Development of Perth suburbs

This week, Dr Kate is joined by a very special guest, her mother Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory from the University of Western Australia, for a special behind-the-scenes look at the factors that defined the development of the suburbs of Perth. Jenny talks about the some surprising stories that shaped Perth’s suburbs, such as the water famines of the 1920s in Mt Hawthorn. She also talks about the legacy of Gordon Stephenson in his 1950s plan for metropolitan Perth. Kate takes a deep dive into the State Library’s collection relating to North Beach and highlights the real estate plans from the early 1900s that shows the way in which suburbs were first promoted to investors. The State Library has hundreds of these beautiful real estate plans, and most are digitised.

Search for your suburb through the State Library catalogue.

Recorded live on ABC Radio Perth on 5 November 2021.

BEGINNING OF INTERVIEW

Christine Layton: Oh, it's so good to be here, I have to say this will be one of my favourite outside broadcasts by the time we're done. I want you to think about where you grew up. Imagine what it looked like, the place you lived in, the yard, if there were neighbours nearby. How much has that changed? Amazing how areas can evolve from one lonely home to a sea of houses, thick suburbia. How has your area changed?

On History Repeated, I'm discovering suburbs with you – to help, I've got a mother-daughter team which I'm just so excited about. Here with me in North Beach I've got Dr. Kate Gregory, Battye Historian from the State Library of WA. Hello Kate.

Kate Gregory: Hi Christine.

Christine: Not unusual to have you here but right next to you I have Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory, who is your mother historian. Hello Jenny.

Jenny Gregory: Hello Christine.

Christine: But okay.

Kate: Hi Mum.

[all laughing]

Christine: When I saw you walk in, you both had similar walks, and similar smiles and laughs, and I know that you're going to understand each other's phrasing, so I don't necessarily have to direct questions to either of you, which is great.

Jenny: Hopefully.

Christine: But your family actually has a connection to North Beach, tell us about that firstly.

Jenny: Yes, well, my husband - Kate's father - his family had a guest house out here. It was actually Waterman's Bay, which was slightly to the North. And they came to live here in 1952 I think, they took up the guesthouse. And over Summer, lots of people from the country - from the Wheatbelt - used to come down for the summer holidays. Same families would repeat year after year and became great friends as well, and then went back home after their holiday and then in the winter it was subdivided into, I think three flats, and people stayed in there for the winter period. They were there for about eight years I think and then when they finished at the guest house, they came to North Beach next door. To James Street, which is not far from here.

Christine: Isn't it funny, we've had listeners in and out all day, but I've got Mary here, who is also from North Beach who was saying that families from the Goldfields would come here as well when there were holiday homes in the area and it was "Far North", inverted commas, for those who know Perth well.

So, you also spent part of your childhood in North Beach, is that right?

Kate: No that was Dad, yeah he was here. But yeah, one thing to add to what Mum's just said which is the name of the guesthouse, which was just gorgeous.

Christine: What was it?

Kate: Homely.

Christine: Homely.

Kate: It just fits with that 1950s aesthetic, doesn't it?

Jenny: But a wonderful childhood, you know, playing on the beach, at the age of about ten or eleven on a little surf ski paddling out to Little Island, I think it was called? And so much freedom for the children, and the dogs. Wonderful.

Christine: I floated away in my mind to that vision. So, Ross, your husband, Kate's father, spent his childhood at North Beach and his mother ran a guest house for holidaying families in the 50s. That's Homely.

Kate: That's Homely.

Christine: How many people?

Jenny: It's gone. It's gone now.

Christine: Aww.

Jenny: Very sad. Yeah, I think there's a block of flats or something there now.

Christine: Oh, what a shame. Well, it's nice that you've got a connection the area and we have much to discuss. Looking back, what has been the catalyst for the development of Perth suburbs, if I can ask you, Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory?

