SLWA on ABC Radio

“Mediocre results are not to his credit. He lacks the serious and steady application indispensable for his future success”. Comments on Bob Hawke’s school record provides surprising insights into the academic performance of our former Prime Minister.

“He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares…” (from the Book of Isiah)

In November 1905 a young scientist travelled to Perth from Bremen, Germany to undertake research of international significance in suburban Bayswater. Damien Hassan, Senior Archivist at the State Records Office picks up the story based on the government files held in the State archives collection.

The State Library holds thousands of newspapers, but this week we focus on early West Australian newspapers, predominantly focussing on the first commercially printed West Australian newspaper, with the ungainly masthead of The Fremantle Observer, Perth Gazette and Western Australian Journal, published for the first time in April 1831.

This week we talk music, specifically the private archive of John Exton, who taught at the University of Western Australia’s Music Department between 1966 and 1988.

This week we focus on a range of separate but connected collection items and tell the story behind them. The Georgette Rescue and the role of Sam Isaacs and Grace Bussell within it has become part of West Australian folklore and mythology.  

This week Dr Kate looks at a collection that is widely acknowledged as one of the State Library's treasures – the Freycinet Collection.

This week,  just in time for wildflower season Dr Kate immerses us in the beautiful photography of Hilda Wright. Although she taught dressmaking professionally, between 1936 and 1950 Hilda was also a keen (and very skilled) photographer, focussing primarily on Western Australian wildflowers.

This week, Dr Kate highlights the State Library's incredible (and extensive) oral history collection, and focuses on the role that oral history can play in telling the stories of everyday West Australians and in highlighting and describing those aspects of our social history that are often ignored or left out of more official documentation of the past.

This week, Dr Kate talks about a small collection of photographs from the Gilchrist collection, depicting protesters from the Union of Australian Women marching against the development of a US military base in WA in 1962. 

This week Dr Kate discusses John Hutchinson’s remarkable collection of recordings documenting Western Australian birds across several decades in remote areas across the state, including parts of the Kimberley, Pilbara and South-West.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander visitors are advised that this page includes photographs and names of people who are now deceased.

Today, Dr Kate discusses the opening up of the South West as a tourist destination, and showcases an attractive, illustrated, handwritten booklet recounting a trip to Augusta in 1921.

This week, Kate talks about a very early letter from the Pilbara, written just as this area was opening up to the pastoral industry. The letter is digitised and can be viewed online through the State Library catalogue.

ANZAC day was on the weekend and in light of that, this week Dr Kate discussed Joseph John Talbot Hobbs who kept five diaries throughout World War I. 

This week Dr. Kate discusses Raymond Stanley Stewart’s diary written on toilet paper while he was a prisoner of war in WWII.

The diary covers the period of 27 July 1942 to 12 September 1942 and details the day to day life as a POW in the desert camps of North Africa to the camps in Italy.