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

Virtual Museum: Schools

Today there are primary schools in Coorow, Eneabba and Three Springs and a district high school at Carnamah. However, this hasn't always been the case - another eleven schools previously existed within the same geographical area! A new exhibition within our Virtual Museum takes a look at some of these schools and includes some fantastic photos and objects from our museum...

www.carnamah.com.au/schools

Myrtle and Alf Chapman of Glenisla Farm in Winchester on their way to school

Back in 2014 we undertook a public poll of 25 potential online exhibitions that could be added to our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah. We've kept the results a secret as we always intended to develop both the top voted themes but also those that received the least votes. We'll share which one this was at a later date!

We'd like to thank the Department of Culture and the Arts (DCA) for supporting this project to share and promote more of our museum collection with the broader community.

Carnamah District High School students Aaron Kerr, Darren Tremlett and David Bowman in 1988 at the plaque marking the site of the former Billeroo State School - taken by school bus driver Jeanette Allen

MMXIV: Highlights from 2014

During 2014 one of our most popular blog posts was 2013: The Year in Review. We've taken that statistic as a mandate for a similar post to recap some of our highlights from 2014.

Biographical Dictionary

It was the end of an era as we bid farewell to our much-loved Coorow-Waddy, Carnamah-Winchester and Three Springs databases. It wasn't bad news though, as they joined forces to become a new and improved Biographical Dictionary. The new online dictionary is much easier to search and navigate, includes photographs and streamlines contributions from members of the public.

Museums and Galleries National Award

Our Virtual Museum: to be known and distinguished as Carnamah was the Level 1 winner of the Permanent Exhibition category at the 2014 Museums and Galleries National Awards. The judge's summarised us as "A small society with an innovative solution to extending their audience and sharing a larger proportion of their collection with the community. The website is very creative with excellent production values and interpretative images and narratives."

Memories of the Midland Railway

The privately owned Midland Railway was purchased by the Government of Western Australia in 1964. To mark 50 years since the takeover, we accepted an invitation to collaborate with Rail Heritage WA to gather memories and stories of what was affectionately known as the family railway. Many of the stories have been featured in the book Memories of the Midland Railway Co. of Western Australia by Philippa Rogers. Copies of the book can be purchased at our museum or alternatively some of the stories can be read at the end of our virtual exhibition on the Midland Railway.

During the year we completed, in partnership with Ignite Your Audience, an education resource on the Midland Railway. It links to years five and six of the Australian History Curriculum and is freely available for teachers via our Education Resources page. We also published Jeff Austin's histories on the railway's Stations & Sidings.

Virtual Volunteering

We did it! Hundreds of online volunteers, and especially a dedicated few, have successfully text-corrected and transcribed all of our local electoral rolls for the Commonwealth subdivisions of Irwin and Moore from 1903 to 1969. We are presently amalgamating the transcriptions into a single index to be published online.

During 2014 our Virtual Volunteering website has also hosted the virtual transcription of WA Biographical Index cards for the State Library of Western Australia. Thousands of helpers have transcribed over 30,000 cards... but there's still plenty more to go!

Carnamah Museum

As with every year, we have been kept busy running our museum and caring for the state heritage-listed Macpherson Homestead. If you're ever in Carnamah or passing through, we invite you to come and say hello. Our museum is open Friday afternoons or at any other time by prior arrangement.

The race that stopped the North Midlands

For many years the biggest event on the Carnamah social calendar was the annual Carnamah Races. They took part annually in March/April and were accompanied by the Moora Races and two race meetings in Three Springs - one for the sake of racing and the second for Saint Patrick's Day!

"Father of Carnamah" Donald Macpherson was a founder of both the Three Springs Race Club in 1910 and the Carnamah Race Club in 1916. At various times he loaned land near both towns for their racecourses.

Below is a notice about the then forthcoming 1927 races in Carnamah and further below a full report published after the event. Both are from The Midlands Advertiser newspaper, respectively of 11 March 1927 and 8 April 1927.

