This page is a record of a scholarly article relating to Fremantle.
- Part of:
- Title: Repatriation: A Debt of Gratitude
- Authors: Michelle McKeough
- Published: 2011 Fremantle History Society (Fremantle)
- Reference URL: https://freopedia.org/Repatriation:_A_Debt_of_Gratitude
- Tags: Fremantle Studies
- Authority control:
During the Great War over 30,000 men left Western Australia for the fields of battle overseas.1 Of these, Andrew Pittaway writes that, ‘three thousand of the best and brightest Fremantle could offer left these shores to serve in the war and eight-hundred and forty-two sons of Fremantle lost their lives’.2 How did Fremantle welcome and restore into civilian life these thousands of its returning sons who were deeply altered by the war they had endured? How did the community into which they returned respond to the home-coming of the men and boys they viewed as soldier-heroes?
In the first year of the war, municipal life in Fremantle, although now undeniably shadowed by the conflict overseas, continued in its traditional routine. This was borne out in Mayor Ernest Wray’s annual report in November 1915, in which the war received no more than a passing mention. Instead, the mayor announced that ‘during the past year the Council has revived a policy of tree planting and with the interest and assistance of residents the work will be comparatively easy and the streets made beautiful’.3 In the matter of the budget, he was able to report that the finances of Fremantle were actually in much better shape than they had expected at the start of the war: ‘A year ago we had some misgivings as to how the war and general depression which threatened would affect our municipal finances, but whatever fears prevailed they were groundless’.4 The war seemed a distant notion. The Mayor of Fremantle himself acknowledged that during the first year of war, ‘its effect was little felt by us, living in comparative security and feeling quite sure that we had no cause for alarm’.5
This ‘wartime naivety’ as Deborah Gare and Madison Lloyd-Jones succinctly put it, was due to the fact that in general, Western Australians had a simplistic notion of the ‘imperial adventure’ being played out on the battlefields of Europe.6 Bill Gammage similarly observes that ‘very few Australians learnt, then or later, what their soldiers did on that stage, and not many ever acquired more than a vague notion of their country’s part in the Great War’.7 This limited understanding was brought to a sudden comprehension, when the hospital ship Kyarra carried wounded soldiers into Fremantle in July 1915 — less than a year after the first troopship had departed.8 Fremantle was exposed for the first time to the real effects of war. Wounded soldiers filled the base hospital and rested on specially built seats around the town. Worse, the arrival of the wounded men coincided with the first of many heartfelt bereavement letters sent by Fremantle Council to local lamenting families whose sons would never come home. The mayor wrote with earnest sympathy, but also wrote that ‘in the midst of all the sorrow’ it was with pride they could think of the sacrifice of their young men for the sake of Empire. Equally, the parents of these boys clung to that belief. A ‘Thank You’ letter to the mayor from a grieving father, who had just lost his third son to the war in a matter of months expresses the depth of this feeling. He wrote, ‘We all feel the loss of our brave and good sons terribly, the mother almost heartbroken, but we cannot help feeling proud of their noble and heroic deaths’.9
In Fremantle, as elsewhere, the natural emotional response to the return of their soldiers once the full impact of what they had endured was also brought home was a prevailing sense of gratitude. This emotional response was echoed and supported by the creation of employment and of education and training, with particular and specific attention being given to ‘maimed men’. This debt of gratitude defined the method and motivation for schemes of repatriation across Western Australia. The sense of a ‘debt of gratitude’ begins with an understanding of the real shock that was occasioned by the return of Fremantle’s soldiers from the war. Belief in the honour of their cause and the heroism of their beloved sons, brothers and husbands, became an inviolate resolve, borne of necessity.10 As Walter Murdoch wrote in 1915, ‘in the presence of real things, of suffering and loss and sorrow’, the only consolation, was the ‘justness of their cause’.11 In Fremantle, as in the rest of Australia, the valorization of the soldier-hero became the prevailing sentiment that determined government and civil action for the repatriation of home-coming soldiers.12
Fremantle, as the first port of call, had a particular relationship with the soldiers returning from the battlefields. When hospital ships were coming into Fremantle Harbour Fremantle citizens were able to show their gratitude in an immediate way. The Council had an arrangement with the Naval Office that when the hospital ship was sighted from Rottnest, the Town Hall would receive a telephone call, and they would fly a ‘white and red rectangular flag’ from the Town Hall warning relatives and friends that the boat was in sight and that the wounded would land ‘five hours from the time of first hoisting the flag’. 13 Whilst the returning men were welcomed and nurtured, it was quickly realised that these soldiers needed a return to a normal life and the means of earning a livelihood. Figures for returning injured soldiers are difficult to pin down, but the general consensus in Western Australian historiography is that in 1919 about a third of returning soldiers were wounded or incapacitated. 14 Exact figures are unknown, but what is clear is that the numbers were substantial. From 1916 to 1919 these returning men, all of them affected in some way by the war they had endured, had to find a way to resettle into life at home. The issue of repatriating returned soldiers became one of the most important social and civil concerns of the last years of the war and the post-war period.
