Our Most Popular Online Content in 2022

With 2022 done and dusted, we've dived into our online statistics for the year. We were delighted to have welcomed 48,655 people to our website 63,718 times! If you're counted in that number, thanks for stopping by!

Below are the top ten most popular pages on our website in the year that was 2022, which is a nice blend of state-wide and local history content.

1. Index of Western Australian Teachers
Topping the list was our index of state school teachers in Western Australia from 1900 to 1980, which was compiled from historic editions of The Education Circular.

2. Biographical Dictionary
Our continually expanding Biographical Dictionary of Coorow, Carnamah and Three Springs comes in at number two. We've listed the most popular biographies in a supplementary list further below.

3. Index of Western Australian License Plates
Number three is our index of early Western Australian motor vehicle registrations, which spans the years 1915 to 1928. This great index was compiled from the RAC's Year Book & Road Guides which listed every registered vehicle in the state!

4. Virtual Museum
Our virtual museum of 14 online exhibitions continues to be a crowd-pleaser. Its exhibitions showcase objects, images and stories from our collection.

5. Midland Railway
Speaking of our virtual museum, its exhibition on the Midland Railway is yet again one of our most popular pages.

6. Cemeteries
Our cemetery index spanning the Mingenew Moora, Perenjori, Three Springs and Winchester cemeteries comes in at number six.

7. Schools
Our online exhibition on schools across Carnamah, Coorow and Three Springs is a surprise appearance in the year's top ten.

8. Macpherson Homestead
Our eighth most popular page was our visitor info for the historic Macpherson Homestead, located just one kilometre east of the Carnamah townsite on the Bunjil-Carnamah Road.

9. Three Springs History
As with previous years, our early history of Three Springs continues to be one of our most well-read pages.

10. Before Electricity
Our online exhibition on life prior to electricity comes in at number ten, which is no surprise as it is widely used in classrooms across WA and further afield.

Our Biographical Dictionary contains information on thousands of people with connections to Carnamah, Coorow, Three Springs and other nearby places. Below were the most viewed entries in the dictionary during 2022.

1. Local bushranger Frank Thomas

2. Bishop Rosendo Salvado of the Benedictine Monastery in New Norcia

3. Shepherd and farmhand Joachim Dido of Carnamah

4. Granny Latham of Coorow (Mary Oliver / Latham)

6. Sarah Campbell of Arrino

7. Renowned building contractor and later the world's largest individual farmer Gus Liebe of Waddy Forest

8. Scottish born Duncan Macpherson who established the pastoral station 'Carnamah' in the 1860s

9. Albert Nebrong, the son of Aboriginal woman Mary Wirbina and a member of the Macpherson family

10. Carnamah farmhand, shearer and farm manager Teddy Edwards

Celebrating 150 Years of Carnamah's Macpherson Homestead

The family of Duncan and Mary Macpherson shifted to Carnamah in 1868. The family of ten initially squeezed into a three room cottage near the Yarra Yarra Lakes before building a much larger homestead Carnamah House in 1869. 

Carnamah House, now known as the Macpherson Homestead. is turning 150 years old in 2019. The homestead is located one kilometre east of the Carnamah townsite via a sign-posted driveway off the Bunjil-Carnamah Road.

A series of activities are occurring over Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th of May to mark 150 years of this Carnamah landmark.

For more info on the family and their historic homestead, check out:

• Virtual Museum: Macpherson Family
• Visitor Info for the Macpherson Homestead

150th Anniversary of the Macpherson Family in Carnamah

The Church at Alvie in Inverness, Scotland in 2014

This story begins in Alvie, a parish in Inverness in the Highlands of Scotland. In January 1845 Duncan Macpherson married Mary Wilson - and these newlyweds obviously got straight down to business, as their first child was born nine months and ten days after their wedding!

When their first child was not quite three months old, the three of them boarded a sailing ship in London bound for South Australia. Two years later they shifted to Western Australia, travelling from Adelaide to Fremantle by ship, which was the most effective method of travel at the time.

The ship Titania, on which the family travelled to Fremantle; courtesy of the John Oxley Library

Shortly after their arrival in WA they moved to Toodyay, where Duncan Macpherson worked as a shepherd and labourer. In 1849 he leased Byeen Farm in Toodyay, where the family would remain for 18 years. Duncan and Mary ended up with nine children - Aeneas born in Scotland, Locke born in South Australia and Jock, Bessie, Maggie, Bill, Donald, Alick and George, who were all born in Toodyay.

While farming in Toodyay, Duncan took up a number of pastoral leases in Carnamah in 1861. As hard as it to imagine today, they herded livestock from Toodyay to graze on their land in Carnamah. It was during this time that Duncan or one of his elder sons fathered two Aboriginal children in Carnamah, and their names were Albert Nebrong and Frances Nintigian.

