75 Years: George VI Coronation Medal found in Carnamah

George V, King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, died in 1936 leaving the throne to his eldest son Edward VIII. After being King for less than a year Edward abdicated as the woman he wished to marry had been married before and was about to be divorced for a second time. Rather than cause a constitutional crisis he gave up the throne and married the woman of his choice.

The throne then passed to his brother George VI (father of Elizabeth II), whose coronation took place on 12 May 1937. This occasion was celebrated throughout the British Empire, with Carnamah being no exception. Children's sports took place throughout the afternoon at Centenary Park and at their conclusion the children gathered under the Union Jack and the Australian National Emblem. Each child was presented with a Coronation Medal, which were donated by the Carnamah District Road Board - better known today as the Shire of Carnamah.

75 years after the medals were presented to local children one was discovered during weeding in a garden bed at 15 Caron Street in Carnamah, the home of Roxy East (one of our virtual volunteers) and Len Brown. Below is the front and back of the medal, which has probably fared quite well considering its time spent outdoors.

Road Board chairman James K. Forrester talked to the children and his speech (below) captures the spirit and pride felt at the time...

"Boys and girls, it is my privilege on this, the Coronation day of King George and Queen Elizabeth, to address you briefly. This gathering is one of many thousands being held throughout the British Empire today, celebrating the Coronation of our King and Queen. I would like your little minds to travel with me into the jungles of Central Africa, where the chiefs and tribesmen are gathered; into the mountainous regions of northern India; into the Arctic Circle of northern Canada and in many other places where like gatherings, some larger, some smaller than ours are being held to celebrate the occasion.

Coronation means that on this day in London a ceremony is taking place; it finishes, or has its climax, at Westminster Abbey, where the King and Queen take an oath to serve the British Empire as rulers. I am sure very few of you girls and boys have not in recent weeks seen photographs of the little princesses in the daily press nor have you felt something in you, something born within you that makes you feel proud when you look at these photographs. Little princess Elizabeth may some day be Queen of the British Empire.

This takes me back many years to a similar gathering as today. I was a little boy [in Scotland] standing in a line, my mind more on how many races I was going to win than on our head master's address, although the little message he conveyed to us has always stuck to me. He used as his text the word 'Loyalty.' He said then as I am saying to you today:- 'It is the Loyalty of the boys and girls of today that will make the Loyal men and women of tomorrow. It is this loyalty that binds together this wonderful Empire of ours.'"



From The North Midland Times newspaper, Friday 7 May 1937

After receiving their medals the children of the district were entertained with afternoon tea and then presented with bags of fruit and lollies. The adults got their turn in the evening when a very large number of people attended the Coronation Ball at the Carnamah Hall. The ball was a massive success with visitors in attendance from as far away as Marchagee, Arrino and districts on the Wongan Hills railway line.

We're Recruiting Virtual Volunteers!

We are a small organisation hoping to keep up the pace at doing big things, and request your assistance whether you are near or afar!

The team working on preparing information for the Coorow-Waddy, Carnamah-Winchester and Three Springs databases presently stands at a grand total of two - it's highest number to date! We are very keen to increase the content and and names represented in this rich and nationally unique resource.

We are hoping to index Commonwealth Electoral Rolls for the subdivision that our districts fell within. The benefit is that instead of having a massive pile of electoral rolls we will have a list of names, their occupation, address and the range of years they were enrolled. This information can then be directly and very quickly added to the databases.

So how can you help? We will send you electoral roll images and you simply add the details to an online document. If the details are already there (from an earlier or later roll) then you only need to add the year! We will be very happy to acknowledge all assistance received on our sources page.

If you'd like to assist, or would like to know more, please send an e-mail to andrew@carnamah.com.au

Update 20/08/2013:

You can now volunteer online at our Virtual Volunteering website

One Year, 40 Posts and in the Top 50

One year ago on 9 May 2011 we launched our blog with its first post entitled The Decision to Blog! We're pleased to mark this year old milestone with our 40th post.

We're also very excited to reveal that we're one of three societies that made it into Inside History magazine's Top 50 Genealogy Blogs, as compiled by Jill Ball.

Over the past year we have shared many things on our blog from Carnamah's Place at the National Museum of Australia (which caused a bit of a stir in WA historical and museum circles!) to progress with our museum with Museum Extension Photos and Window to the Past.

We've been pleased to share some very well received history pieces such as The Story of Bulk Wheat Handling, Thomas the Bushranger and the S.S. Koombana's Connections to the North Midlands.

Sometimes it is nice to simply look at good photos and for this reason we posted the wonderful Coorow Photographs by Dave Curtis, Photographs of Mid West Wildflowers by Cliff Winfield and the more historic Harvest in Winchester in the 1920s.

We've also shared some of our achievements with Musing magazine: Carnamah's dot com, Region of the Month at One Place Studies, Inside History magazine: Calling Carnamah Home and At the Frontier: Virtual Existence & Social Media.

History can be analysed in so many ways and we enjoyed using new technology to bring some new insights with our post Mentions of Carnamah in Australian Newspapers. It was also great to share some history in the making with Capacity Reached at CBH = Wheat on the Ground from when Co-operative Bulk Handling in Carnamah started storing wheat in piles on the ground in late 2011.

We look forward to sharing more over the coming twelve months and hope you will join us in wishing our blog a Happy 1st Birthday!

Safe Keeping Exhibition at the Perth Town Hall

An old Coolgardie Safe from Carnamah has made its way down to Perth to briefly reside at the Perth Town Hall. The safe is one of 30 from around WA included in the Safe Keeping exhibition, which celebrates the ingenuity and diversity of the WA-invented Coolgardie Safe. Each safe is accompanied by an inspired artwork.

Coolgardie Safes were used to keep meat and other food cool in the days before refrigerators. They worked by having a bucket at the top that slowly dripped water which would dampen the hessian sides. The safe would be kept where it could catch the breeze, which was often on a verandah. The breeze would pass through the hessian and evaporate the water resulting in cool air inside the safe (which then kept the food inside cool).

Mullewa artist Rachel Mckenzie took up the challenge to take part using our Coolgardie Safe, pictured above. This safe was used in the Carnamah townsite by the family of Dick and Lily Power from the 1940s until the early 1950s - when they purchased their first refrigerator. Rachel's artwork is a number of nicely crafted locks and keys hanging above our safe. To quote her apt words... "the simple combination of the safety of hessian and the key to making it all work, wind and water."

Pictured above is a photograph of two of Rachel's pieces which are hanging above the safe in the exhibition. The lock is of hessian texture and the key symbolises the wind and water. "The invite to be art of this exhibition was a lovely surprise and has brought about a wonderful series of conversations with my grandfather about Coolgardie safes and his time in Kalgoorlie! It has indeed been a wonderful journey!" - artist Rachel Mckenzie, 30 March 2012.

Cool Jute Warm Jute
Artworks by Anne Duff and mixed media assemblage by Jane King (The Fringe Collective)
Safe courtesy of the WA Museum

Patchwork of Memories by Caroline Telfer
Safe courtesy of Ken and Wendy Solly of York

Safe Keeping: An Exhibition of Art and Artifacts Inspired by a WA Invention was at the Perth Town Hall 10am to 4pm every day except Monday until Thursday 17 May 2012. We'd love to hear of any stories or memories you have about Coolgardie Safes.