Lilian Wooster Greaves Pressed wildflowers

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BEGINNING OF INTERVIEW

Jo: It’s the 1920s, post-war and patriotism for Western Australia is at an all-time high. In Leederville, a writer, poet and mother of four starts pressing wildflowers in her spare time. Thanks to her skill and careful work, the wildflowers have kept their shape and colour and many decades later, her books are donated to the State Library of WA. This afternoon, a timely look at this rare collection of wildflowers still being cared for by the State Library (of WA). Dr Kate Gregory is Battye Historian and is back in the studio. Good afternoon Kate.

Dr. Kate: Hi Jo.

Jo: Let’s start off with Lilian Wooster Greaves who was that writer and poet. Tell me a little bit more about her.

Dr. Kate: I just love this topic. It is just so wonderful to be able to dive into our collections like this. We’ve got a lot of wildflower material, lots of drawings and artworks, but most rare among all of this wildflower material are these wonderful albums that we have by Lilian Wooster Greaves, and they are albums of pressed wildflowers. These very, very beautiful kind of assemblages of wildflowers put together arranged to look as gorgeous as possible, and page by page, you know each one is very different; different colour schemes, different arrangements, and they’re just such a rarity. They’re such a surprise to find in our collections these pressed wildflowers. Lilian Wooster Greaves, look she was born in 1869 and in Victoria actually and her father was in fact a botanist so perhaps that’s where she first developed her love of the natural environment perhaps as a child and then she came to Western Australia and she lived variously in Wongan Hills as well as in the Darling Ranges and, as you mentioned, in Leederville as well and over the course of several decades, really starting from the sort of World War one period, she not only developed a passion for wildflowers and started preserving them as assemblages of pressed wildflowers, but she also became a writer and a poet and started to write variously about you know, the very kind of patriotic poems you know are Westralia’s Wonderful Wildflowers. Very kind of evocative and very kind of exuberant kind of depictions of the bush and yes, quite flowery language as well [laughs] but they are terrific poems, so she was a writer as well; very heavily involved with various kind of writers’ associations and very active in terms of trying to promote her work as well. So, she was published widely. She was published in various newspapers of Sunday Times, The Western Mail, regional newspapers, Southern Cross, you know far flung kind of places and you know, people knew of her, and she corresponded in fact with a number of people around the State over a long period of time and we are very fortunate at the State Library to have this wonderful, private archives collection.

Jo: Now Kate, I think you might have a poem that you can read to us in a moment, but I do want to go back to the wildflowers and you mentioned she lived in Wongan Hills and of course we’re set for this bumper season because of all this rain that we’ve been having and I think the wildflowers are probably already peaking through, out near Wongan Hills. Which wildflowers are in her collection and where did she collect them from?

Dr. Kate: Well look that’s a really interesting question. She collected from a range of different sources and in fact just this morning, I was diving into some of her correspondence thinking I better just get a feel for this archive and read some of these letters and in amongst it I found a little essay that she that she had written in 1938 which was precisely answering that question of how did she obtain her flowers that she used in her flower pressing and she actually said that she had friends around the state that sent her wildflowers so she was very fortunate to be able to receive wildflowers from as far afield as Meekatharra, Geraldton and right down to Albany as well. She also grew some. So, she and her daughters were very active in trying to kind of cultivate and I guess grow these wildflowers in their own gardens and they obtained them from florists and various kind of flower sellers as well.

Now this is in the period before... I have to mention this… before it was illegal to actually pick wildflowers and it’s very interesting to note that in this 1938 essay that Lilian wrote. She was actually saying at that time that there was this lessening of our floral treasures due to the pressure of development around the state so even at that time there was a kind of mounting pressure and in fact, you know really the whole conservation of wildflowers came about particularly after World War II in the era of where there was a lot of developmental pressure for housing and agriculture clearing of land, so Lilian in fact was kind of ahead of the game and recognising that these things needed to be conserved and properly looked after.

Jo: She loved them and saw their importance.

At quarter past two on ABC Radio Perth I’m talking to Dr Kate Gregory, Battye Historian from the State Library of WA all about Lilian Wooster Greaves.

Jo: Kate, what condition are these books in? What did the flowers look like after decades of being pressed between the pages?

