Henderson
· conferences · RWAHS · Cockburn ·
The 60th Royal WA Historical Society State History Conference (archive link; see also the event page and its archive) was held in early September 2025 at the southern end of Lake Coogee in Henderson. It was the first time I've been to one of these conferences, and it was really worth going.
It was two and a bit days of talks, hallway track, food, insufficient coffee, and wet and windy weather. Some more organised delegates (not me) managed to go on tours of Azelia Ley Museum and Manning Park, Bibra Lake Wetlands, the Coogee coastline, and Woodman Point Quarantine Station. The last I really wanted to go on but it was all booked out.
Friday evening
The Friday night welcome event was at Hamilton Hill Memorial Hall, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. I turned up a bit early, but there was an exhibition to look through, called "Wisdom Keepers", with eleven portraits of Cockburn locals accompanied by short histories of their lives in the area. A fair few market gardeners (and a bunch of other occupations too). I chatted with Allan Seymour, a photographer who's documenting "the old faces" (not the ones in the exhibition, that was Nic Duncan, with writing by Megan Anderson). Also with Mary Blight about white settler history and how we should be dealing with 19th century letters and things.
Rev. Mitchell Garlett gave the Welcome to Country, and talked for quite a while about his father Rev. Sealin Garlett (from Bruce Rock). It was interesting hearing him talk about learning hist family's history from his grandmother. It made me glad that I'd listened to at least a bit of what my own grandmother told me of our history. Mitchell lives in the house he grew up in and leads the church his father used to be minister of.
Saturday
It was a humid and warm start to the day, and I tried to take some photos for Commons while waiting for the bus. I mostly failed in that, but got to the venue (the AMC Jakovich Function Centre, which I guess is mostly a shipbuilding sort of a place) nice and early and with time for coffee and meeting random history nerds from all over the state. Mostly the Perth Hills to start with, with various exciting news about new sheds and machinery restoration grants. But also closer to home, with a few Fremantle History Soceity members there.
The Welcome to Country was interesting, with a bit of an explanation about how "kaya" is the Noogar word for "yes" rather than "hello" as it's generally used these days. It was also the first listening we got to the rather crappy PA system, which throughout the weekend was crackling with static and clipping the speech. Fairly annoyingly.
Simone McGurk spoke about being a history nerd at high school and hiding out at lunchtime working on school history stuff. I very much relate (although for me it was building the school's history website that got me into the computer lab).
There was what seems to be a fixture of a "roll call" of each affiliated society, where everyone stood up as the name of their local society was called. Much clapping. And a bit of a sad presentation of the names of all members who have died in the last year (including my cousin Ian Berryman).
There were four main talks of the day:
- Mary Blight on Midgegooroo (with a remote co-presenter who was introduced incorrectly and isn't listed in the programme, so I don't know who he was).
- A panel of three of Jeanette Paulik, Rina Lovretta, Marica Blagaich, and Lorraine Gauce (and unfortunately I don't know which three because again the programme appears confused). They were talking with Bruce Baskerville about their lives growing up and living on market gardens in Spearwood. Really interesting, and gave me such a feeling of being glad to live in this part of the world.
- Ross Anderson from the Maritume Museum with a very professional presentation about the shipwrecks in Cockburn Sound and other interesting underwater heritage (like the ex-slavery ship James Mathews, wrecked in 1841 off Woodman Point; and a de Havilland DH.100 Vampire aircraft that whose remains are somewhere in the Sound but are yet to be found.
- The fourth session of the day was a social- and environmental-historical overview of the history of the Walliabup/Bibra Lake area, by Dr Nandi Chinna and Dr Catherine Baudins. Really interesting! A sad coverage of the intergenerational amnesia that we experience and how far the current bush is from what is was three generations ago.
Over morning tea it was wetlands mapping, more colonial diaries, and pretty good custard eclairs. The coffee was plentiful at that point, but by lunch had disappeared (I guess this wasn't a tech conference!).
After lunch, I didn't go on any of the tours so I thought I'd head off for a walk around Lake Coogee. However, five minutes after leaving the venue the rain came down, and ten minutes later I was soaked to the bone and waiting for a bus on Rockingham Road.
Sunday
In the hallway was a large exhibition with a huge number of text-rich information panels, and various cabinets of artifacts, and banners hanging from the railings. All about the history of community protests in Cockburn, from the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s to the Roe 8 protests more recently.
Sunday was much wetter and windier than Saturday, but being on the second storey looking out at the tuart trees (and almost the lake but not quite) blowing around and being dashed by the rain, was a fairly cosy way to spend the day. I nearly made it from the bus stop to the venue between showers, but didn't and so spent twenty minutes drying off in front of a fan.
The RWAHS (or "the royals" as everyone seems to call 'em) had their business meeting first up. Along with some information about the Federation of Australian Historical Societies (who "will list your society on the website for only $33/year"!). They royals are looking for more young people, and help with IT. I sat on my hands.
Someone mentioned the $12 billion that's being spent on Aukus and the new submarine base resources, but thought (rather grimly) that at least they might end up as "the heritage of the future", with "more submarines on the seabed".
The presentations were:
- Maeve Harvey, with a terrific history of Coogee Beach and that area, such as Bernard McGrath's cottage on Coogee Lake. As well as the Noongar story of how that lake is saltier than the eastern chain of lakes because the sea had to rise up and flood it in order to put out a fire that was started when a bird stole the moon's fire. Every photo and figure in her slides was referenced to its source (not a common occurence).
- Erik and Joshua Surjan, two brothers who grew up on market gardens in Spearwood, talking about their Croatian family, history, and wine making. Wonderfully, ending with a taste of their most recent vintage.
- Dr Criena Fitzgerald told the story of the camel trade in Western Australia.
- The life indeginous boxer and stockman Wandi Dixon (after whom the suburb is named), was detailed by Dr Michael O'Connor and Dr Denise Cook.
- And lastly, Andrea Gaynor with an overview of the ecological conservation of Cockburn and why it's suceeding in many areas (at least compared to the fairly dreadful latter half of the 20th Century).
After lunch, people disappeared off on buses into the rain, to not go on walking tours of wherever they were going to. I nearly stayed put to work on some notes for Freopedia, but in the end there was enough of a break in the rain so I headed home.
All up, a good weekend!
My main RSS news feed: https://samwilson.id.au/news.rss
(or Wikimedia.rss, Fremantle.rss, OpenStreetMap.rss, etc. for topic feeds).
Email me at sam or leave a comment below…
samwilson.id.au