live in a suburb, and I wonder how much do 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:29.000 we know about that suburb, why it was called, what 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:31.840 it was called, and who was it named after? And 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.360 I think you know that I don't think we know 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.520 enough about our own backyard, if I can put it 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:36.880 that way. 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.280 I know what you mean, and the history of our suburbs, 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.320 and there's some there surrounds, sometimes some very interesting names, 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.480 of course, and I think you've been talking about that 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:51.440 with listeners as part of other conversations, but it's definitely 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:54.840 a favorite for clients that the State records offered. So 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.480 these days, I guess listeners are probably aware that there's 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:02.360 a careful process to formal name places across way. It's 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.720 overseen by what's called the Geographic Names Committee, and that 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.040 was actually established way back in nineteen thirty six as 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:13.880 the Advisory Committee on the Nomenclature of Towns after approaches 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.400 the government from the WA Historical Society, and the chair 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.080 of that original committee was doctor J. S. Batti, who 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.880 was also the State Librarian, and by nineteen thirty six, 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:28.320 he was also the chancellor of the University WA and 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:32.239 Chairman of the State Archives. Boord so busy chap fascinating 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:34.200 history of his own that perhaps we could buil about 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.040 some other time. But before nineteen thirty six, naming places 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.560 was what you might kindly call a bit of a 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:43.120 free for all. So I was sort of leading to 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:47.200 some pretty interesting place names, sometimes not actually, and basically 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:49.360 people just made up the names and they ended up 0:02:49.400 --> 0:02:52.720 being used if they sort of stuck through common usage. 0:02:53.400 --> 0:02:55.240 So there's some pretty good examples. And I'm going to 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:57.840 cheat a little bit and go outside per first, but 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.000 we'll come back. So way down near Denmark that's in 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.040 WA of course, not a per suburb, but there were 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.040 two places that went by the names of Hell's Hole 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.200 and another one called Cold and Wet. Now they might 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:13.480 have been astutely named, particularly Cold and Where, I guess, 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.600 but it seems the locals weren't so keen on that name. 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.920 So by nineteen twenty three, before there was a geographic 0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:24.040 names committee, the Denmark Tourist Association decided to rename Hell's 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:27.639 Hole to Somerset Hill, which I'm sure would be familiar 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:30.960 to quite a lot of our listeners tonight, and there 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.720 was the place called Cold and Wet was actually on 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.120 the Denmark railway line, and thats just died right up 0:03:36.200 --> 0:03:39.400 until nineteen ten. All the place exist, of course, but 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.720 the name was still used up to nineteen ten, and 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:45.840 it was named It was renamed marty Up for a while, 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.080 then to Yonger and then finally to Burnham, which people 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:52.600 again might be familiar with. Now heading a little bit 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.480 further north, we near Bunbury, there was a place known 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.120 for a while as wood Wood, which is one of 0:03:58.160 --> 0:04:01.040 my favorites. That was home to a hindermill for quite 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:03.120 a while, and apparently it had a reputation for a 0:04:03.120 --> 0:04:07.560 super tough game of footy, apparently more fighting than gameplay, 0:04:08.040 --> 0:04:10.560 and some pretty wild Saturday night dancing. Must have been 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.480 quite a place to visit. And then further north again 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:17.760 at mandra as the little old town of the first 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.680 half of last century transitioned to the big one that 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.000 we know today from around the nineteen seventies. It's interesting 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.560 to see not necessarily the place name, but the local 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:30.440 road names as well. That's a whole nother story, of course, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.719 but some of the roads there start getting this Italian flavor. 