The State Records Office of Western Australia invites you to our Lunchtime Seminars. Featuring a variety of topics, these seminars are designed to inform researchers about the State Records Office, its functions and the collections it houses. It also provides researches with an opportunity to meet fellow researchers, learn about members of staff, and provides a forum for questions and discussions in a relaxed and friendly environment.
2025 Margaret Medcalf Award
The State Records Office is pleased to announce that the following works have been shortlisted for the 2025 Award:
Rails in the West: How Western Australia’s Government Railways shaped the State, 1870-2000 (book) by Fred Affleck.
Settlement, Struggle and Success: Margaret River and its Old Hospital, 1924–2024 (book) by Jenny and Bill Bunbury.
Northcliffe 1924-2024: Scenes from Rural Life (book) by Steve Errington.
Timber and Tobacco: Yugoslav and Macedonian sleeper cutters and tobacco growers in Manjimup 1890-1962 (book) by Criena Fitzgerald.
Industrial welfare in the South West Timber Industry of Western Australia, 1945-1954 (article) by Charlie Fox in Studies in WA History, 36, 2024.
Death at Butterabby: the case of Belo and Mumbleby and Aboriginal women’s place in the nineteenth-century criminal justice system (article) by Caroline Ingram in History Australia, Vol. 21: No. 3, 2024.
From the Avon to the Irwin: a story of Two Valleys (Book) by Anne Jefferys.
An entangled but separate system: examining the experiences of Colonial offenders in Western Australia, 1829-1868 (PhD thesis) by Emily Lanman.
Western Australia’s first domestic servants 1829-1840 (article) by Lenore Layman in Studies in WA History, 36, 2024.
To Protect, Exploit, or Govern: The Role of Indigenous Labour in Western Australia, 1829-1850 (article) by Kellie Moss in Studies in WA History, 36, 2024.
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The winner will be announced at an Awards ceremony in October 2025.
80 Years of State Archives
March 2025 was the 80th Anniversary of the appointment of Miss Meroula Frances Fellowes (Mollie) Lukis OAM as the first Western Australian State Archivist in 1945. The appointment of Miss Lukis was a significant milestone in the development of an organised approach to collecting and managing archives in WA, which might be traced back to a statement in Parliament in September 1903 by then Premier WH James, when he asked the question, ‘Where are our records and what effort has been made to care for them?’
Over the decades that followed, Dr Battye began to collect papers that would eventually form the earliest part of what became the State Archives Collection, now managed by the State Records Office (SRO). Former State Archivists Mollie Lukis, Margaret Medcalf, Tony Caravella and Chris Coggin photographed together in 2005 at an event celebrating 60 years of the State Archives. 35 However, the journey to a formally recognised collection was a long one. Starting with the records of the Colonial Secretary’s Office and the development of what became known as the ‘Swan River Papers’ in the early 1900s, the 1920s saw the establishment of a Public Records Committee to oversee the transfer of old official papers to one location and dispose of other records in a responsible way. The Committee was later renamed the State Archives Board in 1930. Towards the end of the Second World War, consideration was given by government to engaging a full-time State Archivist and Miss Lukis’s appointment was accompanied by the establishment of a dedicated Archives Management Branch at the Public Library in Perth in 1945. In late 1956 Miss Lukis was appointed head of the WA History Division of the Library, called the J S Battye Library of WA History and State Archives, and remained in these roles until she retired in 1971. Miss Lukis was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2002 and passed away on 1 August 2009. The staff of the SRO, and the wide range of clients we serve today from around the world, are indebted to the work of Mollie Lukis as WA’s first State Archivist.
Partnership with UWA
The SRO has begun two new partnership projects with ICT students from the University of Western Australia. The aim of these projects is to give the students hands on experience working with clients such as the SRO, to build tools that will have benefits for our office and the public. One of these projects centres on a new tool to assist our internal digitisation process, to automate functions such as file naming of images, improved uploading and access to digitised archives on our internal systems, and better data validation / file integrity. The other project is to build a new web tool to automatically transcribe handwritten documents. Many of the records held in the State Archives Collection are in handwritten form (typewriters were not introduced to WA until the 1890s and even then, there were very few). Having software that can transcribe such records when digitised, to make that content text searchable, would unlock important information in these records and would significantly improve online access to historical information. While this project is a proof of concept, we expect it will serve as a stepping stone for technical improvements we can later put into production.
