News
Looking Back
with Molly
Society Member Molly Smith has contributed another absorbing article Looking Back in the Walpole Weekly 10 February
Society Member and Historian Molly Smith speaking at the Society's special event to celebrate the 85th anniversary of the Walpole Land Settlement Scheme in 2015.
The Society's President, Elizabeth Shaw, thanked Molly for contributing many articles over the past five years "which have been of great interest and enjoyed by the community and our many visitors". Elizabeth told Molly: "Your regular stories will be missed by us all."
Molly thanked the Society's Curator of Photos (Don Burton) for supplying photos for the many articles over the years. Don said it had been his pleasure to work with Molly and praised her knowledge and thorough analysis for each article.
Manager of the Walpole Community Resource Centre (publishers of the Walpole Weekly), Cherie Smith, thanked Molly for all the wonderful stories and said CRC will give Molly one of the few remaining Walpole coffee table books.
Many of the stories are on Walpole Online. The Society hopes to arrange with Molly to have all the stories on this website soon.
Committee Meetings
The committee elected at the AGM on 22 November 2020 met for the first time this year on Friday 15 January 2021 at The Homestead.
New members of the committee: Dawn Martin and Kathy Broadbent were especially welcomed.
Next meeting: 19 March 2021
The committee will not meet in February. The March meeting will be an extended meeting to focus on:
Society plans for 2021 and beyond.
Roger Underwood
The committee has had recent contact with Roger Underwood: forester, writer and historian, who has provided the Society with 2 stories of local historic interest:
Annual General Meeting
The Society held its Annual General Meeting on Sunday 22 November.
The meeting was well attended and included some members who had travelled from Albany. Thank you Diane and Max! New Member John Marshall joined us at the AGM. Welcome John!
With encouragement from member Colin Story the meeting was held in the Community Hall (Supper Room) on the last day of Colin's video exposition: Between The Trees.
Colin has provided the Society with a copy of all the videos used in the show. Thank you Colin. The committee is now considering ways to exhibit this and its other acquisitions.
Reports were presented at the AGM:
A Special General Meeting just before the AGM agreed to 11 proposed amendments to the Constitution so that it was consistent with the requirements of the WA Association's Incorporation Act.
The General Meetings were reported in the Walpole Weekly.
State Library Service
Photo exhibition
The State Library of Western Australia has been sharing photos from its collection on Facebook: In 2020 the Library shared some photos of Walpole.
Some of the photos are re-published below:
Walpole Op Shop support
The Walpole Op Shop has again come to the support of a local history project.
The Society is working with the Walpole Work Camp to restore this old gravity fed fuel bowser which for many years was used on Don Burton's father's farm in the sixties through to the eighties. The bowser is typical of those in use at the time and originally came from Mobil oil company in Albany. The agent at the time (Frank Sherwood) did a lot of truck work for the Burtons as well as delivering fuel.
The Op Shop provided funds to purchase decals and parts for its restoration.
What the gravity fed bowser may have looked like once.
Since 2013 the bowser was on permanent loan to Ian Pumphrey (adding to his collection of old machinery). Ian sold his farm in 2019 and the Society sought the Work Camp's help to restore the old bowser. The Work Camp agreed and the bowser is at the camp being restored. When the restoration work is complete the Society will have an appropriate place to display it.
Royal Western Australian Historical Society Inc
The Society is an affiliate member of RWAHS.
We receive information including two key regular publications: the monthly newsletter History West and the annual journal Early Days.
The latest History West received by the Society was the December 2020 issue. and the latest (2019) Early Days is number #103.
Thank a Volunteer Day
Don Burton, Elizabeth Shaw
and Harold Luxton
Dawn Martin at back.
Photo: Cherie Smith.
5 December 2020
The Society was pleased to participate in this event which included the Blessing of the (Emergency Services) Fleet.
It was valuable to have a presence with other volunteer groups each with their own table of information sharing ideas and enlightenment. There was interest in the Society's work and the hall was full of the colour of various groups and services.
Walpole Cemetery
Curator of Photographs (Don Burton) has kindly taken on the project of maintaining and making available a catalogue of graves and memorials at the Walpole Cemetery.
This is very valued work that he does and complements information on the Shire website. It would be good if the Shire acknowledged the work and put a link to it on its own Walpole Cemetery webpage!
Men's Shed: Easels
for the Society's displays.
Thanks to the Walpole Men's Shed for making 2 A-frame easels to help the Society display its exhibits.
The easels will be used to display charts and illustrations at the various exhibitions and presentations organised by the Society.
Literary Publications Projects
At the end of 2019, the Society received funding from the Manjimup Shire (Water Corporation Local Hay Harvest fund) for the development, production and printing of local history book(s). The Society is working to re-publish the following local history books:
