Cate Pattison Research

21/11/2021

The quarantine station at Woodman Point is a lesser known but incredible place of WA heritage. Many buildings well over 100 years old have been preserved and tell the story of how we processed people arriving with Spanish flu, smallpox, bubonic plague, leprosy and others, until the sixties when vaccines wiped out many of these deadly diseases. Well worth a visit for a tour.
Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp

03/08/2021

03/08/2021

Feeling challenged in the laundry department during this Perth wet weather? Fed up with wet washing in your lounge room? This wonderful collection recently shared by the SLWA might make you appreciate your mod cons, never more so than now in homelessness week.

10/01/2021

Don’t remind me
Ever wondered where the name AUSTRALIND came from as you’ve whistled past on your way down south? Formed by the placenames Australia AND India, Australind got its name in the 1840s when some marketing men in London cooked up a catchy campaign to entice the cashed up to invest in a far flung colonial outpost, where it was imagined horses would be bred for sale to the British Army stationed in the nearby sub-continent. From a place with India within its name, what could go wrong? The settlement in Koombana Bay went ahead but was a disappointing disaster, when discovered that extreme weather and gutless soil made farming (to avoid famine) frankly a nightmare. The equine breeding idea also soon dissolved, a failed pipe-dream cast in perpetuity with the town’s name. It is however apparently the home of the ‘smallest church in Australia’, St Nicholas’ which still operates today, so at least that’s something. (Image SLWA 1963)

30/11/2020

Putting Perth on the True Crime Map
The story of Eric Edgar Cooke is one of legend in Perth's social history, and is the subject of a gripping new true crime series (now screening on Stan). After the Night written and directed by London-based Perth boy Thomas Meadmore combines archive audio and film with slick production to tell the story which goes well beyond Cooke's ex*****on as the last man to die in Fremantle Prison. Interviews with Cooke's wife who died last year and women that survived his brutal attacks make it all feel like yesterday. Depiction of the quaint insular world of the western suburbs in the 1960s is gold. Like all good documentaries, the series raises as many questions as it provides answers. It's a ripper.

The four-part Stan Original Documentary Series After the Night will depict the horrifying true story of Eric Edgar Cooke, one of Australia’s most notorious and deadliest serial killers.

05/10/2020

Divers and snorkelers out there will probably know about the incredible Coogee Maritime Trail, where shipwrecks, sculpture and more can be easily seen just 25 metres from shore. Explorers can swim around the wreck of the Omeo, built 1858 in Newcastle and used to lay the telegraph cable linking Australia to Britain, until wrecked in 1905. Amazing! The less adventurous of us who don’t relish offshore experiences can still get the vibe down at Coogee beach where the remnants of Robb’s Jetty built 1877 to bring livestock ashore from up North are still visible. What’s more, these beach ruins from the 1912 tug Wyola which came from England after WW1 and served in Fremantle until 1970 are there for all to see and feel. Just as well CY O’Connor is out there keeping an eye on these precious gems of WA’s heritage. Omeo Wreck Dive Trail

17/08/2020

Tudorbethan
Officially known as Inter-War Old-English (or Mocktudor) this style of building is still dotted around most British and Australian cities; particularly Melbourne but including Perth. Between the Wars, British nationalist sentiment was peaking and what lovelier way to hark to the days of unfettered Imperial reign than in your chosen architectural style. A steeply pitched roof, brick noggings, diamond leadlights and some half timbering were essential features. Old English subtly stated a genteel attachment to the mother country and nostalgic yearn for less worrying times. Naturally, Boas and Ednie-Brown’s 1937 London Court comes to mind, but there were many homes built in the style too, particularly in Nedlands, Dalkeith, Mount Lawley and South Perth. Leading architects George Temple-Poole, Talbot Hobbs, Marshall Clifton and Reg Summerhayes all indulged in a bit of Tudorbethan which no doubt met well-heeled client demand at the time and lined pockets nicely. In 1933, architect Howard Bonner’s Old English-inspired ‘model brick home’ for the masses designed for the new Floreat Garden Suburb won an award. It still stands today, lest anyone in Floreat should forget their genteel roots. Images SLWA (London Court, 1967; 'Kulahea' in Cottesloe, 1987).

07/06/2020

Map Trap
The State Records Office have just made historic Perth suburban plans (produced for the purposes of sewerage planning) freely available to the public online: 'Retro Maps'. With a GIS magic wand they have merged a bunch of data sets so anyone can easily look up what their street looked like in the early 20th century. Prepare to lose at least an hour when you open it up and start looking around your hood 100 years ago.