Writing only a few years after the end of the war, Ernest Scott examined the practice and meaning of ‘repatriation’. He wrote that ‘in Australia, the word was employed to describe the difficult function of replacing returned men in civil employment’.15 Certainly, from 1916 the question of employment for returning servicemen became the highest governmental priority, both in Fremantle and the rest of Australia. However, the key difficulty facing former soldiers was that many were physically incapacitated.16 In February 1917, the secretary of the Western Australian State War Council wrote that practically the whole of the 1,450 men who had at that time been discharged, were unfit for hard work. In addition, he cautioned that a percentage of those men ‘by reason of disablement through loss of limbs or otherwise, will be unable, even when their general health has returned, to follow their former employment’.17 For the majority of the returning wounded soldiers, future employment of some kind, was possible. However, it was recognized that there would be a significant amount of re-training required to allow them to return to work. The War Council identified the importance of the issue, noting that the re-education and training of maimed men ‘will probably turn out to be the most important function devolving upon the authorities’ in the repatriation of returning soldiers.18 The plight of returned maimed soldiers and the means and method for re- assimilating these men, caused a broad rethinking of civilian life.
Efforts at training schemes began in 1916 under the direction of the State War Council who expressed in the strongest terms the state’s debt of gratitude, advocating that ‘until effective action is taken to put the re-education and training of maimed men upon a scientific footing, the national obligation to our returned soldiers will fall lamentably short at its most vital point’.19 The essential direction for repatriation followed the lines of education and training.20 A vocational training committee was formed under the chairmanship of the Director of Technical Education and classes were under the general superintendence and control of the Education Department. All returned soldiers under 20 years of age on enlistment were eligible. Classes were started at the technical school in Perth and Fremantle. Men were drafted into the classes after consideration of their disabilities and also of their previous careers and their personal wishes. Certain classes, for example boot-repairing, were reserved for those who were seriously disabled and were incapacitated for more strenuous forms of work.21 In Fremantle, classes in ‘educational subjects and book- keeping’ were established at the Fremantle technical school near the Base Hospital on South Terrace.
At this early stage of the scheme for re-training, the War Council had two officers solely employed on the work of looking after returned soldiers. The role of these men was to get in touch with employers, visit hospitals and bring to the attention of the returned men the facilities offered for tuition and for finding employment. To fund its commitment to the training program, the War Council attempted to harness the already existing social network of fundraising for the war effort, and to ‘influence the majority of the public appeals’ to be made in favour of the repatriation fund. Which brings us to another important consideration. Whilst an emotional commitment to repatriation was obvious, the question remained of who was to foot the bill? Especially in a time when general economy was suffering.