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.719 So we've got the Baldy Drive and Galileo Loop. Hello 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.120 if you live on those I guess you could see 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:42.920 a connection today with the canal development, evoking a sort 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.039 of Venetian feel if you like. So back in Perth 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.320 proper probably our favorite at the SORI, and some listeners 0:04:50.360 --> 0:04:53.320 might be familiar with this one. The part of Maylands 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.120 was actually known for about one hundred years as Pineapple 0:04:56.440 --> 0:05:01.200 or the Pineapple Estate. The backstory is that apparently one 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.599 of the earliest that was bought a pineapple to Perth. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:05.520 Don't think it too much of that now, but back 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:09.400 then perhaps that was more exotic days before modern quarantine laws, 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:12.479 and they cultivated them in the area. So kind of 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:15.600 got this name which stuck for quite a long time. 0:05:15.839 --> 0:05:19.520 Well better dead. It was a symbol of wealth. If 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:21.880 you had a pineapple, you were well off way back 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:24.920 in the day. Interestingly enough, Damian, you mentioned that place 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:28.919 names would sometimes come about because they got repeated and 0:05:28.960 --> 0:05:32.719 they stuck, but sometimes through to today, there's plenty of 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:36.080 disagreement about naming. Do you see any of that in 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:36.800 your archives? 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:39.960 Yeah, absolutely, we sure do. And look, it still hits 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.720 the news, doesn't it. When places sort of get renamed. 0:05:42.920 --> 0:05:45.719 It's human nature after all, to have different opinions. So 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.880 turning to connections from the suburbs to Perth City, in 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.400 nineteen fifty three, there were calls to rename the Causeway 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:57.359 as the Willem Debauning Causeway, and that was competing with 0:05:57.440 --> 0:05:59.719 a call at the same time from the RSL to 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.800 the Queen's Causeway, along with Riverside Drive as Elizabeth Drive, 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:07.960 just ahead of the Queen's visit to Wa in nineteen 0:06:08.080 --> 0:06:11.400 sixty four. And it's really interesting to think about than 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.800 how naming sort of played out more recently with Elizabeth 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:17.719 Key of course. And then there's also a statue of 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.520 William de Blaming near what we still call the causeway 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:24.719 on the Burswood Park Herriage Charm. I'm sure people have 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:29.080 passed him by. Back then, most people coming to w 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:31.520 A were still coming from the UK, so local place 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.120 names tended to follow from the old country if you 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.120 call it that. Safety Bay south of Perth, for example, 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:40.480 was set to be renamed or set to be named Liverpool. 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.080 And there were countless Yorks and Margaret Rivers all over 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:44.880 the state for a long time, so they didn't really 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:48.680 have that sort of uniqueness to them. Over time, apparently 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:51.840 there were about one hundred Yorks, but there's only one 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.120 caliberon and so the interesting thing is around the time 0:06:55.160 --> 0:06:58.520 you get federation, the use of Aboriginal names becomes much 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.039 more popular, although they are often weren't true to the 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:04.120 actual words and used by original people. They were translations, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:07.400 of course, made by often by surveyors moving through a 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:10.679 country and asking local Aboriginal people what they called features 0:07:10.680 --> 0:07:13.080 in the landscape, maybe a bend in the river, the 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:16.720 valley or a hill. A really good example is Cawgolei, 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:20.040 so not imperfectain. But back in eighteen ninety four the 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:24.640 Lands Department proposed to call it hanans Fined for obvious reasons, 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.760 and that Cabina actually overruled that, opting for the name Calgoli, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.640 which derives apparently from the optional name for the native 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.640 silkie pair that car cooler. So early adoption of those names, 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.280 which have a much more sort of unique flavor to them. 0:07:39.360 --> 0:07:43.840 They do. Indeed, now you mentioned dodgy behavior in Perth suburbs. 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.640 Have you found much about that in your archives? 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.679 Yes, so, I sort of this is quite an interesting one, 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:53.320 and I'm sure there's still some dodgy behavior first ofs 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:56.240 from time. But I have to say, looking at the archives, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:58.720 it seems we've got nothing on the last couple of centuries, 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:01.600 so maybe we've actually improved a little bit in our behavior. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:05.120 But I'm going to go to the old police records now. 