Miss Daisy Poole and the S.S. Jervis Bay

In 1933 six year old Daisy Poole travelled with her pregnant mother from Elberton Farm in Billeroo, East Winchester (Carnamah) to her mother's native England. After eight months in England, which included the birth of her brother Geoffrey, they departed on the steamship Jervis Bay bound for Fremantle, Western Australia and then their home in the Carnamah district.

Image: David Crotty    Source & Copyright: Museum Victoria

During the voyage home Daisy won a fancy dress competition (quite fittingly dressed as a 'daisy') and was awarded the below trophy and spoon.

Image: Taryn Ellis    Image & Copyright: Museum Victoria

Image: Taryn Ellis    Source & Copyright: Museum Victoria

Below is a postcard of the steamship Jervis Bay, which Daisy sent when the ship stopped at Malta.

Image: David Crotty     Source & Copyright: Museum Victoria

A few years later her parents decided to opt out of the family partnership that owned and ran Elberton Farm and move back to England. They first moved to Perth where her father Tom worked in the building industry to earn the money for their fare.

They returned to England on the Jervis Bay - the same steamship that Daisy, her mother and brother had returned to Australia on some five years earlier. They departed Fremantle on 14 May 1938 and a month later arrived in England. Below are the covers of two menus that Daisy kept from her second voyage on the Jervis Bay.

Image: David Crotty     Source & Copyright: Museum Victoria

Image: David Crotty     Source & Copyright: Museum Victoria

72 years later Daisy's son Phil Maggs viewed online some Jervis Bay items within the digitised collection of Museum Victoria in Melbourne. He offered his mother's items, which the museum gladly accepted. Michelle Stevenson, of Museum Victoria, made mention of these at the national conference of Museums Australia in Perth in 2011 as it was a great example of how putting the museum's collection online had actually led to its improvement and growth. By chance the name sounded familiar and we realised that these items also had a strong Carnamah connection - a very unexpected discovery!

The result has been one of duel benefit - we have been able to provide further backstory to Museum Victoria, and they have given us permission to share the above images here on our blog.