THE COMPLETE WORKS OF HENRY LAWSON, from 1885 to 1922

THE PERTH/FREMANTLE RUSH, 1896.

I was browsing in the Lifeline shop some time ago, (I’d like to think supporting their cause rather than gathering cheap treasures), and bought the two massive volumes of poetry, anecdotes, essays and romantic stories: the complete Works of Henry Lawson.

The first volume lives and is read in the toilet, an irresistible habit frowned on by all women, the second on the kitchen table. So it’s been Henry Lawson night and day for weeks now, and he’s telling me of Perth, Australia, only seventy-three years before I myself arrived here broke, a New Chum.  But what a different Perth!

Now well acclimatised to his style, and steeped in his detailed account, re-living the very events of the day, I read this minute of his arrival in Fremantle and Perth, with wife and a pile of luggage, and little cash, to townships exploding with growth, and plentiful work. The reporting starts in 1895 as the massive rush gets under way.

The wife, he thinks, may have been a mistake. There is no accommodation, only the best hotel is available, and avoided, because of its huge cost. Dossing-down on a veranda is only for single blokes; then there’s all the luggage. Later in one trunk he finds his wife has packed a selection of flat-irons……….

This current trip takes place in 1896. Lawson reports that ‘The population of Perth and Fremantle at the end of the eighties was about 7000 each; that of Albany 1000 or 1500′. And that: ‘The population of Perth in the winter of 1896, when we were there, was about 40,000, and hundreds coming every week!’.

The story is immediate and fascinating. He and his wife have the choice of renting at thirty shillings a week (a search they gave up: ‘The awful hunt for lodgings…‘) and take matters into their own hands, and ‘build’.   In his own words……

‘WRITTEN ON THE SPOT’:      ‘We have given up the awful hunt for lodgings, and have joined a camp by the river. We have been our own architect and builder, and are now the proud possessor of a bag-and-canvas covered frame, with a tent inside. Galvanised iron cases make an excellent floor — the sides and ends serving as joists — and packing cases come in very handy in the shape of furniture. A nail-can, with holes knocked in it, does very well for a fireplace, and the smoke ascends to the blue vault above without the assistance of a flue.’

The whole lot cost five pounds, and included ‘a wire mattress, stretcher, bedding, etc..’  A home for the two of them. Rent would have gobbled-up their five pounds within a month. I read on in fascination, and have first-hand, immediate description of everything that is happening right there in Perth, 124 years ago.

Still reading, of course. Will report on progress as I find out…….keep in touch.