In March,1917 the West Australian reported that some commodities in Western Australia had risen in price as much as 60 or 70 per cent since the outbreak of war and that ‘exploiters were putting prices up to such an extent that it was impossible to get the necessaries of life’.22 Yet although the average cost of food and groceries had increased there was not a corresponding increase in wages. Jean Beadle, one of Western Australia’s most tireless advocates for women and families’ interests, reported that ‘bed clothes had gone up and she knew of many poor families that could not buy blankets owing to their increased price’ and that many children had to go without boots.23 The secretary of the Education Department likewise reported that ‘owing to the economic stress prevailing at the present time the numbers of pupils in the 8th classes is diminishing from day to day’.24 EL Driver, whose job it was to investigate the cost of living for a royal commission in 1917-1918, declared that families were living under lower standards than ‘convicts in the Fremantle gaol’.25
In this environment, paid employment, even for those capable of undertaking it, was hard to come by. In Fremantle, a solution was found by which 20 returned soldiers were employed by the Council for short periods at a time, ‘in order that the work may be distributed as far as possible’.26 The expense was covered by municipal funds, but when the town council applied to the state for reimbursement, the War Council replied that it was unable to do so as it had not yet received funding money from the Commonwealth. The Works Committee, which had employed the men, recommended nonetheless that ‘in the interests of the returned soldiers the employment be continued and the Council will settle with the department later’.27 In practice, therefore, the Fremantle Council was prepared to incur a debt in order to provide work for their local returning men. The War Council recognized that probably the most suitable employment for these men would be ‘light work’ in the towns but, as employment was increasingly hard to provide, it became progressively more difficult to find a place for returned men in the metropolitan area.
For those for whom work was either not an option, or as yet unavailable, the state government made sustenance payments available, akin to what would now be considered ‘the dole’. Many men of course did not wish to fall back on the government for direct assistance — charity, as they saw it, was considered more of a burden than a blessing. In fact, the secretary of the Fremantle Council said at this time ‘that a considerable number of returned soldiers in Fremantle had a decided objection to taking sustenance money which appeared to be purely charitable and would much prefer to earn their living by working’.28 Returned soldiers mostly sought to find their own opportunities for work and only asked for aid in smoothing out the necessary permissions. The first example of the intentions, and plight, of such soldiers was contained in a letter received by the Fremantle Council in December 1916, in which two returned soldiers described their situation:
We the undersigned returned soldiers, late of the Tenth Light Horse A.I.F., respectfully apply for permission to have a stall for the purpose of selling fruit, outside the entrance of the Fremantle Railway station. We have received injuries on Active Service in Gallipoli which render us incapable of doing any hard work. Any guarantees or references you may require we will be pleased to supply.29
A note beneath, signed by the Officer in Charge, Light Horse Reinforcement, assured the Council that both of the men ‘have excellent character and clean discharges, and are in every way respectable reputable citizens’.30 The quandary faced by these two soldiers, the earliest in the records of Council, would be repeated many times over during the coming months and years. Repeatedly, these men requested and were granted licenses to run barrows and stalls, so that by the end of the war and for years beyond, the streets of Fremantle’s west end, were flourishing with returned soldiers, able to maintain their independence and create a new livelihood.31
Barrows and stalls had until this time, been a means for new immigrants to earn a living, predominantly selling fruit, vegetables or fish. With the return of injured soldiers, the role of these carts and stalls expanded in the port town. With new licenses being granted to soldiers, the stalls and barrows offered a range of goods, from coffee to patented razor sharpeners. These stalls populated the streets of the west end.32 To give just a few examples: there was a coffee stall on the corner of Market and Leake Streets; a bookstall in the ground near the weighbridge and Cliff Street; a pie stand in Cantonment Street; a fish barrow at the corner of Bay and Market Streets; and a fruit and nut stand on Essex Street’.
