Blackboy Hill Commemorative Site | |
---|---|
Blackboy Hill | |
Australia | |
For Australian Imperial Force | |
Location | 31°53′49″S116°02′44″E / 31.8970°S 116.0456°E Coordinates: 31°53′49″S116°02′44″E / 31.8970°S 116.0456°E |
Statistics source: | |
Designated | 31 March 2006 |
Reference no. | 4479 |
Blackboy Hill was named after the Australian native "black boy" plants, Xanthorrhoea preissii, which dominated the site which is now absorbed into Greenmount, Western Australia.
Originally a military camp, [1] the facilities and adjacent structures were on the hill that is now used by St Anthony's Primary School and Church, and Greenmount Primary School. The remaining land (which has been left as a memorial to the troops who used the training camp) is known on official documents and maps as the Blackboy Hill Commemorative Site, but local signage tends to refer to the location simply as Blackboy Hill.
During the troop build up for the First World War, the site was a military training camp used to house large numbers of Australian Imperial Force (AIF) troops before they left for the various battlefront locations in Europe and the Middle East. Facilities were moved from other parts of the metropolitan area to improve facilities which were quite basic. [2]
Troops were transported to the adjacent Helena Vale Railway station and marched across to the camp, so as to not interfere with the working of the Eastern Railway. [3]
Blackboy Hill Post Office opened on 29 August 1914 and closed on 30 November 1918, defining the period of occupation of the site. [4] An office of the same name was opened from 1929 until 1932, when it was renamed Greenmount Hill.
Around April 1919, following the end of hostilities, the Imperial forces camp was turned over to the Health department to act as a fever hospital, treating Spanish flu.
In the 1930s unemployed relief workers utilised the camp area. [5]
During the Second World War, the site was also used extensively by the 2nd AIF and other Australian military forces.
Blackboy Hill was a named railway stopping place between Bellevue and Swan View between the 1940s and 1960s, it was not related to the training camp or first world war troop movements.
The Camp Chronicle:the soldiers paper, was a locally produced newsletter recording details of life in the camp before disembarkation for overseas service. [6] [7]
The commemorative site is a small 0.5 hectare site on the southern edge of the former camp site, adjacent to Innamincka Road, Greenmount Hill. It is bounded by a 1.5-hectare (3.7-acre) public park to separate it from the adjacent schools and residential area.
In recent times, the main annual event at this site are the Anzac Day commemorations, which centre on a memorial named after the location. The Anzac memorial is on a segment of ground that is between the two primary schools. It is maintained by the Mundaring Council, and has a committee that oversees management of the site. The sunset service and the dawn service – as well as an all-night vigil – are maintained by the Bilgoman District of the Scout Association of Western Australia and the Returned and Services League of Australia.
Most of the original larger site is now covered by housing development, but up until this began in the early 1990s, remnants of the army camp and many associated rubbish pits were visible.
At the approach of the centenary of the usage of the site (2014-2015), renewed interest in the site and its functions emerged in Western Australian media. [8] [9]
There had been accounts much earlier that give understanding of the importance of the site — such as in 1937 in the Western Mail, [10] with the story preceded by verse about Battalion Eleven which had formed at Blackboy:
They were the boys from the Western State,
Brave Battalion Eleven;
They did not tarry, they did not wait,
When the call was given.
First to respond to their country's need
Nothing they feared, nor death did they heed.
Brave Battalion Eleven!— S.M. Harris
Having been written in a time when returned troops would have been still alive to share stories and anecdotes about the camp, the 1937 era reminiscences had material which are not so easy to find in the 2013/2014 reporting of the site.
The 2013/2014 Lotterywest funded project to produce a book was being conducted by Valerie Elliott and Shannon Coyle from the Katherine Susannah Prichard Writers Centre [11] [12] [13]
A considerable number of people contributed to the volume, including local military historian Paul Bridges, [14] then of the Guildford Historical society, formerly of the Mundaring and Hills Historical Society. [15] who wrote the introductory chapter Overview: BlackBoy Hill Training Camp.