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:08.920 They are really quite fascinating, and I hate to single 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.320 out any particular suburb, of course, but have to start somewhere. 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.720 So that's going to be Bayswater. Apologies for the Basy folks. 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:18.720 So looking at the police files from about one hundred 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:20.880 years ago, so we're going back to the twenties and thirties, 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.280 there are reports of regular nude bathing in the river. 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:26.640 Might be a bitchually a bit at the tub, but 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:31.360 you can imagine a time before hot showers than modern bathrooms. 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.240 So yeah, imagine you're heading home from work. You've got 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:37.720 a hard summer's day work in the local factory or 0:08:37.800 --> 0:08:39.880 probably even a farm in that part of the world, 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:42.200 and there's no air conditioning, so you want to call 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:44.200 off and have a bit of a wash. You're going 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.880 to take a wash in the river. Unfortunately, that was 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:52.040 happening right alongside the old pal Mal Promenade in Baisi 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:55.440 offending the young couples taking an evening stroll, probably older 0:08:55.520 --> 0:09:00.080 couples too, free sort of frightful things to see. There 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:03.520 this correspondence from the Basy Road Board to the Commissioner 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:05.640 of Police that advises them that they want to nip 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:09.240 this evil in the bud. You know, highly offensive stuff. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:13.199 But it wasn't the only problem behavior. There are also 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.320 reports of children roaming the neighborhood with small rifles and 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.880 shooting up sanitary pans. So I guess they're talking about 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:24.760 the outhouses, which I'm sure was great fun for the kids, 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.880 but not so much for the occupants of the outhouses. Well, 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:30.640 and that would have been where you've gone if you 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:33.120 were living in those houses didn't have them inside of them. 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:37.240 So according to the archives, people would also take their rifles, 0:09:37.280 --> 0:09:39.600 believe it on us, take their rifles up to Kingspark 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.840 for a spot of shooting. So it's just absolutely well 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:45.559 things they had a control, really, it doesn't it, mind you. 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:48.880 On the flip side, justice could be pretty harsh back then. 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:52.200 There's this police charge sheet from the Victoria from Victoria 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.520 Park in nineteen thirty four, and there's a mugshot of 0:09:55.600 --> 0:09:58.520 this poor young guy there. He looks about fifteen, probably 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:02.640 even younger, and with riding a bicycle with no hands, 0:10:02.880 --> 0:10:07.240 absolutely criminal offense there. So it sort of worked this 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.200 both ways. Back then, in the twenties and thirties, the 0:10:10.240 --> 0:10:13.800 population of places like Daisy was nothing like it is today, 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.400 and that area was essentially sort of semi rural, so 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.160 there was no police station there, and so a lot 0:10:20.160 --> 0:10:22.560 of these reports are coming through sort of making a 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:25.560 case for there to be a police station there. In fact, 0:10:25.600 --> 0:10:27.720 back then in the twenties and thirties, there was just 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:29.719 one police officer assigned to the district and he was 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.920 equipped with a pushbike that was his equipment, and a 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.440 police station actually didn't get established there until nineteen fifty five, 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:40.319 a long long time later. So moving down the river 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.320 a little bit, we get to Nedlands and Crawley, and 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.520 there were back then in that area there was still 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:48.480 only about one hundred and twenty five houses or dwellings 0:10:48.480 --> 0:10:52.240 in the area, so very sort of scattered through that area. 0:10:52.520 --> 0:10:56.280 But along the river there were these camps. Apparently by 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.439 the early twenties they are about eighty camps that have 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.680 been set up along the river there where the local 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.720 blokes would come in for a weekend getaway and a 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.800 few more than a few drinks. So the police report 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:09.840 that these chaps are getting in the words in the 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.040 book are beastly drunk and going up to the local 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.600 tea rooms and singing that's been terrible. And apparently they 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.520 were going about in bare feet, short pants and only 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.880 wearing a jersey exclamation mark. By this time there were 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:26.720 also trans of course running through the area, and at 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.360 one stage in the nineteen twenties there's this report of 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:32.680 a wild brawl on one of the trams, and that 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.280 seems to be the trigger then, so in nineteen twenty one, 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.720 Medlands actually get the police station and the report seemed 0:11:39.720 --> 0:11:42.640 to sort of quiet down in the archives there. So 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.560 just looping back for a moment then to place names. 