Yet these ‘barrowmen’ represented a small solution to a larger problem. The West Australian Worker in May 1918 declared that ‘for some weeks we have been silent regarding the growing scandal of discharged soldiers’ unemployment. Here in Western Australia, the State War Council is vainly trying to find 250 employers for 250 returned men’.33 The twin problems of employment and training were paramount to government departments determined to fulfill their obligation to returning soldiers. The stop-gap reliance on local welfare was all too clearly an insufficient program for handling the expanding numbers of cases; a more formalized approach, from a level of authority higher than local municipalities, was required.
Towards the end of the war, the Prime Minister Billy Hughes made an announcement to the nation:
We owe it to those who have borne the brunt of battle more than the nation can ever adequately repay. But we can at least make certain that the maimed are not left to struggle on unaided. There must be no room for criticism in the future. The Commonwealth Government undertakes the full responsibility for the welfare of the returned soldiers.34
Consequently, in 1918 the federal government stepped into the role of providing of work for returning soldiers, much to the relief of Fremantle and no doubt municipal authorities throughout the nation. In April 1918 the Commonwealth established a Department of Repatriation, whose responsibilities are fairly clear from the department’s title; it was introduced specifically for the purpose of repatriating Australian soldiers and in the words of its director, ‘to re-establish the returned men in civil life’.35 Two of its central responsibilities were placing returning men into suitable employment and the payment of a sustenance allowance to the soldiers in order to support their wives and families whilst they awaited employment.36
The scheme as set out by the federal government covered every person who had enlisted in the Imperial forces in any part of the Empire, as long as the person was a resident of Australia and had seen service abroad. It also provided for nurses and those who had ‘taken positions of value outside of the combatant class’.37 The federal board established a central executive in each state that was responsible to the Minister for Repatriation. Local councils were to aid each central executive. Perth and Fremantle were the first two councils in Western Australia to be given this role.
Classes at the technical schools were expanded to cater for the numbers of returning men. In 1918, the largest class was that for motor mechanics and there were 20 other classes on offer that provided training for men in a variety of trades.38 Yet despite the eagerness of returning soldiers to undertake training, the system itself was fraught with difficulties. Apart from the problem of finding, in one of the least industrialised states in Australia, a sufficient number of ‘light labour positions to serve as an introduction to more strenuous labour later on’, the emotional state of the soldiers themselves compromised the success of the program.39 The director of the Education Department wrote in March 1919 that the soldier students were ‘extremely sensitive’ and could become disheartened and drop out. That month he had admitted two students who could neither read nor write. Indeed, in almost all cases, the students had poor literacy: ‘it is the exception to find one who has read fairly’.40 These returned soldiers, with their associated physical, mental and emotional difficulties, often needed extensive sick leave from their studies. Some of them were clearly unqualified for the courses they wished to undertake, as the director indicated in October 1919: ‘of the eleven candidates for the October examination nearly all left school at about the age of 14 and have done very little since in the way of study’. 41
Despite this, in 1919 the two subjects most requested were clerical training, to enable students to pass the Commonwealth and State Public Service Examinations, and ‘accountancy in all its stages’. A popular option was for the soldiers to then go on to ‘the teachers’ college and to work as school teachers.42 An article in the West Australian in 1919 lauded the proliferation of teachers who had lost an arm or a leg in war service.43 By mid-1919, over 270 returned soldiers were studying bookkeeping and accountancy while nearly 90 more were preparing for clerical work or teaching. An additional 30 were taking science and professional courses. Further, the trades classes contained nearly 600 men, ‘the largest class being that for motor mechanics’. Other classes were training men as saddlers, harness makers, woodworking machinists, cabinet makers, French polishers, upholsterers, house painters, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, bricklayers, plasterers, plumbers, fitters and turners, electricians, body builders, trimmers and painters, watch repairers and wool classers.44
On a state level, the other focus of the repatriation effort prioritized the employment of returned soldiers in all workplaces without exception. The Premier, James Mitchell introduced a policy stating that ‘if a man suffers disadvantage due to his war work, it is right that the public should recognize that, to the extent of finding him suitable work, wherever possible’. Whilst the employment of returned soldiers in preference to anyone else was an accepted and encouraged practice, it was not without its pitfalls. Following a strategy of Elders to replace some of its workers with returned soldiers, a man living in Trafford Street sent a letter to the Fremantle Council in which, as he put it, ‘married men who had large families depending on them were put off the work and single soldiers put in their places’. He continued in earnestness that, ‘I am sure our brave returned boys have no wish to make women and children suffer hunger and want, as must be the case - and many of these men have sent some or all their sons to the front - as in my own case, five sons answered their country’s call and all will never return, one remains forever. I am sure not one of them would want a married man with a family to make way for him’.45 So, despite the good intentions of the plan to re-insert soldiers into the workplace, it was not without its drawbacks. In addition, on the wharves, there were clashes over unionisation and the employment of returned soldiers and the whole issue coloured Fremantle’s social, political and working life throughout the post-war years.