As cars and trucks became more prevalent the interest in horses and horse racing began to dissipate. The Carnamah Race Club's 1934 race meeting was cancelled due to a lack of nominations. Dancing, however, was still very much in favour and the club proceeded with their evening Race Club Dance at the Carnamah Hall.

The club fell into recess with no races being arranged for 1935 or 1936. After a Re-origination Meeting, the club's secretary Frank Rooke placed a notice in The North Midland Times newspaper that unless an objection was received the club would be wound-up and its funds donated between the North Midlands District Hospital in Three Springs and the Children's Hospital in Perth.

Carnamah farmer Tom Johnston acknowledged the worthiness of the two hospitals but objected on the grounds that charity should begin at home, especially with the depression. A meeting was called to decide where the money should go and the final decision was the Carnamah Athletic Club to assist them in buying gymnasium equipment.

Early Motor Vehicle Registrations from Moora to Mingenew

2016 Update:

We have since published online a Motor Vehicle Registration index for ALL of Western Australia! It can be found at www.carnamah.com.au/car-registrations 

2014 Original Post:

A new addition to our online content is an index of early motor vehicle registrations for the road board districts of Moora, Carnamah (including Coorow and Three Springs), Perenjori-Morawa and Mingenew. The index lists the vehicle licence or number plate, the owner's name, their address, the type of vehicle and the year/s it was registered. It can be viewed at:

www.carnamah.com.au/number-plates

1913 number plate issued by the Upper Irwin Road Board at Mingenew
Image courtesy of Jim Gordon

The information has come from a selection of RAC Motor Guide & Year Books digitised by the State Library of Western Australia. The index was created from transcriptions made by five of our virtual volunteers, with many thanks to David Senn, Lisa Dorsett, Ross Croft, Sandie Keeble and Tamara McPhee).

A similar but much larger project, to index all Commonwealth electoral rolls for the subdivisions of Irwin/Moore, is nearing completion but some extra help wouldn't go astray! If you've got some spare time you can help us finish the last pages on our Virtual Volunteering website.

Motor Vehicles registered with the Mingenew Road Board in 1922-23

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.

Letter from Neil Grosvenor of the Dudawa State School in 1938

In 1938 Neil Grosvenor was the teacher of the small one-teacher school at Dudawa, East Arrino in the Three Springs district. Neil's daughter Lee Evans has kindly provided us with a copy of a letter he wrote from Dudawa to his mother on 14 February 1938. It provides a nice summary of his initial impressions and a sketch of the schoolhouse.

Dear Ma,

      Your letter came on Saturday night. Stokeses, who live opposite, bring out things for us whenever they go to town, and don’t seem to mind. They’re very amiable people and a happy family, so we shouldn't disagree with them.

      Living should be somewhat cheaper here than in Buntine. We've been getting 2 quarts of milk per day (none on Sundays) and it will cost us only 2/6 per week. The Bowtell family returned today and will supply meat at 6d. per lb. They kill sheep, pigs and cattle and are said to be great flesh eaters. The stove here is a [Metters] No. 2 and cooks well - and there seems to be some firewood available within easy distance of home. So far I've just collected dead jam sticks up to 2 inches in diameter.

      The soil is the usual brown clayey business, but isn't as hard as at Buntine or Wamenusking. I’ll be able to start a garden as soon as rain arrives, but the tanks have to be kept for domestic use till then. On the back verandah is a potato creeper on wire netting and I've made a netting roof about 12ft x 10ft out to one corner of the wash house. The creeper is said to grow very quickly and should cover the netting within a year. I've drawn a plan including doors windows etc. South of us is a dam reserve, the dam being about 100 yds to the east. Between us it are York Gums and jam trees growing fairly thickly. There’s a well and windmill west of the school, but the water there is brackish. Stokeses’ house is about 30 yards NE of ours.

      The temperature has been going down gradually and the last 5 days have been 91, 93, 94, 91, 86. at present (10 p.m.) its quite cold, but we have to stay up a little longer as Cath is making bread. With luck we can keep going with the shop bread, but it’s not worthwhile getting more than 3 loaves at a time.

