Editorial Team – To The Golden Land
Ian Abbott has in recent decades researched Western Australia’s ecological history, focusing on forest fauna, conspicuous vertebrates in the south-west, epizootic impacts, islands, Noongar fire regimes, and Aboriginal names of birds and mammals. The Royal Western Australian Historical Society has published his two papers outlining WA’s zoological history. Since joining the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project in 2005, he has contributed discipline-based expertise about faunal and landscape ecology for 12 books published by Hesperian Press.
Rina Ashcroft has always had a keen interest in Western Australian goldfields history. Rina has participated in a team in compiling and typing two books on Western Australian prospectors and gold rushes.
Shirley Babis is a retired primary school teacher. She is a member of the Genealogical Society of Western Australia, and a foundation member of the Bayswater Historical Society and the Bassendean Historical Society. Shirley was the treasurer for the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project, and did some of the proofreading for this volume.
Shirley Barnes is a proofreader with the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project. After more than 30 years experience in recreation and community planning, she is now semi-retired. She lived for many years in rural areas, especially the Eastern Goldfields and has always been keenly interested in the human component of ‘communities’, particularly during the early years of settlement and the gold rushes, including how and why ‘communities’ were established and flourished, and the historical and leadership aspects involved. She has travelled extensively throughout the Western Australian outback goldfields regions and the Pilbara, has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Recreation) – aligned to the ‘community’ aspect – and a continued interest in the ‘outback’.
Phil Bianchi, OAM, has prepared the descriptions of the exploration routes and the lists of maps and place names for a number of Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project publications. He is a keen four-wheel driver with a long interest in Western Australian exploration and following up on explorers’ routes. Phil has published a number of books on Western Australian history, and been a contributor to a number of others. His areas of special interest include books on the woodlines in Western Australia, and the Canning Stock Route. He is the author of Work Completed, Canning, A Comprehensive History of the Canning Stock Route, the ninth book in the Western Australian Exploration series..
Graeme Blake has worked, lived and travelled in many country areas of Western Australia and has developed a keen interest in the history of this state. Now retired he is pleased to be able to assist in the important work of Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project. His first colonial ancestors arrived on the HMS Sulphur and went on to become settlers in Western Australia. Members of the convict class who were sent to the colony also form part of his Western Australian background. He is passionate about the contribution made by the convicts to the advancement of Western Australia.
Peter Bridge, OAM, is a series editor of Western Australian Exploration and a co-founder of the project. He established Hesperian Press in 1969 and has produced over 800 publications, mainly on aspects of Australian history. His own published works include mineralogical research and geological indices for the mining industry, several books and many edited collections and reminiscences.
Calliope Bridge does library searches, document scanning and photo preparation for Hesperian Press.
Celene Bridge is a designer, doing editing, typesetting and cover design for Hesperian Press.
Lesley Brooker has travelled extensively in the wheatbelt of Western Australia in a technical and research capacity for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. She has authored and co-authored scientific papers on ornithology and habitat reconstruction, and was a co-recipient of the Serventy Medal for scientific publication in 2005. Lesley has a special interest in the geographical history of exploration in south-west Australia and has written five books on the subject.
Joe Bryant helped prepare the descriptions of the exploration routes and the maps listed in the synopses. He has a degree in engineering and spent his career working as a general manager. After retirement from the corporate world he ran Explorer Tours, a remote area tour company with his wife, Marion Hercock.
Nina Cameron completed general and midwifery nursing qualifications in Kalgoorlie and King Edward Memorial Hospital in the early 1960s. While living in Darwin she retrained as a library technician in the early 1990s and went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in history at Northern Territory University (now Charles Darwin University) where she worked until returning to Perth in 2005.
David Dale helped with the preparation of this Volume.
Gail Dreezens is the project’s typist and made original transcriptions from hand written field notes, which was a difficult task. An amateur historian, her passion for Australian history has been further developed by travels throughout this country.
Kim Epton is a series editor of Western Australian Exploration and a co-founder of the project. He is the author of Publishing Your Book with Hesperian Press; C.C. Hunt’s 1864 Koolyanobbing Expedition; and Rivers of the Kimberley. Since helping to establish the project, his role is now one of marketing, assisting in financing future volumes, and the determination of prescriptive documents for proofreading and editing of the diaries.
Alex George, AM, is a retired consultant botanist, editor and indexer, and holds the position of Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Veterinary and Life Sciences, Murdoch University. He worked at the WA Herbarium for 22 years and then spent 12 years in Canberra as the Executive Editor of the Flora of Australia project. He has also served at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, England, as Australian Botanical Liaison Officer. His taxonomic research has focused on the families Proteaceae, Myrtaceae and Gyrostemonaceae, resulting in naming many new species and several new genera. His main research interests are now Australian botanical history and bibliography. Professor George prepared the Appendix on plants, advised on the indexing and interpreted the Latin and French words and expressions.
Allan Harris was a proofreader for this volume. Now living in Albany. He has life-long interest in all aspects of Western Australian History. A keen family history researcher, he is a volunteer at the Albany Family History Society where he is the librarian.