The Premier’s policy, nonetheless, directed practice and it had three key aspects. First, that in making appointments to the public service, ‘active military service must be the first consideration’. He stressed that although efficiency was not to be disregarded in making a selection from among the soldiers themselves, if employers were in doubt, they were encouraged to give the soldier a trial. Returned soldiers asked simply for opportunity; after that, they ‘must deserve continuous employment by honest effort’.46 Yet the policy also recognized that it would be impossible in some instances to find soldiers to fill professional positions or those needing special training and experience. The Premier’s answer to this is indicative of the sense of valorization of the soldier that infused Western Australian culture during this time of repatriation. He wrote in his policy that ‘the soldier is also a citizen and as such, is as much concerned as anyone else in the good Government of the State’. In other words the Premier was asserting that the soldier’s own sense of civic duty would be the determining factor when considering whether he was capable of taking on a particular position.47 The Premier’s policy also stated that those men hired into the public service since the outbreak of war in August 1914 were to be ‘put off ’ (that is, let go) when necessary to make room for returned soldiers who had enlisted from the public service.48 The Premier attempted to reduce the ‘inconvenience’ of those who therefore lost their job by offering transfers ‘should positions be available in any department which cannot be filled by returned soldiers’.49
All local governments throughout Western Australia received this policy and were expected to adhere to it. In actual fact, they probably did not need to be instructed on this matter. It seems local governments across Western Australia were keen to re-absorb and accommodate their returning soldiers wherever they could. Certainly, in Fremantle, the sense that they owed their soldiers a debt of gratitude that could best be fulfilled by safeguarding their return to employment and security, was at the forefront of their actions. Since 1916 the Fremantle Council had re-employed all the soldiers who had left for the war and wished to return. It had also created work within the municipality from council funds for returning soldiers who were capable of physical labour. To the self-defined ‘wingies and stumpies’, those who had lost an arm or a leg during the war, the Council gave work as gatekeepers at Fremantle Oval.
The monumental task of repatriation reflected the key goal of the administration at this time on a national, state and local level, which was ‘to reinstate in civil life all those who are capable of such reinstatement’.50 And whilst they could do little to oversee the practices of private employers, they could ensure that all government work was given to returned soldiers where possible — and in particular, to injured returned soldiers. The policy was protectionist in its nature, reminding government employers that ‘no matter how efficient a man with one leg may be, he may not get outside employment as readily as a sound man’.51 The difficulty of finding employment for returned soldiers continued after 1919, but was significantly worse for the permanently injured.52
In summary, the crisis of the Great War for Fremantle and the State of Western Australia was not entirely about the tragedy and loss of life that defines so much of what we know of that conflict. The crisis was also about how to resettle thousands of men, many of them broken in mind and body, into civilian life. Thus, an emotional response to the return of their soldier- heroes guided government policy. The federal government established a Department of Repatriation with a large and generous policy for the resettlement of returned soldiers into their former lives. The Premier of Western Australia provided his own program to ensure soldiers state-wide were given every opportunity to re-enter the work force and gain happiness and security. Fremantle, as did other local governments throughout the State, took their local heroes under its wing.