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:47.840 The interesting thing about Nedlands. People might have heard this, 0:11:48.280 --> 0:11:51.400 but you can trace that back to Colonel John Bruce 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:54.760 apparently who acquired land near dal Keith turned the last 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.120 century and he gave it to his son Edward, who 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:00.920 he named who called Ned of course, so you probably 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.200 guessed that eventually became known as Ned's Land. 0:12:04.480 --> 0:12:07.480 Indeed, I never knew that. How about that? As I said, 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:10.200 we've lived in and around these suburbs for a long 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:12.480 time and probably didn't have a clue as how they 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:14.840 came to be called what they were. We're going to 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:17.760 need to take a breakdownan and we'll continue this fascinating 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:31.600 discussion in just to tick until midnight on Perth six PR. 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.920 This is remember when with Harvey Degan. 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.440 Welcome back everybody, and we're having a fascinating chat to 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.600 Damian Shepherd, state Archivist from the State Records Office, about 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:45.600 the history of some of the suburbs and some of 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.679 the outlying areas of Perth and other parts of Western Australia, 0:12:49.679 --> 0:12:51.760 how they got to be named what they were and 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.280 all those sort of things. And the river of course 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:56.680 has always played a very important role, hasn't it in 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.520 our lives here? So what else were people up to? 0:13:00.840 --> 0:13:03.040 Yeah, that's right, I guess Perth sort of grew up, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.200 grew out and along the river, particularly in those early days, 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.840 so west and east, and the sort of stories in 0:13:11.880 --> 0:13:14.199 the archives sort of follow that pattern a little bit. 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.400 So by the time he gets to the early in 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:20.240 nineteen hundreds down we conduct the story at Dale Case 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.880 before the break So heading back there again, there's this 0:13:23.000 --> 0:13:26.440 artesian board that's set in the area, and it comes 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.040 to feed into this hot pool there, the Keys Hotpool, 0:13:30.160 --> 0:13:33.720 so a bit like Baisy this becomes this popular bathing spot, 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.080 and apparently that was clothing optional for some people. So 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.720 the local mirror newspaper reports a series of what they 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:46.000 call hijinks, including midnight skinny dips. So this is early 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:50.000 in the very early nineteen hundred, so very off for 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.400 the time. It would be pretty pretty bad now, but 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.720 this was a time before many people had motor cars, 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.120 of course, though there were also these lots more There 0:13:59.120 --> 0:14:01.319 are a lot more stories of ferries traveling up and 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.120 down the river, and of course there were a lot 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.319 more sort of ferry stops up and down the river. 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:07.240 It's really interesting to see it sort of coming back 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:11.880 into public discussion again. But there's this great postcard in 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:14.400 one of the archive files from the Como Jetty in 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:18.160 nineteen twenty two, and it shows this elaborate shelter there 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.640 that looks a bit like the sort of Arc de 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:22.880 Triomph or something, but it took us a while to 0:14:22.880 --> 0:14:24.880 work out what it was. But it's actually just a 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:28.440 shelter for people there. So you get these fairies traveling 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.120 up and down to these spots and they'd go into 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.160 the bridges of course, so on the dodgy behavior front, 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.920 there are reports in the police files of pickpockets around 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.720 the ferry stops. You know, you get a few more people, 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.080 so you're going to get the pickpockets there. You can 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.480 imagine as we get into depression year at years as well, 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.720 pretty tough time. But even reports of children dumping sacks 0:14:47.720 --> 0:14:50.400 of wheat or coal dust on ferries as they passed 0:14:50.400 --> 0:14:55.560 down the bridges absolutely shocking. But even more worrying reports 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.120 of people using dynamite for fishing in places like Como 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.240 the nineteen twenty so I can't I can't imagine that 0:15:03.320 --> 0:15:06.560 type of fishing was very peaceful and relaxing, well especially 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:10.200 for the fishing course, but absolutely astounding they have a 0:15:10.280 --> 0:15:13.360 fair spare stick of dynamite here and there and go 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.520 fishing with that. Hard to get your head around. 