Dr. Kate: Yes, look well they are gorgeous. They are faded, so some of the flowers have retained their colour better than others. We’re talking about them... these particular scrap books and albums date from the 1920s so you know it’s several, several decades. Some of them are still very vibrant but some of them are quite faded but they’re still... I guess they still look beautiful for the way in which they’re assembled for sort of you know composition of her pictures, her wildflower pictures. So they’re still really gorgeous but they are certainly fragile and require kind of special conservation.

Jo: I happened to have a book filled with pressed flowers from when I was a kid and I got it out the other day to show my youngest daughter because we had been pressing some flowers. Not wildflowers, I promise we weren’t picking wildflowers.

Dr. Kate: [Chuckles]

Jo: We were very naughtily though picking overhanging flowers around the neighbourhood, not in anybody’s garden.

Dr. Kate: [Chuckles]

Jo: And I was surprised, I mean obviously they’re only a couple of decades old or four decades old, but they still had their colour...

Dr. Kate: [Happy] Oh fantastic!

Jo: I am amazed at how... and I’ve seen some of the photos of Lilian Greaves’ books and they really do; there’s still a vibrancy to them.

Dr. Kate: Yes, they are. They’re just beautiful. So, they’re well worth... they’re fully digitised and available for people to look at through the catalogue. So and I guess that’s the way in which I guess part of the conservation of these fragile materials is that they don’t get accessed too often you know so that’s why having access to the digital copy is so wonderful so that people can actually share and access this material.

Jo: Let’s talk a little bit about what was happening at the time. How did WA come to be known as the Wildflower State?

Dr. Kate: That’s a great question. Look I think in the post world war one era, there was a growing recognition of the floral diversity that was held by... in the state of Western Australia and really it is in this period that this notion of Western Australia as the Wildflower State started to kind of gain currency and I guess we’ve got also in the twenties, the emergence of the very early kind of tourism industry in Western Australia and a lot of tourism in WA was actually focussed around wildflowers, celebrating our wildflowers and going and viewing the wildflowers. So it came up as an idea kind of very early on and I guess a lot of wildflower imagery was circulated in magazines and souvenir booklets and all sorts of ephemera at the time, so you kind of have these images circulating... this idea circulating and as well as that, I think the lead up to the 1929 State’s centenary celebrations really kind of shored up that you know special identity of Western Australia as the Wildflower State, yes so I think it’s really around that period in the twenties.

Jo: At eighteen past two on ABC Radio Perth, I’m talking to Dr Kate Gregory, Battye Historian. We are talking about our history... the history of wildflowers and those collecting them. I just want to let you know; Premier Mark McGowan is giving a press conference. Thank you to that person who sent in a text regarding the Auslan interpreter. We have passed that on to our social media team and they hopefully have fixed that and the only news to pass on to you so far is WA does have four active cases, but they are all in hotel quarantine.

Kate, people might also remember Boronia Cellars in the city. Can you tell me more about that history?

Dr. Kate: Yes, look I think people will probably remember this, that it was quite a common thing for Aboriginal people and lots of Noongar people to actually sell boronia in the city streets and this would have been probably from the fifties and the sixties and even into the 1980s possibly... the early eighties and it certainly something that you know people remember and it would be really interesting to see if any of your listeners do, so I think that was a phenomenon. I think it’s also really interesting to bear in mind the wider social history context of the 1920s. If we look back earlier when Lilian Wooster Greaves is producing these wonderfully kind of patriotic and celebratory and luscious kind of images of pressed wildflowers and in her poetry, that’s at the same time in Perth city for instance that you’ve got an exclusionary zone operating where Aboriginal people have to have a special permit and a special pass to get access into the city and 1928 in fact was when a deputation was... of Aboriginal people went to the Premier to try and gain access to greater rights and everything. So, you’ve got this kind of wider context that sort of shows you that the time of the twenties it was a pretty complex and pretty... even at that time, pretty kind of varied social experience going on so, yes that’s kind of interesting to bear in mind as well.

Jo: Kate, when did it become illegal to pick wildflowers? When did that...?

Dr. Kate: Yes.

Jo: ... conservation movement start to happen?