Meanwhile, back in Toodyay, things weren't going too well. Duncan and Mary's eldest son Aeneas had died in 1866 and mounting debt, pending bankruptcy and then a disastrous fire saw them evicted from Byeen Farm in late 1867. Their livestock, farm implements and even their household furniture was sold to clear their debts.

150 years ago, in 1868, Duncan and Mary Macpherson and their eight surviving children shifted to their pastoral leases in Carnamah to start again. They initially resided in a three-room stone cottage near the Yarra Yarra Lakes before shifting close to Carnamah Spring where they built the large home we now call the Macpherson Homestead. In their time it was called Carnamah House and it was the centrepiece of Carnamah Station, a pastoral station that was eventually over 125,000 acres in size (more than 50,000 hectares).

The Macpherson's Carnamah House and outbuildings on Carnamah Station

The family developed Carnamah Station to breed and graze sheep near the Yarra Yarra Lakes and both cattle and horses further east. They employed mostly Aboriginal people but also Ticket of Leave convicts and Chinese immigrants. Carnamah was at this time quite literally in the middle of nowhere. The family played a significant role in WA's early communications by running a telegraph office from their homestead and in delivering mail on horseback along parts of the mail-route between Perth and Geraldton. 

In 1891 Duncan Macpherson and his sons had 10,000 sheep, 300 horses and 300 head of cattle in Carnamah. They sold their livestock after herding them overland to Guildford and Geraldton. They were cropping just 40 acres in 1891 but had plans for more once the railway went through, as it would then be easier and more economical to move their grain.

Some of Duncan and Mary Macpherson's children eventually dispersed as they grew older. Locke leased and ran Yandenooka Station in the Mingenew district; Jock was a farmer and innkeeper in Greenough before managing Arrino Station; Bill managed Tibradden Station near Geraldton; and Alick managed Billabalong Station in the Murchison.

Locke Macpherson, who for a number years ran Yandenooka Station

Duncan Macpherson's wife Mary died in Carnamah in 1888 and her body was taken back to Toodyay to be buried alongside their eldest son. Duncan died ten years after his wife, in 1898, and was also buried in Toodyay. His sons Donald and George took over Carnamah Station. In addition to the station the two brothers transported wagons full of supplies and machinery from Perth to the first gold mine at Rothsay and also gathered timber which they carted and sold to the Great Fingal Mine in Cue.

Just before Christmas in 1904 the Macpherson brothers Donald and George went shooting wild turkeys some distance from their homestead. When about halfway home, they stopped to give an Aboriginal man some rations. Donald handed the reins of their horse-drawn buggy to George, with his gun between his legs. The reins became entangled with the trigger of the gun and it exploded, with terrible consequences for George's right arm. Donald rushed his brother to the train and a doctor joined them along the way to Perth. The next day George's arm was amputated but sadly, he was reported to have died from shock on Christmas day in 1904. He was also buried in Toodyay.

Donald Macpherson then became the sole owner of Carnamah Station. He continued to live in the family homestead, along with his two sisters Bessie and Maggie. By this time the station had more than halved in size as the government had taken a lot of the land they had been leasing and given it to the Midland Railway Company - which was in payment for building for the railway from Midland to Walkaway.

Carnamah was slow to grow following the arrival of the railway, with only a hand-full of people taking up small farms between the railway line and the Yarra Yarra Lakes.

In 1906 the government opened up Three Springs for farming under the name of the Kadathinni Agricultural Area. It quickly turned into a thriving and populated community and Donald Macpherson was very actively involved in its early development. He was the Founding President of the Three Springs Race Club and the Three Springs Rifle Club and an Inaugural Vice President of the Kadathinni Cricket Club in Three Springs.

Donald was heavily into horse racing and owned a number of successful racehorses. One of them, named Carnamah, won a series of prizes at races in Perth and on the goldfields between 1909 and 1912. Donald imported an English stallion named Grenelle, which went on to be awarded the Champion Horse at the Perth Royal Show. He also exhibited his livestock to the north, taking horses and cattle to the Irwin Show in Dongara in 1910 - where, among many other prizes, he had the Champion Stallion, Champion Mare, Champion Bull and Champion Cow.

Despite Donald's exploits, no one wanted to buy land in Carnamah. The Midland Railway Company were keen to start selling their land in the district so devised a scheme to develop virgin bush into farms and sell them as 'Ready-Made Farms'. Many of the families who settled on these properties were from Scotland - including the Lang, Niven, Raffan, Robertson, Forrester and Bowman families. Although Donald and his sisters were born in Australia, they had a strong Scottish identity and combined with these new settlers, Carnamah soon became known as the 'Scotch Settlement'.

