Kununurra Historical Society
(KHS) - Incorporated
Volunteer Run Not-for-Profit
Archive, Gallery Library,
Museum & Research
@ Kununurra Museum 72 Coolibah Drive (Goes to Map :^)
_________________________ General Meetings
Next KHS Meeting?
(Suspended during CV Pandemic - Usually)
1st Tuesday of the Month 6pm
(New time from Sept 2018)
at the
Kununurra Museum
All Welcome!
553days since Kununurra Museum Closed - At 12pm on Monday March 23rd 2020 Kununurra Museum closed doors to the public due to the Corona Virus social distancing requirements - Work goes on behind the scenes - At present scanning a collection of over 1,000 slides.
This exhibition opened at the Kununurra Museum on May 5th 2018.
2018 marked the centenary of the end of World War I and
these exhibitions were initially researched and devised locally, then,
with thanks to further research by the Royal WA Historical Society, the
panels were professionally designed with collaboration between each
Society (Kununurra & Wyndham) and staff of the WA Museum and Museums
& Galleries Australia WA. There is also a museum quality showcase
for each of the Kununurra and Wyndham Museums.
The Remembering Them project that has been in progress since 2014 (to
2018) to commemorate the 1914-1918 WWI centenary) has been generously
funded by Lottery West and the WA Government. Thanks go to the Army
Museum (Fremantle) WA for temporary display objects of the 10th Light
Horse (for Kununurra Museum), as well as the WA State Records Office for
images of the 'cancelled public plans' and the State Library of Western
Australia who supplied photographs (& plans) for use on the history
exhibition panels.
556days since Wirraway-Challenge Day 2020 -"Wirraway Challenge Day" (March 20th) at the Kununurra Museum. In 2017 it was 75 Years since March 20th 1942, which was the date of the forced landing of RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62 on coastline near the WA-NT border. Broome and Derby suffered air raids on the same day, March 20th 1942.
1942
"Wirraway Challenge Day"
at
Kununurra Museum
March 20th 2020
RAAF 12 Sqn. CAC Wirraway A20-62
On March 20th 2017 it was...
75 Years...
...since the forced landing of RAAF 12 Squadron CAC Wirraway A20-62, on coastal saltmarsh, just inside the WA/NT border, by Pilots Lew Dwyer and Warwick Carmody. Watch the Digital Videos (DVs) from the KHS - "A Story of Survival & Rescue in the far north-east Kimberley"
Read & see more from the KHS "Wirraway - Challenge"Research Page (has links to all 8 parts of the DVs on the "Kununurra Museum" YouTube Channel OR See the permanent display at the Kununurra Museum.
1944
1944 (Dry Season)
75 Years Ago in 2019
Experimental Irrigation continues at Carlton Reach
Ord River Experimental Station
On March 31st 1941 Kim Durack published his paper, 'Developing the North - Proposed Research Station for the Kimberleys', and before the end of that year the
"Ord River Experimental Station," was established at
Carlton Reach using the waters of the Ord for irrigation. In 1942 agricultural experiments began with the first irrigation in June that year. 75 years ago in 1944 experimentation continued and widened, as shown in regular reports by Kimberley Michael Durack that we have in the archive. The station would operate on the Carlton Reach Site for five years and all would be moved to the Kimberley Research Station site in 1946.
More
information is available about the 36 HP Petters "Atomic" diesel pump
engine (Now at front of Kununurra Museum), used to raise the water for these first major experimental
attempts at irrigation, at the twenty acre farm site. available from the Carlton Reach Pump Engine (On this site)
In
April 2013 the 36 HP "Petters Atomic Diesel Engine" was donated to the
Kununurra Historical Society by the Department of Agriculture and Food
WA - Frank Wise Institute of Tropical Agriculture (formerly the
Kimberley Research Station, where the engine was also in use until the
1950s), KHS now has the original pump engine by the entrance
gate of the Kununurra Museum.
50 Years Ago - 1969
What was happening 50 Years Ago in Kununurra during 1969?
At the end of 1968 the contracts were awarded for the construction of the Ord River Dam (to Dam). The village was constructed and work began in 1969 - See KHS Archive collections on Flickr for photographs of the time.
845days since KHS Inauguration Day - June 5th - Inaugural Meeting that resulted in the formation of the Kununurra Historical Society Inc. (KHS - Us! ;^) on June 5th 1986. In 2016 we commemorated 30 Years as a Society.
Events in 2016
Wyndham and Hall's Creek (aka "Kimberley") were established.