Digitisation of Colonial Secretary’s Office records
The first 110 volumes of Colonial Secretary’s Office inwards correspondence (Accession 36) has been digitised. This covers the period 1829-1842. Digitisation for this collection is ongoing in 2025, through the support being provided by the Friends via the Sholl Bequest. The SRO plans to start making digital copies of these records available through its online catalogue later this year.
This digitisation project is being funded through the Friends of Battye Library’s Sholl Bequest. The SRO has engaged Gabriel Maddock PhD to assist with the digitisation.
Recent additions to the SRO’s online catalogue
Albany Passenger Lists, early 1900s (consignment 108)
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Architectural Plans of Public Buildings c. 1970s (e.g. plans of taverns, churches, theatres, restaurants, community centres and other public buildings). These new lists will complete what is in that series of plans at consignment 5094
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Supreme Court Criminal Indictment files, 1860s (consignment 3473). This work is ongoing to individually list all Criminal Indictment files up until the mid 1940s
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Perth Market Trust Minutes, 1927-2014 (consignment 7788)
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Government photos are also progressively being made available through the SRO catalogue. Recent additions include photos of the Alexander Library Building prior to and following construction.
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WAGR Roll of Honour Boards of those who served in WWI from the different branches of the WAGR (Cons 7808)
Photos of WA Premiers from John Forrest through to Richard Court (Cons 7812 and 7835)
LISWA artwork associated with the opening of the Alexander Library Building (Cons 7798)
Colonial Secretary files (post 1883, Cons 527 and 752) and Police Department files (post 1883, Cons 430).
Transfer of State Archives from Government House
In June 2025, the SRO accepted an emergency transfer of State archives from the Governor’s Establishment, Government House. These records date back to the early 1900s and were at preservation risk. The transfer comprises app. 150 boxes with the bulk of the records being subject and correspondence files. One group of files relates to the abdication of Edward VIII, containing confidential telegrams sent to Government House in 1936 alerting of ‘imminent news of the matter’.
Also included in the transfer are:
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Detailed inventories of furniture and items at Government House;
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Files relating to members of the WA community receiving Investitures, Honours and Awards;
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Governor’s Despatches through to the 1980s (extending the set of Despatches already in the State Archives Collection and covering the period of the Whitlam Dismissal);
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Extensive sets of photographs (e.g. Royal visits and Tours) and some government films (of special events relating to Prince Charles’ visit to WA in 1979 and involving the WA Governor in the early 1980s).
This collection is currently being processed for inclusion into the State Archives Collection.
Stories from the State Archives Collection
Hear WA stories live on WA Afternoons with Michael Tetlow (ABC Radio, 720AM ) from 2pm Fridays.
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The State Records Office is a regular participant on ABC Radio's History Repeated segment (720 AM) from 2pm on Fridays and 6PR's Remember When segment from 8pm Sundays. You can listen to some of our past segments here. https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/state-records-office-of-western-australia/stories-the-state-archives-collection​​
Did you know?
SRO often provides assistance to journalist Malcolm Quekett for his weekly series in The West Australian (weekend edition) “The Untold History of WA”. Recently, we assisted Malcolm with a story he was preparing about the different buildings that formed Government House during the 1800s.
In reviewing Public Works Dept plans held at SRO, we were surprised to come across an alternative design to the current building. This alternative design was prepared by Captain Wray of the Royal Engineers in 1857. We include an image of Wray’s proposed design here.
Geoffrey Bolton Lecture Series
Each year the State Records Office hosts a lecture in honour of the distinguished Australian historian, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Bolton AO, who passed away on 3 September 2015. The Lecture series recognises Professor Bolton’s long period of use and promotion of archives, his service on various committees of the State Archives, and his overall contribution to the promotion of Australian history and culture.
The stated aims of the Geoffrey Bolton Lecture are twofold: to encourage the expression of ideas and debate about the meaning and nature of history, culture and society, grounded in archival research; and to provide archival and historical context to national debate on contemporary issues.
Since 2004 the lecture series has lifted the profile of archives and record keeping in Australia, and promotes debate about the use and interpretation of archives, in what is now a nationally important forum.
Contact the SRO for further information.