Donald Macpherson's Hupmobile car behind the Macpherson Homestead

Donald led the charge in many community organisations, serving as president and later patron of Carnamah's football, cricket, race and rifle clubs. He also helped get the first Carnamah Hall built and served as president and patron of the Carnamah District Agricultural Society. He was the first from Carnamah to serve on local government, securing a place on the Upper Irwin Road Board in Mingenew, which had jurisdiction over Carnamah. In 1916 the chairman of the Road Board visited Carnamah and Donald was reported to have driven into every hole and boulder in the district, with the conclusion that a fairer sum would be spent on improving roads in Carnamah.

Donald's sister Maggie never married and died at the Macpherson Homestead in 1921. She'd fallen from her horse on Old Telegraph Road and received a nasty wound to her face from a stick, which never healed and eventually turned cancerous. Maggie ran the telegraph office in Carnamah for 39 years, operated Carnamah's first post office for 19 years and was also the local meteorological observer. Thanks to Maggie we have rainfall records for Carnamah that stretch back to 1887. In case you were wondering, the monthly rainfall 130 years ago (in January 1888) was 92 millimetres.

In 1919, at the age of 61, an unmarried Donald Macpherson decided his days of being a large pastoralist were behind him. He sold half of his land to the state government - who subdivided the land and allocated it to soldier settlers from the First World War. He continued to breed livestock but on the scale of a farmer.

Donald passed away in 1931. His death was reported in The West Australian, The Sunday Times, The Western Mail, The Irwin Index and The Midlands Advocate. He had been a Justice of the Peace for 44 years and newspaper reports described him as the "Father of Carnamah". All businesses in Carnamah closed on the day of his funeral and over 200 people attended his burial at the Winchester Cemetery. A newspaper report on his funeral lists a long number of people who sent flowers for his grave and among the many names are those of 15 Aboriginal people - many of whom were in fact relatives never openly spoken of and other former employees.

Donald left his estate to his unmarried sister Bessie and his nephew Percy Macpherson. They sold his remaining land, keeping only 100 acres surrounding the Macpherson Homestead. His sister Bessie continued to live at the homestead until her death at the age of 87 years in 1939. Bessie and her sister Maggie had lived their latter years in relative comfort, always employing a domestic helper and having a dining table adorned in silverware on starched white linen.

Bessie Macpherson, on the left, on the verandah steps of the Macpherson Homestead

However, what happened to the two Aboriginal children?

The daughter Frances Nintigian married James Ryder and spent time at both the Benedictine Mission in New Norcia and at the Moore River Native Settlement in Mogumber. She died near Moora in the 1920s and a number of her children later lived in Carnamah with their partners and children. It is highly probable that some of her descendants might still be living in Carnamah today.

The son Albert Nebrong worked for many years as a shepherd and stockman on Carnamah Station. In 1898 another Aboriginal man started a fight with him that resulted in the other man's death. Albert was arrested by the police from Mingenew and went before the Supreme Court in Geraldton. He was facing an extremely harsh penalty but ended up with a sentence of just one year's imprisonment, mostly because of the testimony given by George Macpherson. George described Albert as very good tempered man who he'd never been known to be malicious. As far as the court was aware, George was merely his employer - when in fact he was either his half-brother or uncle.

1898 wasn't Albert Nebrong's year as the legal system was also pursuing him for the custody of an Aboriginal child. The child's mother had died and Albert had collected the child and brought it back to Carnamah, believing he was the father. Benedict Cuper also believed the child was his, and with the help of the monks at New Norcia, arranged to get the boy back. Albert was in prison and George Macpherson refused to hand over the child. He was eventually forced to do so by a court order. When they came to collect the boy, Donald Macpherson made them walk eight miles to find him, while he rode alongside on a horse, possibly hoping that they wouldn't succeed.
 
After being released from prison Albert Nebrong had a daughter, who was known as both Carnamah Jessie and Jessie Nebrong. Like her father, she was kept close by the Macpherson family. She worked doing odd jobs at the homestead and her partner Joachim Dido worked for the family as a shepherd.

Jessie Nebrong beside a pepper tree at the Macpherson Homestead

Albert Nebrong later worked in Greenough, possibly for John Macpherson, before spending time on Ninghan and Coodignow stations in Payne's Find. He died in 1939 but rose to national fame in 1947 when it was claimed that years before his death he had cured himself of tongue cancer.

In the 1930s Albert had presented at the Dalwallinu Hospital and a very concerned doctor arranged for him to go to Perth for treatment. He took off the next morning and the doctor was so worried for his welfare that he pleaded for authorities to locate him. The police were tasked with finding him and they finally did three years later, however, his tongue required no treatment. He is said to have treated himself using a native plant known as the Maroon bush. The plant was assessed by a drug panel but never progressed to being used in medicine.