1886
130 Years Ago (In 2016)
WA-NT Border Determinations
It will be.. 100 Years
...in 2021 Since the WA and SA Government Astronomers came to the Kimberley in 1921 to determine the position of the WA/NT Border on the ground by using the new technology of the day (in 1921), of radio time signals. (Yes!, the pips you used to hear before the news! :^) This expedition in 1921 would determine the border position from time signals girdling the earth, from Greenwich UK, Annapolis USA, Applecross WA, SA Observatory & Lyons France - as in how many hours minutes and seconds east of Greenwich they were.
1927 - 100 Years ago in 2027
A WA Survey crew would come back in 1927 to build the Kimberley Obelisk, which still determines the border on the ground today. Read More about the 1921 WA/NT Border Determinations
The Digital Repatriation of Kimberley History - In an effort to build up a regional archive, to make our own collections more accessible to all, and seeking out other Kimberley History Collections, most of which are locked up in "GLAM Sector" collecting institutions in the south of Australia, as well as many other collections around the World.
[Use Mouse-over to read Abbreviation Titles - Makes use of HTML Code "abbr" - eg. "GLAM" (above) - AB 29 III 2017]
My first news item about Digital Repatriation this was some years ago (See KHS News). On recent Social Media posts I've been using the keyword (hashtag) #KimberleyHistory to start 'gathering' all and any Kimberley History references in one place, to make Kimberley Related Collections more "#Discoverable" & using the "#DigitalRepatriation" of Kimberley History from any other institution - Please help to make your Kimberley Collections more discoverable!
Please Post references to any of your (newly digitised ;^) Kimberley related collections on Twitter Facebook Flickr etc. and please use the 'Hashtag' #KimberleyHistory to allow later data harvest.
Here in remote regional Australia! (3,000km+ from Perth & 800km from Darwin in the far north of Western Australia) it has been crucial to digitally repatriate collections, which we have done for many years on trips to Perth or to use it for any Kimberley History posts!
This is the first attempt (March 2017) to seek out Kimberley Collections via Social Networking. All of this 'good' social networking leads to making collections more 'discoverable', so if you are on Facebook & Twitter try following some of our followers and check out the Kununurra Museum's Twitter 'Likes' - These are Posts of Images and things I've liked (not unlike the likes on FB :^) - As well as #KimberleyHistory (Always include 1st) eg. in a Facebook Post about any Kimberley related history, also use the Town, Community, Mission or Station eg #BroomeHistory - #DerbyHistory - #FitzroyCrossingHistory - #HallsCreekHistory - #KununurraHistory - #WyndhamHistory - #ArgyleStationHistory etc. - Will then make these more discoverable individually! Join the New KHS - @KimberleyHistory 'Group' on FaceBook (for all who love ALL Kimberley History! :^)
This project hopes to achieve it's aims by the use of social media, in
particular, Facebook, where we have had a presence for some few years
and Twitter, which the Kununurra Museum only signed up to in February 2017. Initially signed up
to 'Follow' Trump and as I did not really know much about what Twitter was,
thinking it was mainly for mobile phones, whereas the web view of
Twitter is far superior (especially on HD 1920x1080 screens) which we
use at the museum. I soon realised that Twitter is basically 140
characters (not words - So does not take much thinking about - Probably why World Leaders like it! ;^) to get a point across to followers.
What I realised was, I soon got sick of Trumps posts
and started to follow the real leaders of my world, the "GLAM Sector"
of course! I then started following Museums and Archives from all
over this Solar System, even to our miniature living 'drone' of a
museum, following the European Space Agency Astronaut, Thomas
Pesquet, and others up there, on the International Space Station,
hence Solar system rather than 'world!' Thomas had posted a
photograph of the flooding Lake Argyle, which I added to one of our "Flickr Galleries" (You can only 'make' a "Flickr Gallery" with other people's photographs - not your own).
This photograph was taken from the International Space Station in February 2017 - See the Kununurra Museum's 'Lake Argyle' Gallery from...
By use of various online platforms, we as a group can demonstrate that the
'"#KimberleyHistory" Discoverability Project' will have a
sustainable use of all of our own available resources (this website, + over
2,000 digitised images on Flickr (fully documented with EXIF and full IPTC Metadata in JPGs :^), a YouTube Channel as well as our social media presence, to which any new resources can be added. In fact there is little USE of resources to carry out this idea, with the aim
being to uncover new unknown archives, to make them more discover-able, hence accessible for ALL!
