First World War
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 Commemorative Site
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.
Centenary revived interest
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.
Book
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]
Commemorations and events
In August September October 2014, numbers of events were planned for the centenary. [17] [18] [19]
Centenary train
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]
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
The Fremantle War Memorial is a war memorial located on Monument Hill, an 11-acre (4.45-hectare) public reserve and hill in Fremantle, Western Australia. The memorial itself comprises a large obelisk, the Fallen Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial, surrounded by eight smaller memorials. The site, located on High Street near the centre of Fremantle, overlooks Fremantle Harbour, and was established by the Fremantle Town Council in 1928 to commemorate the losses of the First World War, having been used as a public reserve since the early 19th century.
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.
The coastline of the Albany area was observed by Europeans for the first time in 1627 by the Dutchman François Thijssen, captain of the ship 't Gulden Zeepaert, who sailed to the east as far as Ceduna in South Australia and back. Captain Thijssen had discovered the south coast of Australia and charted about 1,768 kilometres (1,099 mi) of it between Cape Leeuwin and the Nuyts Archipelago.
Darling Range Hotel was a hotel in Bellevue, Western Australia, on the end of the slope on the Great Eastern Highway at the 'bottom of' Greenmount Hill and just north of the former Bellevue railway station, and over the road from the Helena Vale Racecourse.