Jenny: Yeah, sure. Well, it's pretty obvious, really. It's population change, population increase. So, the demography, and also economic change. So, first of all, the gold rush, then you get a flood of people coming over from the East Coast and from other parts of the world. So, the population of Perth quadrupled. It was pretty small to start with, but it got to about 170,000, something like that, which was kind of biggish, then. And in a very short period of time, so everything was under great pressure at that period, and that kind of gradually began to settle down and things like the first railway lines, they were built in the 1880s through to Guildford, Perth - Guildford and Perth - Fremantle, they were built at that time.

And then the next big burst of population was in the early ‘20s after the first World War. Lots of people who'd been in the services overseas came home, to homes fit for heroes, that was the idea, it was bit tougher from that actually. And you know, there were young men and women, settled down, had families and there's a population boom at the same time the government is encouraging English migration, you know the group settlement, which was a disaster of course, but group settlers were encouraged to settle in the countryside, many of them came back to the city when it failed. So, you get a boom of population there too and at the same time, you've got to provide not only housing but facilities for these people.

There's kind of a network of infrastructure that's got to go kind of out from the city: water, electricity, gas, and telephone of course. They're probably the main things. And this was often a problem because the funding wasn't always available, and for example with water, the government was paying a lot of attention to country areas, not so much the city, and weren't willing to make the investment necessary for water.

So, you've got a situation where in the inner early ‘20s, a new suburb like Mount Hawthorn, believe it or not, was a new suburb then. Mount, so it's higher. The developers were pretty mean and put thin water pipes, narrow water pipes.

Christine: Oh no.

Jenny: And there wasn't enough pressure, and in the heat of summer the situation would be you'd turn on the tap, and out would come a drip.

Christine: [Gasps]

Jenny: So, there were water carters, you know with a horse and cart and a big tank of water on the back that would come round supplying water, and it got so bad that eventually there were town hall meetings and protests and all the rest of it.

Christine: So around what year was this?

Jenny: This is ‘21, ‘22, ‘23, and what changed it was an election was imminent. That was the Mitchell conservative government, and the election was going to be, you know a few months’ time. There was big town hall meeting in Mount Hawthorn, hundreds of people there and they're all sort of going on at the government, etcetera.

Christine: [unclear]

Jenny: Yeah, that's right. And eventually the Government came up and said, "we'll fix this." And only a week before the meeting, the Premier had called in the Chief Engineer from the Public Works Department, the Chief Engineer of the Water Supply, Frederick Lawson, and said, " well we've got to do something about this now". So, Lawson, there'd been lots of reports and plans done that everyone had ignored, but he was able to put all the ideas together, present a plan for the Hills Water Supply Scheme. And that's what the Premier announced only nine days later.

Christine: The Hills? That's the part that fascinates me.

Jenny: That is Churchman's Brook Dam, which they started on pretty much immediately. They lost the election by the way. [Laughs] Churchman's Brook Dam and then Canning Dam, which was the really big one that was finished in 1940 and then Wungong Brook Dam, which was a bit later. And that kind of, really solved the water supply situation for another 50 years.

Christine: I would never have known that looking at Mount Hawthorn now. They fine for everything. If you have just gotten in your car, Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory is here with me, as well as her daughter Dr Kate Gregory, Battye historian and regular on History Repeated. It's so nice to have you both here.

And oh, I tell you what, in these early suburbs of Perth my Oma, my Opa came here first, tried out Perth and then she came by ship six months later and she always tells me the story of how in Bedford, which is now, you know, inner city, it was quite far out at the time, all bushland. She'd have to walk at least two kilometres to get water every day, and further to get a bus service into town. And our suburbs have changed so much. I'm asking the listeners; Peter says:

"In 1975 when I came to Cottesloe, it was working class and holiday homes for farmers. Now it's very different. The same would probably go for Denmark to an extent. Lived in Bullcreek for 20 years, only just this year a two storey house with 11 bedrooms being built next door to us. Three generations going to be living in it. We planted bamboo on our fence line six months ago and we can't see their house."

[Laughs] We're going to talk about generational housing in the future afternoons’ episodes as well. So, let's talk about, can you tell us the difference about the lifestyle people were living in the early suburbs, how different is it compared to now?