In short, from Fremantle Town Council to the Commonwealth, the administrative architecture of government, responded in terms of language, policies and practical schemes of assistance, to the emotional debt of gratitude felt by civil society. This debt, they felt, could best be repaid, at least in part, by facilitating a return to employment, to health and to security for their soldier-heroes.
Fremantle Studies Day, 2018
References
1 In August 1919 the Premier of Western Australia, James Mitchell, was informed that that thus far following the end of what we now call ‘the Great War’, the total enrolments of Western Australians had been 32,244 and of those, 6,007 had been killed or had died, 17,571 had returned and 8,671 were yet to return. Dr. Hope to Mr. Mitchell, 7 August 1919, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 112, 1919, Fremantle wharf – quarantine and dimboola. S.R.O., Perth.
2 A. Pittaway, ‘Fremantle Anzacs’, Fremantle Studies: Journal of the Fremantle Historical Society, v7, 2012, p 30.
3 Daily News, 24 November 1915, p 2.
4 Daily News, 24 November 1915, p 2.
5 Address by Mayor William Wray, 17 November 1918, Fremantle Municipal Council Files, Cons 1377, AN 217/3, Box 57, Item 4, S.R.O., Perth.
6 Gare, D. and Lloyd-Jones, M. When War Came to Fremantle, Fremantle Press, 2014, p 37.
7 Gammage, B. ‘Anzac’ in D. Gare and D. Ritter, Making Australian History: Perspectives on the Past since 1788 South Melbourne: Cengage Learning Australia, 2008, p 294.
8 Gare, D. and Lloyd-Jones, M. When War Came to Fremantle, Fremantle Press, 2014, p 37.
9 Mr. Curlewis to Henry Haynes, 10 June 1915, Fremantle Municipal Council Files, 1914–1920, ACC 1377, AN 217/3, Item 109, S.R.O., Perth. 10 On the subject of families dealing with the grief of war, in particular the impact of disability, and the life they faced as the ‘social and economic worlds in which they lived underwent transformation’, see Marina Larsson’s book, Shattered Anzacs: Living with the Scars of War (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2009) See also Leigh Straw’s After the War: Returned Soldiers and the mental and physical scars of World War I Crawley: UWA publishing, 2017.
11 Western Mail, War Souvenir Christmas Edition, 1915, p 1.
12 It is essential to recognise here that the valorization of the soldier-hero did not extend to all returning soldiers – specifically returning indigenous soldiers, whose experience of life on their return from war is not at all commensurate with the experience of their European brothers-in-arms. As Phillip Paynton writes, for many indigenous soldiers their general welfare deteriorated and ‘things became markedly worse for indigenous communities’. Phillip Paynton Australia in the Great War (London: 2015) p. 239. For further reading also see Department of Aboriginal Affairs, Community Development Directorate, They Served with Honour (Government of Western Australia, 2015) and Bobbie Oliver War and Peace in Western Australia: The social and political impact of the Great War, Fremantle, 1995.
13 Fremantle Municipal Correspondence Files Acc 1377 AN 217/2 Box 55 Item 7
14 Turner, I. in Crowley, F. (ed) ‘1914-1919’ A New History of Western Australia p.353 This agrees with Dr. James Hope’s enrolment returns to the Premier: ‘The state of return of the men from abroad on 31 July 1919 was: Total enrolments 32,244; Killed or died 6,007; Returned 17,571; Yet to return 8,671. Dr. Hope to Mr. Mitchell, 7 August 1919, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 112, 1919, Fremantle wharf – quarantine and dimboola. S.R.O., Perth defining precisely what ‘injured’ means. Historians such as Marina Larsson, advance the new thinking which advocates that mental and emotional trauma be considered in quantifying the soldiers who returned ‘disabled’ from the war and she puts the national figure of soldiers who returned with a disability at 90,000. Larsson, M. Shattered Anzacs: Living with the Scars of War, p 18.