This project with the aim of 'Making #KimberleyHistory More #Discoverable' (hence More Accessible! for ALL! :^) does in fact exceed current standards of museum
practise in the sense that this project by the Kununurra Museum, makes us a " #MuseumPioneer " for this form of "Discoverability," generally
not a priority of Museums, or collecting institutions, however for
remote regional Australian collections generally, I believe this sort
of approach is crucial, because of how difficult archives are to
access when living so remotely.
That is why I strive to build up a local collection of resources for Kimberley History that are spread all over Australia in Government AND many Private Collections, I can think of WA Historians and Book Producers who have masses of Kimberley History, however inaccessible to all, as well as hundreds, maybe thousands of collections around the globe, will be lurking snippets of #KimberleyHistory with very little here on the ground in the Kimberley Region of Western Australia! Please get involved and for ANY Kimberley History Collections that your institution may have - Please get them into the digitisation queue!
You can also Contribute ANY#KimberleyHistory - Bibliographic Entries in our Zotero Group (for this purpose) See http://www.zotero.org/groups/kimberleyhistory [Open - Public - JOIN! - Started April 18th 2017]
Then Follow Kununurra Museum on Flickr & Twitter (see below) to get the most recent Posts and Updates of #KimberleyHistory - Use the TAGs! - JOIN... the @KimberleyHistory Group on [f] - (http://www.facebook.com/groups/KimberleyHistoryon FaceBook :^)
#KimberleyHistory Group for all of the Kimberley Region's Past & Present.
I think there can be little doubt that the idea of this project
is to make #KimberleyCollections More Discoverable, and if
successful, we will be adding new diversity to known Kimberley
History Collections and it is hoped, these newly discovered
collections will become, it is dearly and sincerely hoped, more accessible for all!
The inspiration for this project started by going to (haunting :^) the Leah Jane Cohen Reading Room at the State Library of Western Australia
(SLWA)'s great Battye Library of WA History and the State Records Office of Western Australia (SROWA) to
photograph Kimberley records, in efforts to digitally repatriate them back to
the Kimberley, whenever I managed to get to Perth (3,000 km away).
This should really be done for us by these and other institutions of our State Government, knowing the great tyranny of distance involved for one of us to do this. I do applaud the SROWA's recent digitisation on demand initiatives, which should be offered under concession by the State Government, for community groups in remote regions, wishing to repatriate their own history! Perhaps something the new McGowan Government might be prepared to look at. Likewise, our Federal Government institutions like the National Archives of Australia (NAA), the National Museum of Australia (NMA), our wonderfully connected National Library of Australia (NLA), the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA), the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), the National Maritime Museum of Australia and others, should ALL be encouraged by whoever will come to power at the next election (because this Government has decimated heritage funding and unlikely ANY change there! )^:
Heritage funding has been decimated by this Government unless you have a Nationally Heritage Listed "place," then there is funding available! This Government used a pathetic legal loophole to STOP all funding to Australian Heritage organisations.
ATTENTION - All Archivists & Cultural Heritage Workers & Volunteers in Australia's Collecting Institutions
The beauty is that the control over this is down to your level the GLAM sector, hands on, so no need for any form of Government backing for this, as YOU can choose what is digitised and when at collection level. Please feel free to get involved simple and easily to help out a very remote and wonderful place to live! North Australian Development in a NEW town (1961) created as a National Development Project, for the Ord River Irrigation Area.
As all involved closely, including, Roy A. Hamilton, Engineer for the construction of the Ord River Diversion Dam (1960-1963) and later long-term resident until 2003, and Sir Charles Court, who both agreed that the Ord will never be thoroughly successful until it is developed to the full 3/3/ potential into the Northern Territory. At that time in the 1970s until around 2006 to 2008, the start was Green Swamp, developed by a local group of farmers involved in the Sugar Industry to 2007, when the South Korean company Chiel Jedang pulled out of the Ord because they could not get their half million tonne quota [?], Until then ONLY one third (1/3) of the potential irrigable land in the Ord River Irrigation Area had been developed. Since then a new Chinese based Company, Kimberley Agricultural Investments (KAI) have been busy in recent years to develop the 'second third', which is a work in progress. Originally sugar was the intended crop but mills aren't cheap and so now cotton may be the focus.