Enter RetroMaps and explore the changed landscape of Perth through historical survey plans.

27/05/2020

If you happen to have a (morbid?) fascination in decrepit buildings like me and some affection for our historic beachside suburb Cottesloe, you might like to follow my new instagram page . I’m often torn between excitement about fantastic new design and facilities and a melancholy for the loss of patina and history woven into the fabric of our environments. I believe that good development can honour both these desires. It just takes a bit more creative thinking and commitment to the value of heritage.

https://www.instagram.com/oldcottesloe

18/05/2020

Very Superstitious
Did you know that it was once common to conceal old shoes in a house when it was built? In an attempt to ward off evil spirits, this apotropaic folklore originated from 1300s Britain and was based on the idea that said witch/devil would be tricked into attacking the shoe and spare the home’s inhabitants. Expert on the topic, Dr Ian Evans explains that shoes are the only piece of clothing that retain their human shape after being taken off and thus better able to fool such sorcery. It does raise the question of how god-fearing Christians reconciled this Pagenesque behaviour, but for the price of a discarded bit of footwear it was cheap insurance, and although widespread was rarely discussed or recorded. The practice was taken to the ‘new world’ where it continued up until the 1930s, although had died out in the UK by 1900 (we were a bit behind in the Colonies). As many of Perth’s early 20th century houses are gradually demolished it’s not unusual to find shoes hidden in their fabric. These Victorian Balmoral boot remnants were found under the floorboards of a beachside house built in 1913 and have probably been there since, unearthed only as it is about to be reduced to rubble. It’s apparently bad luck to take the secret shoes out of a house, so I’ll assume that the residents of this house over the last 107 years enjoyed wonderful health, wealth and happiness. If you want to know more about this, have a look at this excellent post from Grove History.

14/04/2020

Contagious
These incredible times are for many of us completely novel, but a brief historical look at WA’s response to life-threatening communicable disease shows these are not the unchartered waters we might think. At the beginning of the 20th century, Tuberculosis was a major cause of death in Australia – ranking first among females and second among males. TB is a highly contagious (bacterial) lung disease with fever-like symptoms. Not unlike Covid19 you might say; however death came much slower and the broader community was largely unaffected by measures for its control, up until the Tuberculosis Act 1945 was passed and a national health campaign launched for its (still elusive) eradication.

Wooroloo (out near the old El Caballo Blanco) was chosen in 1915 as the 3500-acre site for a Tuberculosis Sanatorium ‘colony’ due to its isolation and abundant sunlight and fresh air, the only treatments available until the introduction of the antibiotic streptomycin in 1944, followed by an Australian produced BCG vaccine in 1945. This prioritisation of health spending apparently received considerable public criticism for the forward thinking (Labor) Scadden government at the time, although returning servicemen and civilians were soon making up the 600 patients treated there by 1917, with another spike after WW2. This complex of 36 ‘Federation Queen Anne’ buildings and landscaped terraces were erected in record time to cater for the thousands who went on to recuperate (or died) from this deadly disease at Wooroloo through until 1959, when the new Chest Hospital was built (later becoming Charlie Gairdners).

After closure Wooroloo was run as a geriatric hospital for a while, before becoming the low-security Wooroloo Prison Farm in 1972, still functioning today. So no, you can’t go and check it out unfortunately, but as one of the largest complexes of institutional buildings of this era, it probably looks and feels a lot like the former Sunset Hospital in Dalkeith, established at a similar time. Almost completely in-tact and with a ‘high degree of authenticity’, it would be a fascinating place to visit. (Heritage Council of WA) Images, SLWA.

04/03/2020

Quarantined
As Perth people await the impact of COVID-19, they could be comforted to know we have our very own quarantine hospital all ready to go, give or take a few modernisations. The Woodman Point Quarantine Station was established in 1880 to house immigrants and clear them of smallpox, leprosy and bubonic plague. Its value was fully realised however during the global H1N1 ‘Spanish’ influenza pandemic of 1918, particularly when the HMAT Boonah returned from South Africa to Fremantle with 300 infected men, resulting in the deaths of 27 soldiers and 4 nurses at Woodman Point (of the 50 million+ that died worldwide, mainly from poor hygiene and super-infection, pre antibiotics). WPQS has been preserved after its closure in 1979 and is better known since by West Australians for scratchy bunk beds at school camp than global pandemics. Images: SLWA Friends of Woodman Point Recreation Camp