15 Ernest Scott, Official History of the War of 1914-1918. Volume XI: Australia During the War 7th edition, 1941 ID no: RCDIG1069950 Digitised Collection, Australian War Memorial, Canberra.
16 Memorandum to chairman, State War Council [unsigned, undated], Premier’s Department files, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 106, 1916, Repatriation Fund, formation of, S.R.O., Perth.
17 Memorandum for Premier from Secretary, State War Council, 28 February 1917, Premier’s Department files, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 106, 1916, Repatriation Fund, formation of. S.R.O., Perth.
18 Memorandum for Premier from Secretary, State War Council, 21 October 1916, Premier’s Department files, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 106, 1916, Repatriation Fund, formation of. S.R.O., Perth.
19 The secretary of the War Council suggested that there were sixteen trades in which instruction could be given to maimed soldiers, but did not name the specific trades in his correspondence. Memorandum for Premier from Secretary, State War Council,
21 October 1916, Premier’s department files, AN 2/1, Acc 1496, Item 106, 1916, Repatriation Fund, formation of. S.R.O., Perth.
20 Whilst arrangements were made within the repatriation scheme, to be given medical treatment in the military hospitals, and convalescent homes were established for those ‘where there is little hope of the patient regaining ability to earn his living’. Medical treatment of returned soldiers will not be considered in this paper, which examines the issue of training and reemployment.
21 Annual Report of the Minister of Education 1919, Education Department files, WAS 24 Cons 1497 1920/0046. S.R.O., Perth.
22 West Australian, 23 August 1917, p 5.
23 West Australian, 19 October 1917, p 5.
24 Department of Education to the Inspector of Schools, 21 September 1915. Education Department files: WAS 24, Cons 1497, Item 1915/3233. S.R.O, Perth
25 Premier’s Department files, AN 2/2, Acc 1496, Item 173/17, Cost of living – newspaper clippings, S.R.O, Perth The Royal commission of inquiry into the costs of the necessaries of life was published in various stages during 1918.
26 Fremantle Municipal Council files, AN 217/3, Acc 1377, Box 53, Item 1: Council Meetings, Meeting of 4 July 1919, Report of works parks and oval committee – repatriation. S.R.O., Perth.
27 Fremantle Municipal Council files, AN 217/3, Acc 1377, Box 53, Item 1: Council Meetings, Meeting of 4 July 1919, Report of works parks and oval committee – repatriation. S.R.O., Perth.
28 Haynes to Premier, 5 August 1919, Fremantle Municipal Council Correspondence files, Acc: 1377, An 217/3, Box 57, Item 10. See also: Minutes, meeting of 2 October 1919, Works and Lighting Committee, 1918-
20, Fremantle Municipal Council Files, ACC 1377, AN 217/2. S.R.O., Perth 29 11 December 1916 from Cnr Keane and Lochee Streets, Cottesloe Beach to the Town Clerk. Fremantle Municipal Council, Cons 1377, AN 217/3, 1915, Box 39, Item 30. S.R.O., Perth
30 11 December 1916 Fremantle Municipal Council, Cons 1377, AN 217/3, 1915, Box 39, Item 30. S.R.O., Perth.
31 The ‘barrowmen’ of Fremantle and Perth are the subject of this author’s post- doctoral research but is only in its nascent stages.
32 Fremantle Municipal Council Correspondence Files, 1917-1919, Acc: 1377, AN 217/2, Box 55, Item 2. SRO, Perth. A map is contained in the archive with the prohibited areas coloured yellow: By Resolution of the Council, 6 September 1915, Fremantle Municipal Council, Cons 1377, AN 217/3, Box 39, Item 31. SRO, Perth The precautions against competition between retailers and street vendors had initially been resolved to manage the positions original fruit vendors, usually recent immigrants to Western Australia. See Appendix D, map showing the permitted zone for street barrows.