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.440 Well yeah, indeed, of course you've brought back some memories 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:22.680 there with the tram stops and phone boxes. You'd never 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:24.960 see a phone box anymore public phone box of course, 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.200 they've disappeared over the years, and also some less well 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:31.520 known features. Can you tell us about those damien yeah, 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:31.920 that's right. 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.200 It's easy to forget about those things that were once 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.760 very familiar to people. I mean a lot of us 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.360 will remember things I mentioned phone boxes. We don't see 0:15:40.440 --> 0:15:43.000 so many of those these days. But sometimes there are 0:15:43.000 --> 0:15:45.440 these kind of mysterious structures as well. I've seen some great, 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:47.640 great stuff. I've read about some great stuff to do 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.400 with sort of water towers and things like that. But 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.720 often I've thought, what's over the fence there, and you 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:56.600 see this unmarked building, if it's like a historical building, 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.320 and you wonder about the history and how important they 0:15:59.320 --> 0:16:03.080 are or were back in the day. So we've got 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.560 this really interesting story about one of those sort of 0:16:05.600 --> 0:16:09.880 structures in the archive. So way back in November nineteen 0:16:09.880 --> 0:16:13.600 oh five, there's this young scientist that travels from Perth 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:18.520 from Bremen in Germany to undertake research of international significance 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.760 in suburban to Bayswater of all places. It is quite 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.080 quite a mystery. So the backstory to this one is 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.800 that as the earth rotate, it actually wobbles a little bit, 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.840 and there's this international program to measure the sort of 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.440 degree of the wobble. Back in the late eighteen ninety 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:39.359 eighteen nineties and they set up this series of international 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.480 latitude stations. So they back then they're using nighttime measurements, 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:45.600 they're looking at the stars and they're sort of tracking 0:16:45.760 --> 0:16:49.400 how the Earth is moving there. And so two stations 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.920 are established in the Southern Hemisphere, one in Argentina and 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.800 one in Bayswater and Earth. So the mystery is why Bayswater, 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:03.000 given it's well, it's elevated lightly although person you know, 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.480 pretty flat really, and it's at the right latitude, but 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.320 we don't quite understand how it came to be with 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:12.639 sort of global importance there, So that's a little bit 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.080 of a mystery. So it's at the corner of Hamilton 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:20.639 and Station Street and there's this small observatory that's built there. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:25.440 So they start these observations back in Berlin and then 0:17:25.480 --> 0:17:29.119 they're sort of communicating with doctor Hessen in Perth in 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.760 Bayswater there, and he's working away for three years on 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:35.200 doing this. You can just imagine the painstaking sort of 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.800 effort he would have gone to. And they're sort of 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.880 doing this sort of hand computation as they go. So 0:17:41.280 --> 0:17:43.320 perf and based Water are much smaller places than you 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:46.240 can imagine how intrigued the locals would have been seeing 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:48.640 that said up. So there's this German guy working away 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:50.440 at night in this this sort of little shed. And 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.520 we've got this one photo that appears in the Western 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.159 Male on the fourteenth of April nineteen o six, and 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.840 it just looks like this little weatherboard shed. But they 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:01.879 in the photo it's opened up and you can see 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.639 like a sort of bud light instrument on a plymph 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:09.200 or a pedestal inside. Must have looked very, very curious. Anyway, 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:12.879 doctor Hesson actually becomes quite well known in the neighborhood 0:18:12.920 --> 0:18:17.000 and highly regarded in the scientific community, makes some