     I don’t think it’s any advantage for Babs to matriculate. The only use of that is as an entrance to the Uni and if she’s joining there she might as well take the Leaving in the ordinary way.

     My watch hasn't yet arrived. Will you ask Girlie to give the man a reminder? He seems very casual.

     I don’t think I told you that Jean Sheppard, my sewing mistress, is a niece of your milkman. The Sheppards here know Fremantle very well, and people such as Doigs.

      Also the Townsend who was the Storekeeper at Arrino according to the directory is Harry Townsend, now of the Newmarket Hotel. He was in Arrino about 4 years, according to information. I didn't know he’d been out of Fremantle for as long as that. He must have made a profit out of the store to have got a pub and Don Sebastian.

     Thursday. We've had mail and papers out since I started this, but no watch has come. Nor
has the February Circular, Calendar and Grouping Scheme Form, which usually arrive early in
the month. Evidently there’s no inspector for this district until a Director is appointed, which may mean that we’ll get Sampson if he slips for the Directors job. He’ll do me.

      Ask Arthur to take the Charities ticket for me and if amiable - Elanage to save the other bet. Amiable is God.

Further information on the Grosvenor, Stokes, Bowtell, Sheppard, Townsend and other families of Dudawa, Arrino and Three Springs can be found within the Three Springs Database on our website.

Local Vehicles and the RAC Motor Guide and Year Books

2016 Update:

We have published an online index of all Motor Vehicle Registrations in Western Australia for a number of years between 1917-18 and 1927-28. For more on the index click here or to begin searching go to www.carnamah.com.au/car-registrations 

2013 Original Post:

The State Library of Western Australia have digitised and made available online eight R.A.C. Motor Guide and Year Books. They range in date from 1917-18 to 1929-30. Most of them include a list of all vehicle number-plate registrations in WA, the name of each owner, the town/suburb of the owner and the make of vehicle.

Initially Coorow and Three Springs were part of the Carnamah District Road Board. In 1924-25 there were just 26 vehicles registered for all three districts combined:

click on the image to enlarge

By 1927-28 the number of vehicles registered at Carnamah had risen to 269, which is an almost 300% increase from three years earlier. We'll be incorporating local info from all eight books into the Coorow-Waddy, Carnamah-Winchester and Three Springs databases on our website.

If you wanted to take a look at the RAC Motor Guide and Year Books please click here to browse them on the State Library's website. Once you've selected a book there's also the option to download it as a PDF which can be text-searched. If you're wanting to download they range in size from 40 to 165 MB (the books got a lot longer as more people in WA got cars and trucks).

Our thanks to Jim Gordon for bringing this useful resource to our attention and to the State Library of Western Australia for preserving and making them available online. Jim also provided images of Carnamah number-plates over the years - which we're looking forward to sharing in the future.

Regional Agricultural Show Schedules - 18 Now Online

The schedules from local agricultural shows provide a wonderful snapshot of the past. They list financial members, officials, donors, judges and are filled with advertisements of local businesses. There are also adverts for businesses in Perth and Geraldton who were wanting to promote to local markets.

We are pleased to reveal that we've recently made 18 of these insightful booklets available online. We've tried to make the selection as broad as possible with a spread from 1933 to 2012. We've also included one from Mingenew, two from Three Springs and two from Coorow.

Mingenew:  1946

Three Springs:  1939  1948

Carnamah:  1933  1939  1945  1951  1956  1963  1970

Coorow-Waddy Forest:  1937  1948

North Midlands:  1979  1988  1994  1999  2003  2012

Links to the schedules can also be found within our Virtual Museum. You're welcome to download any of the images - simply click on the image to bring it up full screen, click "View all sizes" near the top right corner and then choose what size/quality you'd like to save.