The ultimate machine tool of #HistoryDiscoverability for Australia is the incredible and crucial TROVE History Search Engine (Keep your hands off #Turnbully! :^) - TROVE, a search engine which returns results of your search in TABs under the following titles - Books - Pictures, Photos and Objects - Journals, Articles & Data Sets - Digitised Newspapers & More - Government Gazettes - Music, Sound & Video - Maps - Diaries, Letters, & Archives - Archived Websites - People & Organisations - Trove Lists (created by Users like YOU! :^), each a separate TAB of your Search Results neatly organised for further filtering from within teach Tab. @TROVE Australia is unequalled for history research (though we aim to be 2nd! ;^) - Did you know that all of our 2,000+ photographs on Flickr have been added to the Flickr Group - Trove: Australia in Pictures - 350,519 items (KHS has contributed 0.63% or 2,225 of all the photographs on Trove via Trove: Australia in Pictures Group on Flickr (on April 2nd 2017) - Aim to get that to 1% = 3,510 photographs at this point in time though! :^) - If you are on Flickr - You Too can add your photographs to be searchable on Trove.
This project has evolved over some years but only formulated here in March 2017, having started during holiday periods in Perth, by going to the State Library of Western Australia (SLWA) and the State Records Office of Western Australia (SROWA) to photograph Kimberley records. These photographs taken have been in an effort to digitally repatriate records of interest back to the Kimberley.
What is fascinating to me about this latest initiative is that we may be able to digitally repatriate from here, via Social Media, without the need for a 6,000+km round trip to do so. This would truly be a great thing if this works, even slightly.
Beside the participation from other collecting institutions and the general public, the 'original idea' of the two word hashtag (not my idea to join two words as a hashtag and and not a fan - prefer inverted commas "Kimberley History" but this is the #HashTagWorld we are in on #SocialMedia) - So this '#HashTag' "#KimberleyHistory" has become the single necessity, for what we hope will be the successful outcomes of this concept for the 'digital repatriation' of items of ANY Kimberley History.
I write this of course thinking of records to do with the Ord-Victoria Region, near us here, by the
"GLAM Sector"
"WA- "NT border, however I write fully with all other Kimberley based collecting institutions in mind. With the idea that through this project we can all benefit. Our closest neighbouring town, Wyndham has the Wyndham Museum, run by the Wyndham Historical Society, who we have annual get-togethers with as well as commemorations like the March 3rd Wyndham Air Raid Commemoration for the sinking of the MV Koolama at the Wyndham Wharf on March 3rd when we commemorated 75 years since these events. There is the wonderful work being done by the Sisters of St John of God in Broome with their archives and hope they will be supportive of, as contributors, and may benefit further from this project. The Broome Museum under the guidance of the Broome Historical Society is another important group here in the Kimberley, as are Shire Collections that must exist, at least as State Records that must be cared for, in all of our towns. I know that the Halls Creek has a very good deal of Derek Keene and others history collections and has done well to get these online. Another that comes to mind is the Kalumburu Aboriginal Community and Kalumburu Mission, who we have repatriated to and from, assisted with and have collected online history for, and cooperated with on various projects. Last year recording an oral history with Vernon Gerard and providing a digital history collection (of online resources so far collected by me) to Vernon's daughter Doreen, to share with the Community there. Later in the year assisted with the repatriation of a photograph of the late Kevin Waina and wife Bernadette on their wedding day, from the New Norcia Archive, located thanks to prior research at SLWA, and repatriated to the Community just before Kevin passed away, a great old friend of mine since 1996 - RIP Kevin. If I have not mentioned other Kimberley Collections you may know of, please send an email with others to mention - Please feel free to invite people you know who may be interested.
[Add photograph - Paste the story to Facebook to share with Kalumburu]
We believe this can be made to be very engaging on Facebook and Twitter aided by interesting photographs, fascinating articles and comments, so that an effective program of 'engaging' visitors at our museums, is extended to the general public online, but particularly, by aiming this at other collecting institutions in Australia, it is hoped that this interesting, creative project that has cost $0 (NIL) will be seen to very innovative in a meaningful way!
The focus over past years has been in actively collecting from former residents, as well as breaking ground in 'Digital Repatriation' of Kimberley related records for a local research collection, to be preserved for generations of Kimberley Residents into the future, and accessible on the ground or online. We have placed over 2,000 photographs on our Flickr site - http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/collections and also available from our website, at http://www.kununurra.org.au, as well, YOU can, follow our online presence via http://twitter.com/KununurraMuseum or on http://www.facebook.com/Kununurra.Museum/. You can also see some #KimberleyHistory on the Kununurra Museum YouTube Channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/KununurraMuseum - Coming to a YouTube Cinema Near You SOON!