friends 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:19.919 and is in Perth for a while. But then the 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.960 mystery deepens even greater because the day before his Duke 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.600 returned to Germany in February nineteen oh nine, he goes 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.720 off to Lake munger and tries to take his life 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:34.200 with a revolver. Amazingly, he's able he survives the event, 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:36.879 although he's in this intense pain I can just imagine, 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.080 and he managed to communicate with the ground the mayor 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:42.359 and comes to his rescue. So he's only twenty seven 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:46.359 and he recoups recuperates for several months in Perth, and 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.920 then sails back to Europe eventually where he continued his work, 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:53.360 but sadly, he did die after a short illness at 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:56.600 the relatively young age still of forty nine, so he 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:58.680 had a few more years there, but did die young. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.399 So it's quite a mysterious story. The reasons for why 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.720 he was he was there in that particular location, doing 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:09.040 it at that location, and then his file up actions 0:19:09.119 --> 0:19:13.000 quite quite an interesting mystery there. So the one thing 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.160 we could say is all of that research did sort 0:19:15.200 --> 0:19:19.320 of count to, you know, building scientific knowledge. So that's 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:21.959 that's a that's a nice sort of side to that story. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.600 I guess community continues to be important to this day. 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:28.320 That's so interesting, Damon. I think you mentioned the mystery 0:19:28.400 --> 0:19:30.879 is the start of the program. What's that all about now? 0:19:30.960 --> 0:19:31.439 The others? 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:34.760 Yeah, so we've we've had a few little mysteries along 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.040 the way there. That one quite a mysterious story. But 0:19:38.720 --> 0:19:41.000 I've got I've got one more that patch listeners can 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.360 help us with. So a few years ago, our team 0:19:43.400 --> 0:19:46.919 at State Records Office ganned and mapped out online a 0:19:46.960 --> 0:19:50.040 whole series of historical plans that were drawn up by 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.600 what was then the Metropolitan water Works board between nineteen 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:57.000 oint five and the nineteen seventies as part of actually 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.320 part of the roll out of the installation of sewerage 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:02.399 scheme through the metropolitan area during the twentieth century. And 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:07.000 it's quite bizarre to see these old maps with a 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:11.120 huge amount of features in them. They've just the amount 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.320 of detail is incredible. They've mapped out water features and 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.320 everything from chuck pens or fowl yards as they're called 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:24.320 on the maps. They've got our houses of course, lots 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:28.159 of those, minus the poptholes from the local hooligans, pats, 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:32.919 tennis courts, fish ponds, aviaries and the earliest swimming pools. 0:20:33.000 --> 0:20:35.120 So well before you know that was kind of established 0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:38.960 as a more popular thing in Perth. And this very 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.960 mysterious set of underground urinal not quite sure what that 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.520 is exactly, probably don't really want to think about it. 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.280 That was a bit odd. But the other feature that 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.720 we've wandered about is the good old Aussie barbecue and thought, well, 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.160 you know, the right time. We're probably past the summer, 0:20:55.240 --> 0:20:57.240 but it's interesting time to think about it. So my 0:20:57.440 --> 0:20:59.959 challenge and invitation to listeners is to help us there 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:04.840 by visiting this site which we call retro maps. You 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.359 can easily just google that. Put retro maps in State 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.000 Records Office. You'll find it and see if you can 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:14.920 find barbecue in there, perhaps the Perth first backyard Barbecue. 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:16.679 Let us know if you do find it. 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.480 Oh, I reckon, our listeners will come good on that one. 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:22.120 They usually do, you know. Oh gosh, and how can 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:24.960 our listeners find out more about what we've talked about tonight, Damien? 0:21:25.800 --> 0:21:29.200 Yeah, so look, I think listeners might find it quite 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:31.880 interesting to have a bit of a play with retro maps. 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.600 So go have look at that. If your house isn't there, 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:39.120 please don't be too distressed. It really is Perth early years. 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.120 So these maps were drawn up between nineteen oh five 0:21:42.160 --> 0:21:45.639