William Arthur Champness Wright, better known as Bill Wright was the MRD Engineer charged with raising the level of Ivanhoe Crossing during the dry seasons of 1952 and 1953. This was a major upgrade to the crossing, which raised the level about a metre from the earlier concrete work and is much as we see Ivanhoe Crossing  today.

 Bill later spent much of the later 1950's in Katherine as DMR Engineer during the construction of the new Katherine - Wyndham road (by-passing Jasper Gorge) and other roads in the NT. Bill also worked in the Snowy Mountains region.

 Bill spent many days at the KHS Museum in July 2011, when we recorded 3 hours of his Oral History. At age 89 his memories of events and people are remarkable. Bill also left this part of his collection of original 35 mm slides to be digitised by KHS. A few of the images are duplicated in earlier KHS collections, which would have been slides copied from these originals. These may contain new information and dates, which are included in descriptions. There are also many new photographs that were not in the KHS collection from a photograph of Ivanhoe Homestead area not long after the fire that destroyed the homestead to a model of Top Dam.

At the August 2011 KHS Meeting W. A. C. (Bill) Wright was made an Honorary Life Member of the Kununurra Historical Society Inc. for his contributions to the KHS archive over many years and his contributions to the history of northern development.

Thanks Bill!


[The 35mm slide collection is gradually being uploaded year by year in reverse order, to get correct date information into the images and so the latest, 1967 was uploaded first and so on back to 1954, which is now online, with still 1953 and 1952 to go. So visit the KHS PhotoStream (http://www.flickr.com/photos/khs-museum/) for the latest uploads.]