Waddy Forest or Waddi Forest?

Every so often we receive an email or comment from someone perplexed as to how we've spelled Waddi Forest incorrectly - not once but hundreds if not thousands of times! Goodness, how did that happen!?

It turns out there's no mistake in this recurring 'error' of ours. We took our lead from the Coorow Heritage Group, deciding to use what is the official spelling today and what was the most frequently used spelling over the district's earlier years.

The late Alison Doley advised us that when the the post office was established at Waddy Forest a mistake was made with the postal stamp being issued for Waddy Forrest. A double 'rr' has been used on the presumption that it was surely named after explorer Sir John Forrest. A response was made that no, it was a literal forest (with a single 'r') and arrangements were made for the name to be corrected. However, when the new stamps arrived they were for Waddi Forest. The story goes that at this point the local postmistress gave up!

The stamps were used, marking mail as from Waddi Forest, however, locals and community organisations continued to widely use the spelling of Waddy Forest.

The cover of the schedule for the 1948 Coorow-Waddy Agricultural Show

We've observed that local and regional newspapers used the Waddy spelling until during the 1940s when the editor of The North Midland Times suddenly changed to Waddi. From the stamps and we believe this change in the press, the spelling of Waddi was gradually used more and more until Waddy was all but a distant memory. Another influence towards the change may have been large-scale and prominent farmer Gus Liebe, who named his farm Waddi and was an early user of the Waddi Forest spelling.

In 1996 the Coorow Heritage Group successfully requested the spelling of the district be officially corrected and as a result it appears on maps today as Waddy Forest.


Related Content:

• Early History of Coorow
• 10863 Bushranger virtual exhibition on bushranger Frank Thomas
• 1937 Coorow-Waddy Show Schedule
• The Coorow Parrot to rival Carnamah's "Bonny" Cow
• 1949 Coorow-Waddy Show Schedule
• TOYS! of Coorow and Carnaman in the 1940s and 50s

If you have a connection to Waddy Forest, we encourage you to take a look at our Biographical Dictionary of Coorow, Carnamah and Three Springs, which contains biographies for many of Waddy Forest's settlers and residents.

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

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.