Here is our latest YouTube DV - Editing was finished on April 1st 2017, but did not quite get it there for the day! - Went Public on the Kununurra Museum's YouTube page in a new Channel, for this group to Follow, the Kimberley History Channel - Started April 2nd 2017, with my tribute to @Wragge (on Twitter), former NLA Trove Director, Tim Sherratt, who we belive was very close to the culprit wanted in connection with the Hacking of the Australian Government Hansard!
Australian Hansard #KimberleyHistory Hack!
Kununurra is 3,000 km from Perth and 800 km from Darwin, we are in the far north of WA, surrounded by the unique, rugged beauty of the ancient Kimberley landscape. A landscape that has taken much of the thirty two years I've lived in Kununurra to get a real handle on, to know how the country lies, to know the history and where it happened, which is crucial when interpreting thr masses of local Kimberley History that abound. Many a Kimberley History mystery has been demystified, using local knowledge (and Google Earth! ;^), which I hope to share some (hi)stories about on the KHS website, and on the #KimberleyHistory FaceBook Page and Twitter.
USE these and other "Hashtags"
to allow later 'data harvesting' - Please use these in any Posts you
make about Kimberley Collections (of photographs, documents, diaries,
manuscripts, in fact ANYthing you find that is relevant! These will show up HERE - Even if you don't post to the Group - So this is another place to view resources already, being just the "Hashtag" of Facebook - See - or the #KimberleyHistory hashtag on Twitter from
You can help ("#CrowdSourcedKimberleyHistory" :^)
"#DiscoveredKimberleyHistory"- Whether your own
collections, or others from anywhere in the World - Does your
Gallery, Archive, Library, Museum or other Collecting Institution
have "#KimberleyHistoryCollections" from Western Australia's remote and rugged Kimberley Region.
The focus over past years has been in actively collecting
from former residents, which has been bringing in well over 100 new archives for the Kununurra Historical Society Archive, each year in the past half dozen years. As well as breaking ground in "Digital
Repatriation" of Kimberley related records for a local
research collection, to be preserved for generations of
Kimberley Residents into the future, and accessible on the ground or
online, as the aim.
Kununurra is 3,000 km from Perth and 800 km from Darwin, we are in
the far north of Western Australia and surrounded by the unique,
rugged beauty of the ancient Kimberley landscape. A landscape that
has taken much of the thirty two years I've lived in Kununurra to get
a real handle on, to know how the country lies, to know the history
and where it happened is a wonderful thing.
Knowing the landscape when interpreting history is crucial and
many a Kimberley History mystery has been demystified, using local
knowledge (and Google Earth! ;^), and my intention is to share on this website, some of these researched 'Kimberley History Mysteries' from a forthcoming book.
What is fascinating to me about this latest initiative is that we may be able to digitally repatriate from here, via Social Media, without the need for a 6,000+km round trip to do so. This is truly a great thing if this works even slightly.
By periodically checking these URLs below, which just go to the 'accumulating' #KimberleyHistory keywords. Same could be done for the Towns and other places.
[Hashtags]
[Flickr - No # (hashtag) Required when Adding Tags]
1st tried tonight (2 IV 2017) works already (1,261 results - should be more - ADD that tag to ALL 2000+ KHS images on Flickr) - Hashtags Work!
PLEASE GET INVOLVED to 'Make YOUR #KimberleyHistory MORE #Discoverable' - (#DiscoverableKimberleyHistory = MORE "#AccessibleKimberleyHistory" for ALL :^)
[The 'International Press Telecommunications Council' (IPTC), who many years ago invented, for us, the ability to embed hidden information in the form of many text fields to describe images, which can all be embedded within a .jpg image, having originally been designed for Press image transfer information. - Use Free software IrfanView (DL) to download ANY KHS photograph from Flickr, as all contain this embedded information within the jpg image - In IrfanView use the 3rd (File - Edit - "Image") drop down menu from left - Then in that select the first item Image (menu) - "Information" - Then select "IPTC Info" at bottom left of Popup requester. - All metadata can be added in a Batch using IrfanView (because we contacted the software author and asked for that in 2011 - Thanks to my friend, software author, Irfan Skiljan! :^) Keep an eye on the Kununurra Museum YouTube Channel for a Video Tutorial on how to add meaningful metadata to your collections simple and easily! Soon on the Kununurra Museum YouTube Channel - Coming to a YouTube Cinema Near You SOON! ]