Albert Nebrong's daughter Jessie remained in Carnamah until the 1940s and received money from Malcolm Macpherson whenever he passed through Carnamah. Malcolm was Donald and Bessie's great nephew and he had inherited and sold the Macpherson Homestead after Bessie died. It appears to be the final act of a family who supported and cared for their indigenous family members but who, quite sadly due to the social conditions of the time, never publicly acknowledged them.

The restored Macpherson Homestead in Carnamah in 2004

Jump forward to 2018 and the Macpherson surname lives on as the name of Carnamah's main street. Two streets on the west side of town are also named after them - Donald Street after Donald Macpherson and Wilson Street after Mrs Mary Macpherson's maiden surname. Wilson Street is the only street or road in Carnamah to have been named after a woman.

To discover more...

• Check out our virtual museum exhibition on the Macpherson Family
• Visit the Macpherson Homestead on the Carnamah-Bunjil Road
• Read about each member of the family in our Biographical Dictionary

Greenough Museum & Gardens

Not too far from Carnamah is the Greenough Museum & Gardens.

The scene of this 'living' museum is set in and around the two-storey Home Cottage, which was originally the homestead of John and Elizabeth Maley. One can't help but feel a sense of history as the old staircase is creakily climbed. Speaking of sounds, there's headphones on hand so you can listen to recordings of what this historic homestead sounds like!

The museum is a blended mix of contemporary interpretation, traditional displays and an array of rooms in which you can interact with the objects and furnishings.

As organisations we have more than a few stories in common. A number of John and Elizabeth Maley's children, after growing up at Home Cottage, carved farms out of the landscape at Three Springs. The family played a pivotal role in the development of both communities and we have entries for many members of the family in our Three Springs Database.

It's also interesting to note, despite the distance and travel involved, that the Maley family were well acquainted with the Macpherson family, who were at that time living almost in isolation at Carnamah. When John Maley died in 1910 his widow and daughters left Greenough for a three week break - which they spent in Carnamah as the guests of Donald, Bessie and Maggie Macpherson.

Local history certainly doesn't end with a district or shire boundary. It extends to other places and weaves into a much broader story.

Greenough Museum & Gardens is located 10 kilometres south of Geraldton just off the Brand Highway on Phillips Road. Impressively, it is open everyday from 9:30am to 3:30pm.

Mentions of Carnamah in Australian Newspapers

The above graph shows the number of mentions of the word 'Carnamah' in the selection of Australian Newspapers that are available through the National Library of Australia's Trove service. Trove contains a fair representation of the leading newspapers from each Australian state and territory up until 1954 (the reason why the graph plummets out towards the end!).

It reveals some interesting points. The steepest increase occurred from mentions in 114 articles in the year 1908 to mentions in 697 articles in 1909 (that's an increase of 611%). It most certainly raises the question of why, and after taking a look we've discovered the answer lies in horse racing! It was during this time that the racehorse named Carnamah was competing widely at race meetings throughout Perth and the goldfields. The horse was one of many owned by the Macpherson Family of Carnamah.

The years with the highest number of articles mentioning Carnamah were 1929 and 1932 with 961 and 896 articles. These two years were definitely when the Carnamah townsite and district was booming and at its peak. With the start of the Second World War in 1939 the articles mentioning Carnamah plummet downwards until 1943 when it was as low as 145 - probably as global news of the war took precedence. The number then rose upwards to 681 in 1950 before once again declining.

Map courtesy of Tim Sherratt's QueryPic: Exploring digitised newspapers from Australia & New Zealand, retrieved on 16 April 2012.

Carnamah's Virtual Museum

mu·se·um /myo͞oˈzēəm/
Noun: A building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.

Buggy Lamp

Traditionally a museum has been a building, and it has housed objects that are actually there. The internet offers new opportunities! Today we have uploaded the first theme to the Virtual Museum section of our website. This section will tell five very different but connected stories that have had a strong bearing on Carnamah and its past.

The first theme is now live on our website! It includes photographs of some very unique objects in addition to historic portraits, photographs and a map. Together they tell the story of the Macpherson family who immigrated from Scotland to South Australia, and then onward to Western Australia.

Through the unfortunates of debt and fire the Macpherson family were evicted from the property they leased at Newcastle, in the Toodyay district. They moved to the then wilderness of Carnamah where they made not only a name for themselves but also the name for the district.

The four themes still to come are the Midland Railway, Ready Made Farms, 10 Macpherson Street and Milk Cream & Butter. With a touch of hard work and a bit of luck we hope to upload a new theme each week and have all five online by early September.

You can take a look at our first Virtual Museum theme on our website.


Silver Key presneted to Donald Macpherson at the opening of the Carnamah Hall in 1921

Take a look at our first Virtual Museum exhibition on our website.