The above schedules were made available as part of a project funded by the Department of Culture and the Arts aimed at sharing and promoting more of our collection to broader audiences. The project also included the creation of six new virtual museum exhibits on our website:

Midland Railway  ●  Roads to Government  ●  Business Houses

Carnamah Post Office  ●  10 Macpherson Street  ●  Toys

The Letter 'C'

Gould Genealogy recently launched the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge. To take part family historians are blogging about what each letter means to them, their family or their research. The challenge has progressed to the letter 'C' and we felt it was about time we joined in with what the letter 'C' means to us...



'C' is for Carriage, as used along the Midland Railway
Photo courtesy of the State Library of Western Australia



'C' is for Coorow



'C' is for Cows and Cattle,
as shown in our Milk, Cream & Butter virtual exhibition

'C' is for Commonwealth electoral rolls

'C' is for Coronation medal, as featured in our post
75 Years: George VI Coronation Medal found in Carnamah



'C' is for Carter Street in Three Springs
Taken in March 2010, courtesy of Google Maps



'C' is for Cemetery, and we have five in our online cemetery search
(Moora, Winchester, Three Springs, Perenjori and Mingenew)

 

'C' is for Caron Street in Carnamah
Taken in March 2010, courtesy of Google Maps

Obviously, 'C' is for Carnamah
'C' is also for Comment, which can can leave below this post!

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

The S.S. Koombana's Connections to the North Midlands

There's been a bit of press coverage lately about the steamship Koombana, which disappeared during a cyclone off the coast of Port Hedland one hundred years ago in March 1912. The Koombana was a passenger, freight and livestock steamship that operated from Fremantle up the Western Australian coast.

Hope was lost for the Koombana on 3 April 1912 when a stateroom door, smokeroom settee, part of a cabin draw and the bottom boards of a boat were found near Bedout Island. The wreck of the ship has never been found and all 157 passengers and crew were presumed to have gone down with the ship or perished in the water.

The steamship Koombana. Courtesy of State Library of Victoria, Image H91.250/1542

The challenge was put out for us to try and find some local connections to the Koombana. It seemed a steep request but we succeeded to find a few!

Frederick W. B. Clinch was among those who lost his life with the ship. He was a first cousin of James T. Clinch (at that time a farmhand in Carnamah) and also a first cousin of Mrs Janet M. Jones of Turipa Farm in Coorow. Frederick was also a first cousin of Mrs Ethel H. J. Maley whose children later resided in Three Springs (her children being George, Ken and Cecil Maley and Mrs Ethel M. M. Shute). Frederick's father was James Clinch who pioneered Berkshire Valley and was the first settler in the greater Moora district.

Another passenger on the Koombana was Donald McSwain who was a brother of Malcolm M. McSwain, who later took up farming in Carnamah and Marchagee.

Addendum, 8 July 2013:

George R. Cumming, captain of the schooner Queenie Alice found what was believed to be part of the bridge ladder of the Koombana and the back of a saloon seat. Both were found over a year later, on 20 July 1913, on Middle Forestier Reef halfway between Forestier Island and Depunch Island. George had also given evidence at the Court of Marine Inquiry into the loss of the Koombana on 3 May 1912. He asserted that global precautions in the event of cyclones put ships into greater danger as they failed to factor in the behaviour of cyclones in the north-west of Western Australia.

George's sons Andrew S. Cumming, Donald F. Cumming and Colin C. Cumming all farmed on the Inering Estate in Carnamah after the First World War. Donald's son Ronald G. Cumming also worked as a farmhand in Carnamah in the 1930s and in Waddy Forest in the 1950s. Our thanks to Lisa Dorsett for alerting us to the Cumming connection with the Koombana.

The Story of Bulk Wheat Handling

After being harvested wheat was emptied into bags, or cornsacks. These often accumulated in the paddock before being manually lifted onto a truck and carted to the nearest railway siding. The bags of wheat were then manually taken off the truck and added to the wheat stack at the siding. Prior to trucks the wheat was carted with horses.

The alternative was bulk wheat handling - the way in which wheat is handled today. Instead of being stacked up in bags the wheat is stored and handled in a bulkhead, wheat bin or silo. 