Marion Hercock has a PhD from the University of Western Australia, where she is an Adjunct Research Fellow with the School of Agriculture and Environment. A geographer, her publications include works on environmental management and history, environmental resources, geographical thought and 19th century geographers, as well as tourism and recreation. She is the principal editor of Western Australian Exploration 1836–1845 and the Western Australian Expeditions of John Septimus Roe 1829–1849.
Zoe Inman has travelled extensively in Western Australia, as a child with family; working as a country relief medical scientist and as a 4WD tour company hostess/ cook. Her more recent travel includes sailing the Kimberley and greater southern coasts, desert walking with camels and four wheel driving with her partner. Her love of Western Australia’s flora, fauna and history was instilled at a young age and continues to flourish, so involvement with the WAEDP team was a natural and exciting progression. Her publications to date are science-based, as is her career.
Michael Lance has been farming in the Gnowangerup district since 1973, and is an amateur historian with the Gnowangerup Heritage Group. Keen to see Western Australian local history recorded before it is lost, Michael has prepared for publication the memoirs of one of Gnowangerup’s first settlers: A.H. Allardyce (1903). He has a particular interest in Roe’s record of the 1835 expedition from Perth to King George Sound, and wrote the introductory essay to the accounts of that expedition.
Sheryl Milentis is an historical researcher and a principal editor with the WAEDP. She took all the digital photographs of the Roe Fieldbooks, which were used for the typescripts and proofreading. Sheryl also researched most of the biographical material. Her interests are in early criminal history, prostitution and genealogy, with some 30 years research experience. She has contributed to a history of policing in Western Australia, and co-edited The Scarlet Stain, a social history of the early years of Kalgoorlie prostitution. Sheryl’s forebears arrived on the Marquis of Anglesea, the third ship to the Swan River Colony, in August 1829. Her other colonial ancestors include the King family of Guildford and of Gingin, and the Andrews family of Fremantle. She is a principal editor of Western Australian Exploration 1836–1845 and is currently preparing the third chronological volume in the Western Australian Exploration series for publication.
Ian Murray is a researcher of history, specialising in Western Australian 1890s gold towns, prospectors and place names. He was a volunteer in the Private Archive Section of the Battye Library. Ian has published several books about the goldfields and place names.
Rob O’Connor, QC, assisted with the proofreading for this volume. He is retired barrister (with a current practice certificate) with a keen interest in Western Australian history, Federation history, Commonwealth and State current political affairs, and books on early Australian maritime and land exploration. He is a past councillor of the Royal Western Australian Historical Society and is a member of the Management Committee of the Friends of Battye Library (Inc), the State (WA) Records Advisory Committee, the Friends of the National Library of Australia, the Friends of the State Library of New South Wales, the Friends of the State Library of South Australia and the City of South Perth Historical Society and a trustee of the May Gibbs Trust.
Frank Pritchard was a Gnowangerup farmer. He also spent time in the Kimberley on shearing and cattle mustering. He has a great interest in Landscope expeditions and was involved in a flora and fauna survey of the northern Canning Stock Route. He retired to Kojonup where he gained support for the publication of J.S. Roe’s exploration diaries.
Mardi Quinn OAM, is a member of the Melville Historical Society in which she has held the position of Vice President and now acts as rental officer of the Miller Bakehouse Museum Building for the society. She has a keen interest in the history of Western Australia.
Ann Read started her working life as a stenographer for the State Electricity Commission during the building of the Kwinana Power Station. This gave her an insight into construction, engineering and surveying terminology.
Assisting her husband with his research into the Read family, who arrived in the Swan River Settlement in 1830 on the ship Rockingham, she realised there was much Western Australian history that was unknown and in danger of being lost. That research culminated in a memorial service at the East Perth Cemetery, honouring the Read family pioneers. Transcribing historical documents is a return to the past and involves experiencing the journey with the writer.
Glenda Slarke was a Road Dental Clinic nurse, and in her course of work met and married a farming descendant of an original Lake Grace settler. Keen on Australian history, she loves reading of the explorer expeditions, which she was not taught at school. Until recent retirement to town, she lived on the original historic family farm in an early family home, and is a proofreader.
David Smith began working life as an apprentice at the Chamberlain tractor factory in Welshpool. It was with them that some short trips into WA’s Wheatbelt began, and in following years his interest in local history and nature developed further. Rogaining, with its focus on map and compass, contributed to an understanding of the efforts undertaken by early explorers. A 4WD club in the 1990s was the next step, starting with the Holland Track. Other expeditions connected into WA’s history, with prior research on the areas and the first settlers. A project engineering career allowed some overseas travel, but the backroads and outback country of Australia is the much preferred choice. David is still active in Rogaining and 4WD and has now added Vintage Australian tractors to his interests.
Angela Teague, a keen historian has participated in a team in compiling and typing twelve books on Western Australian goldfields history, bushmen, prospectors and the Canning Stock Route. Angela is a project typist for the Western Australian Explorers’ Diaries Project.
Allan Zweck is a native of Blyth, South Australia, who moved as a New Land farmer to Lake Grace. He has worked there from 1965 to retirement, when he became an enthusiastic family history researcher. He was a core compiler of the biography of William Rudall.
Kevin Bentley, a retired Shire Clerk, also helped with the preparation of this volume.