33 West Australian Worker, 24 May 1918, p 14.
34 Premiers Department files, AN 2/2, Acc 1496, Item 133/17, Repatriation, S.R.O., Perth – including copy of West Australian Worker, 24 May 1918, p 14.
35 Letter from Comptroller, Department of Repatriation, to Director of Education, Perth, 29 April 1918, Education Department files, WAS 24, Cons 1497, 1919/2007, Repatriation. S.R.O., Perth.
36 From Department of Repatriation to Minister for Repatriation, 4 July 1918, Education Department files, WAS 24, Cons 1497, 1919/2007, Repatriation. S.R.O., Perth
37 Geraldton Guardian, 16 May 1918, p 2.
38 Annual Report of the Minister of Education 1919, Education Department files, WAS 24 Cons 1497 1920/0046. The number of useful trades and courses available had obviously exceeded the original sixteen contemplated in October 1916. S.R.O., Perth.
39 E Scott, Australia During the War, Angus and Roberson, Sydney, 1940, p 837.
40 Director, Education Department, to Department of Repatriation, [undated], Education Department files, WAS 24, Cons 1497, 1918/1787, Returned soldiers. S.R.O., Perth.
41 Director of Education to J.O. McNamara, 3 October 1919, Education Department files, WAS 24, Cons 1497, 1918/1787, Returned soldiers. S.R.O., Perth. The director suggested that ‘Men of this kind should be very carefully tested to make sure that it is worth their while to go on with the course, as unless they are very exceptional cases I think that they would generally need at least a year’s work before entering the College’.
42 Ibid.
43 ‘Soldier Teacher’ in West Australian, 14 October 1919.
44 The number of useful trades and courses available had obviously exceeded the original sixteen contemplated in October 1916. ‘Annual Report of the Minister of Education 1919’ Education Department files, WAS 24 Cons 1497 1920/0046. S.R.O, Perth.
45 7 March, 1919 from William Mitchell, Trafford St to the Mayor and Councillors
46 Circular signed by L.E. Shapcott, Secretary, Premier’s Department, 30 September 1919, Premiers Department files, AN 2/9, Acc 1703, Item 649/22, Returned maimed & limbless men’s association. S.R.O., Perth
47 Circular signed by L.E. Shapcott, Secretary, Premier’s Department, 30 September 1919, Premiers Department files, AN 2/9, Acc 1703, Item 649/22, Returned maimed & limbless men’s association. S.R.O., Perth
48 A comprehensive list was compiled by the public service commissioner who wrote ‘My last annual report contained a list of them up to 4 August 1915 and the next report will contain the names of those who have been given a similar undertaking since that date. Being aware of the difficulties which arose in connection with alleged promises made during the Boer War, I am taking pains to avoid similar trouble after the present war is ended’. From public service commissioner to premier, 1 January 1916 Premier’s Department files: AN 2/1 Acc 1496 Item 34 1916 Government employees enlisting.
49 Circular signed by L.E. Shapcott, Secretary, Premier’s Department, 30 September 1919, Premiers Department files, AN 2/9, Acc 1703, Item 649/22, Returned maimed & limbless men’s association. S.R.O., Perth
50 E Scott, Australia During the War, Angus and Roberson, Sydney, 1940, p 833. 51 Circular signed by L.E. Shapcott, Secretary, Premier’s Department, 30 September 1919, Premiers Department files, AN 2/9, Acc 1703, Item 649/22, Returned maimed & limbless men’s association. S.R.O., Perth
52 Gare and Lloyd-Jones write that, Australia-wide, in 1920 some 90,000 Great War veterans received a commonwealth disability pension. Gare, D. and Lloyd-Jones, M. When War Came to Fremantle, Fremantle Press, 2014, p 41.
This paper is dedicated to the men and women of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society.
In particular, I extend thanks to Lynn O’Hara and Valerie Hutch, who have been incredibly generous with their time and energy in the period that I have known them. I continue to reap the opportunities that their support has granted me, and will always be grateful of their interest in an early career historian.