The contents include chapters by a range of over ten authors, including research done by pupils of the adjacent Greenmount Primary School. [16]
In August September October 2014, numbers of events were planned for the centenary. [17] [18] [19]
In October 2014, a centenary train, travelled from Midland to Fremantle, commemorating the travel to departing ships of the troops who had trained at Blackboy Hill and went off to fight in the war. [20] [21] [22] [23]
Shane Burke of Notre Dame University in Fremantle has overseen archaeological work in the 2000s on the area and has worked with students to ascertain what can be discovered, despite considerable urban development and changes in the area. [24] [25] [26] [27]
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is part of the South West Land Division of Western Australia, with most of the metropolitan area on the Swan Coastal Plain between the Indian Ocean and the Darling Scarp. The city has expanded outward from the original British settlements on the Swan River, upon which the city's central business district and port of Fremantle are situated. Perth is located on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people, where Aboriginal Australians have lived for at least 45,000 years.
John Forrest National Park is a national park in the Darling Scarp, 24 km (15 mi) east of Perth, Western Australia. Proclaimed as a national park in November 1900, it was the first national park in Western Australia and the second in Australia after Royal National Park.
The Darling Scarp, also referred to as the Darling Range or Darling Ranges, is a low escarpment running north–south to the east of the Swan Coastal Plain and Perth, Western Australia. The escarpment extends generally north of Bindoon, to the south of Pemberton. The adjacent Darling Plateau goes easterly to include Mount Bakewell near York and Mount Saddleback near Boddington. It was named after the Governor of New South Wales, Lieutenant-General Ralph Darling.
Hugo Vivian Hope Throssell, VC was an Australian soldier in the First World War who was the first Western Australian and only Australian light horseman to receive the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for valour in battle that could be awarded to a member of the Australian armed forces at the time.
The Midland line is a suburban rail service on the Transperth network in Perth, Western Australia. It runs on the Eastern Railway through Perth's eastern suburbs and connects Midland with Perth. Travelling from Midland, the trains terminate at Fremantle on the Fremantle line.
Bellevue is an eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia in the local government areas of the City of Swan and the Shire of Mundaring. It is at the foot of the slopes of Greenmount, a landmark on the Darling Scarp that is noted in the earliest of travel journals of the early Swan River Colony.
Greenmount is a locality and a geographical feature in the Shire of Mundaring, Western Australia, on the edge of the Darling Scarp. It is a vital point in the transport routes from the Swan Coastal Plain into the hinterland of Western Australia.
Katharine Susannah Prichard was an Australian author and co-founding member of the Communist Party of Australia.
Chippers Leap, formerly known as Chipper's Leap, is a granite outcrop on Greenmount Hill in Perth, Western Australia. It is located at 31º54'S 116º04'E, on the northern side of Great Eastern Highway, near the border between the suburbs of Swan View and Greenmount.
Scouting in Western Australia is predominantly represented by a branch of Scouts Australia and Girl Guides Western Australia, a member organisation of Girl Guides Australia.
Perth Hills is a term used primarily for marketing purposes to identify the part of the Darling Scarp and hinterland east of the scarp that lies within the Shire of Mundaring, City of Swan, and the City of Kalamunda and as part of the constituent bodies belonging to the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council of Perth, Western Australia.
Helena Vale was the original name for Midland Junction in Western Australia between 1885 and 1901. It was also the earlier name of the Midland Junction Municipality between 1895 and 1901. The name has been long associated with the area between Midland and the Darling Scarp.
Governor Stirling Senior High School is a public co-educational partially selective high day school, located in Woodbridge, a north-eastern suburb of Perth, Western Australia. The school provides both a vocational and tertiary entrance education for students from Year 7 to Year 12.
In 1929, Western Australia (WA) celebrated the centenary of the founding of Perth and the establishment of the Swan River Colony, the first permanent European settlement in WA. A variety of events were run in Perth, regional areas throughout the state, and even across Australia such as the Western Australian Centenary Air Race.
The Swan Express was a weekly English language newspaper published in Midland, Western Australia.
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William Henry Strahan was a member of the Toodyay Road Board who served with the 16th Battalion of AIF. He was killed in action on 25 April 1915. Prior to enlisting with AIF Strahan was a volunteer member of the Australian Light Horse and Guildford Rifles where he held the rank of sergeant major.
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