Dr. Kate: So, this is really... it’s in the 1950s and 60s that we start to see a lot of lobbying but conservation movements like the very early National Trust in Western Australia and like the Naturalist Club of WA that was also the Wildflowers Association of WA, the Tree Society, a number of conservation movements. It all came very active around this matter of preserving wildflowers and I think it was because it had become the State’s emblem. It was so kind of known for Western Australia and this was the very thing that was kind of under threat. With all the mass clearing for agricultural land, the roadsides that were being cleared for major new roads and so, yes, it was in the fifties and sixties and that’s when they start lobbying for new legislation as well to make it illegal to pick wildflowers and that was in the early sixties as well that all of this kind of starts to come together.

Jo: Kate, we have a question for you. Michael has called in and he wants to ask you about another amazing wildflower enthusiast. Good afternoon, Michael. What’s your question for Kate?

Michael: Yes, I’m really [unclear] with Georgia Malloy.

Jo: Ah, indeed.  Yes, [Laughs] absolutely.

Michael: I didn’t know who she was. I do this sports announcing for her wonderful group called ACC with 99 odd schools you know and I saw this name and I thought I’d like to know about this girl so I checked her out. What an amazing woman she was.

Dr. Kate: Ah, absolutely! For our listeners, Georgiana Malloy was a very early migrant to Western Australia coming to the sort of Augusta area in, gosh, it must have been about 1833/1834; very, very early on in the state’s colonisation and she was very active in collecting specimens, botanical specimens and actually sending those specimens overseas to Kew Gardens in fact and so she was a... and started off really as an amateur botanist but really her collections are hugely important for you know the understanding of kind of all of these new species that had never been recorded before and kind of understanding of that. So yes, you’re right. Georgiana Malloy is another really significant female figure in this and in fact we’ve got some wonderful letters by Georgiana in our collection.

Jo: Kate, are you familiar with the beautiful work of Philippa Nikulinsky, the artist?

Dr. Kate: [Chuckles] I am yes.

Jo: [Laughs] Ahh, we’re jumping right into the present.

Dr. Kate: [Laughs]

Jo: Not the past. Just tell people who she is.

Dr. Kate: Yes, well look she is a botanical artist I think will be the official kind of term for her and look her work is just beautiful. If anyone has the chance to have a look at one of her books. She’s published many books but the one that I particularly remember was Funghi of the South West; these absolutely beautiful botanical art works showing incredible detail.

Jo: That’s it; the intricacy of her pencil work is just incredible.

Dr KGB: Ah, they’re gorgeous. And the colours and everything. And I think the accuracy of the colours. They’re really, really special. And look there is so much work like that. I mean our collections are really quite rich with botanical artwork. People like Dorothy... Rika Erickson sorry. Dorothy is her daughter, also a wonderful artist and jeweller but Rika Erickson was a botanical artist and yes, we’ve got a number of her artworks in our collection.

Jo: Kate, just finally, what is the legacy of this interest in wildflowers? How is our landscape different because of it?

Dr. Kate: Yes, well I think in part, one thing that really springs to mind is that as part of the conservation effort around wildflowers in the fifties and sixties, we have these wonderful roadside verges so as part of any major road development, this is through that fifties and sixties campaigning, it was mandated that there had to be these roadside verges for the natural bushland to exist and partly it’s really interesting... it’s kind of two pronged... because partly it’s less about the conservation of wildflowers and other native flora and fauna but also it’s about being able to see those wildflowers from the car as you wiz past. So, it’s very much this idea you know that Western Australia is really kind of developed and shaped around the car. We are you know, very much vast distances and all of that but also the various town planning models have been implemented here. So, that has meant that being able to see things from a car window as you drive by has been really important, so that would be just one of the legacies but I’m sure look we also have our wonderful Kings Park who really from 1964 have held annual wildflower exhibitions each year and a rich range of other reasons I’m sure.

Jo: Of course, their native plant sale is always a winner.

Dr. Kate: Yes.

Jo: I had such a wonderful chat to Professor Kingsley Dickson not long ago about wildflowers. He is a fount of knowledge. Dr Kate Gregory, thank you so much.

Dr. Kate: Oh, that’s a pleasure Jo.

Jo: Kate is the Battye Historian at the State Library of WA.

END OF INTERVIEW