Jenny: [Unclear] I would say. It wasn't like this. There's certainly houses that were built with wide verandas, you know in the early, turn of the 20th century time. But then, at that stage too, the dunny was out the back yard.

Christine: Oh yeah!

Jenny: Okay, the back yard toilet.

Christine: That's right.

Jenny: In many of the older suburbs you've still got a backyard dunny, not necessarily used now of course, but it was interesting because gradually the design of the homes changed with the availability of water and power, and guess what, the toilet moved into the house. And the bathroom was in the bathroom.

Christine: And then we realised it wasn't a good idea to have the toilet in the bathroom and now we've expelled it to its own room and that's a good decision. [Laughs]

Jenny: Well, that's right, yeah. But so, you know. And people had potties. I remember my grandmother had a potty under her bed.

Christine: Really? So she didn't have to go outside at night? 

Jenny: That's right!

Christine: [Gasps] I didn't know that! That's so interesting.

Jenny: Now used as a flowerpot.

Christine: Yeah, yeah when my nanna and pop lived in Claremont, in Senate Street, they had an outhouse as well and I was so scared of it because it was filled with spiders and I was like, "I don't need to go, I'm just gonna hold it 'til we get back to Noranda."

Jenny: There was the story about the redback spider in the toilet. 

Christine: Yeah.

Jenny: Yes.

Christine: Yeah, that's right, oof! These things. So when was the Stephenson plan really brought in? That was...

Jenny: That was '53, '55 and moved into legislation, I think it was 1960. That was quite remarkable actually, because for the first time, someone took a kind of metaphorically, a helicopter view of Perth, and the way it was organised, its landscape, its topography...

Christine: The corridors.

Jenny: Yes and yep. Before the corridors actually. 

Christine: Before the corridors, yep.

Jenny: And Stephenson had come from Britain, he'd worked on post-war reconstruction in London, under some famous town planner like Abercrombie, etcetera. And he's also designed the first new town in Britain after the war, Stevenage, and he brought a lot of those ideas with him. He brought the idea of satellite cities, so that’s Joondalup, was on that plan. Yep, those sorts of things. But he was very much a man of his time, and what was king at that time in terms of transport? The car. So, the freeways we have now follow the designs from his plan.

He was really quite remarkable, and we might complain too many cars and all the rest of it, but it has made it a very mobile city for, until perhaps recently, when traffic's begun to get out of hand, but it's coped very well over many years.

Christine: Well Main Roads will be happy to hear that. And there's Stephenson Avenue, and there is land set aside for Stephenson Highway, which, unto itself...

Jenny: Yeah, well that's another thing.

Kate: That's right.

Christine: We should talk about that in future episodes. So, Battye Historian at the State Library, Dr Kate Gregory, you are here too.

Kate: Yes.

Christine: You're sitting next to your mum. What is it like to hear her talk about the history of Perth?

Kate: It's normal for me!

[All laughing]

Christine: This is a kitchen discussion, in a kitchen!

Kate: We talk about it all the time!

Christine: It's so great to be able to cross-check your work with your mum. I'm so jealous. So, what collections are there to back this all up at the State Library?

Kate: Well, I know. I'm just thinking as Mum was talking. Really, we're so privileged because at the State Library we have the records, we have the kind of evidence, the paper trail if you like, of the traces of the past of how Perth has changed over the years and how suburban development has taken place. So anyone can find, and if we sort of take a deep dive on North Beach as a place, you know you can really see the records relating to this suburb and some of them are just really gorgeous.

So, something I'd really love to highlight today, because I think people would like to look at these, the wonderful collection of real estate plans. So, they date from the early 1900s and I think, maybe early as 1895.

Christine: Are we talking about subdivision plans?

Kate: Subdivision plans, and really this is, prior to North Beach, I mean North Beach was kind of a holiday destination and it wasn't yet connected to the networks of transport and water as Mum was saying, and there was still a lot that needed to be developed. So real estate syndicates came together and tried to put together these sort of planning models and ideas for real estate plans and try to encourage investment in the area. And, quite apart from the fact that all of these, we've got hundreds, many hundreds of these plans relating to suburbs all through Perth. I'm just looking at one now.

