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.

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.