The bulk handling of wheat was first raised in Carnamah at a meeting of farmers from throughout the North Midlands on 14 July 1932. The meeting had been organised by Carnamah farmer John Bowman to explain the merits of a proposed co-operative bulk handling scheme. Two men from the WA Wheat Pool addressed the very large attendance. Another meeting was convened in Carnamah by John's son-in-law Ivan Johnson in 1933 however neither led to any action.

Two years later, on 8 April 1935, John Bowman convened a meeting in Carnamah to again discuss the matter and ascertain the level of local support. It was put forward that bulk handling would result in lower costs and would eventually be owned by the farmers. William J. Pethick of Winchester put forward a motion that the meeting be in favour of bulk handling, which was seconded by Howard H. Chappel, also of Winchester. The motion received unanimous support from those present.

The meeting led to the formation of the North Midlands Bulk Handing Deputation, which gathered signatures for a petition to request that sidings on the Midland Railway line be equipped with bulk handling facilities. John Bowman held additional meetings in other districts along the Midland Railway line to gather support and signatures. The deputation was headed by John Bowman in addition to William J. Pethick of Winchester, James K. Forrester of Carnamah, Albert E. P. Bateman of Three Springs and George G. D. Ferrier representing Yandanooka-Mingenew.

Bagged wheat in a paddock of Avalon Farm in Winchester, South Carnamah

The deputation travelled to Perth and interviewed the Midland Railway Company’s general manager Joseph J. Poynton on 16 August 1935. The only real outcome of the deputation was that the Midland Railway Company was unable to provide bulk handling facilities for the 1935 harvest, and it was advised that farmers purchase cornsacks for the harvest.

By mid 1936 no progress had been made and the reluctant Midland Railway Company said they would charge 1/6 per ton above Government freight charges for bulk wheat handling. 200 farmers from Moora through to Mingenew attended a meeting at the Carnamah Hall on 31 July 1936 and after a lengthy discussion proposed a more favourable solution – 1/6 per ton above existing charges but reducible by ½d. per 1,000 tons after 30,000 tons per railway siding. John Bowman of Carnamah, Kenneth E. Jones of Waddy Forest and William J. Pethick of Winchester interviewed Joseph J. Poynton who accepted their proposition.

The Midland Railway Company then authorised the establishment of bulk handling facilities at eight railway sidings between Marchagee and Mingenew. The Company contacted Co-operative Bulk Handling Ltd, who in August 1936 began the construction of facilities. Four gangs of men worked constructing the bins – one laying concrete, another cutting timber, a third erecting the bins and the last completing the floor. By mid October the bins at Marchagee, Coorow and Winchester required only finishing touches.

Carnamah's First Wheat Bin

 The Carnamah bin had a capacity of 200,000 bushels, was one of the largest in the State, and was erected in the record time of about a fortnight. Due to space constraints two smaller bins were built at Coorow, however jointly they had a slightly larger capacity than Carnamah.

The construction gang gave a free Community Concert inside the Carnamah bin on 25 October 1936, which was attended by approximately 230 people. Following the National Anthem the concert consisted of community songs, dialogues, duets and solo items. Electric lighting was provided free of charge by Thomas H. Parkin and seats were loaned by the Carnamah Hotel and the Carnamah District Road Board.

The wheat bin in Carnamah was officially opened by John Bowman on Monday morning 9 November 1936. Residents from throughout the Carnamah townsite and district attended the auspicious occasion to see the first wheat delivery. James K. Forrester, Chairman of the Carnamah District Road Board, credited John Bowman as being largely responsible for getting the bin installed and called upon him to tip the first wheat into the elevator bin. Lionel O. Ferguson of Carnamah operated the elevator of the bin during its first season. By 21 November 1936 the bin had been quarter filled with approximately 50,000 bushels of wheat.

Trucks entering to deliver wheat - note some farmers are still using bags while others have switched to using tanks

Original wheat bin in Carnmaah to the left, with additional added-on capacity to the right