Christine: That looks like a carnival poster, what is that?

Kate: Yeah! Well, this one is about 1905 and it's North Beach, Perth's favourite watering place, magnificent ocean frontages, splendid views of Rottnest, Fremantle and the Indian Ocean. And one hour's drive from Perth by good road, emphasising that. So yeah, I think that all of these are fully digitised, and they can tell you actually quite a lot of information, I mean apart from that fact that how they were promoting the place is one thing and bearing in mind what Mum was talking about with the various sort of pressures on population growth, and reasons for population growth.

Another factor, apart from the gold rushes, was of course movement from the eastern states to invest in land in Western Australia, and land like this was really touted as being prime investment kind of opportunity, so it was kind of responding to that opportunity as well.

Christine: And it's interesting looking around because there are so many houses of different ages. You can see that there are some that are a hundred years old, and there are some that are maybe 70s, 80s, and then there are the brand new homes. It's so fascinating to see.

Kate: Absolutely. So you can sort of see all the various layers upon layers through the decades if you look at the State Library collections.

The other really lovely aspect I’ve found relating to North Beach is of course the holiday seaside history, and the collections of family photographs that have found their way to the State Library. For instance, the Elsie family in the 1920s used to come here on holidays and you know, there are just these gorgeous sets of black and white photographs of their holiday adventures and their time spent on the beach, looking for shells in the water. I mean it's so relatable, you know they're just beautiful, they might be a hundred years old, which they are, but they’re so relatable so that’s a beautiful kind of piece of history.

Christine: Carol, it's been great to get your text, she says "Drake Street!" She sent me a photo, Bayswater, very early 1900s. Oh wow, you can see paddocks, really. A bit of hay, you can see an old car, a shed, there is a book about the history of Bayswater with great early pics in WA Library's catalogue. Thank you for that, Carol. So, I suppose, when it comes to the development of Perth, what is the thing that has stood out to you most, Jenny, in the recent years?

Jenny: Well, the kind of pressures... the problem is that if we go on the way we have been going, we will stretch from Geraldton to Bunbury, and we're enclosed by the hills to a certain extent, and that is an issue because of the tremendous cost in providing the infrastructure, the water, all those things that we don’t even see because they’re under the ground, that's enormously expensive, and that's why I think we're going through this urban infill at the moment, which, you know, everyone’s got mixed feelings and unfortunately, some of what's being done isn't particularly sensitive.

Christine: Nadia Mitsopoulos has a panel on density coming next Tuesday between ten and eleven.

Jenny: I heard about that.

Christine: Yes, so for the Perth audience but anyone can tune in via the app, so it's gonna be really interesting to hear that from different voices because density is such a huge discussion right now.

Jenny: Yeah. One of the difficulties is density and the environment, because what's happening with the re-zoning that's going on in some areas and high rise being permitted, you know, developers are going in there and cutting down everything that's over an inch high, including all the trees, and you know, we've got the urban heat sink, and if we get rid of the trees, we're gonna get hotter. 

Christine: Yeah, we're starting to see changes there with some councils wanting to keep the trees.

Jenny: Yes.

Christine: And that's something I'm gonna talk to Peter Hobbs about after three o'clock.

Jenny: Ah, great.

Christine: We've got news headlines now, you have one more member of the Gregory clan behind you, I can see Seb. Now, Seb, are you going to go into history as well? [Laughs]

Christine: He's in Year Five and not too sure yet. 

Kate: Year Two!

Christine: Year Two, oh! [Laughs] Sorry, my bad! You just look so much more mature. But look, the stock is there. 

It's been such a privilege to have you both in front of us.

Kate: Thank you.

Christine: It's a wonderful passive home. This will be a day that I look back on, so thank you for coming in. 

Kate: Thanks Christine.

Jenny: Such a pleasure, thanks.

Christine: And grab a cake, and some sausage rolls and all the other things. That was History Repeated on the growth of our suburbs with Emeritus Professor Jenny Gregory, and Dr Kate Gregory, Battye Historian as well.

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