Tag: Trove Tuesday

Fashion

Trove Tuesday – The Bird Hat

Jessica Barratt

While considering a blog post for Trove Tuesday, I thought perhaps I would search for images relating to Victorian era fashion (a favourite topic of mine). I picked a year (1887), searched using the word ‘ladies’ and refined my results so that only the pages with illustrations would be listed. The below image was at the top of the list and after looking at the image my first thought was, “Why are there cats on their hats?”

cats-dogs

I then read the caption and quickly realised that the cartoon related to the terrible trend in which whole birds were placed on ladies’ hats, all in the name of fashion. While I am unsure if the newspaper was in earnest with respect to the use of cats or was actually writing tongue-in-cheek, it nevertheless sparked my curiosity with respect to the use of birds on hats and I turned my attention towards searching for historical images.

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Australian History, WA History

Dirk Hartog

Jessica Barratt

plate

In 1616, Dirk Hartog, in command of the Dutch ship ‘Eendracht’ left Holland bound for Batavia (today’s Jakarta). He was employed by the Dutch East India Company and was accompanied by several other ships when they became caught in a storm and were separated. Hartog and the crew of the ‘Eendracht’ arrived at the Cape of Good Hope without the other ships and upon leaving the Cape, proceeded to sail across the Indian Ocean; taking advantage of the roaring forties (strong westerly winds).

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Australian History, WA History

The Karrkaratul

Jessica Barratt

Last week I came across an ABC news article about the sighting of a marsupial mole (Notoryctes Caurinus) by Kiwirrkurra Rangers from the Tjamu Tjamu Aboriginal Corporation. Known as the karrkaratul, it spends most of its life underground and is rarely seen. Reading about the mole and watching the Corporation’s amazing video (above) led me to think about Trove. I wondered what information on the marsupial mole could be found within the historical newspapers. A perfect post for Trove Tuesday!

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Australian History

The Bush Barber

Jessica Barratt

To be honest, I’m not entirely sure of the history of the bush barber. John Williamson wrote a song about them and I’ve come across a rather interesting (tongue-in-cheek) article from 1885 which states that they were once old shearers who eventually turned from shearing wool to trimming hair. Who knows, perhaps it may have been true for that period of time but it seems likely that eventually the bush barber was simply a travelling barber who visited various rural towns and stations in the outback in order to cut hair and make a living.

From what I can tell, it looks like they were common up until the late 1930s but then eventually disappeared (perhaps when people were able to travel to barbers themselves).

A closer look at the history of these interesting gentlemen may need to be conducted in the future, but, for now, I couldn’t resist sharing some wonderful images found within Trove.

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WA History

Old Ned of The Causeway

Jessica Barratt

I have long been of the opinion that those who are the most interesting and who have the most interesting stories are often people who lived with nothing during their lifetime. Unfortunately, this fact also means that it’s their stories which tend to be forgotten first. But, with a little digging and the help of Trove (it is Trove Tuesday, after all) a lot can be uncovered about Perth’s past identities who otherwise would’ve remained hidden by the passage of time.

On the eastern side of Perth there is a bridge called ‘The Causeway’ which crosses the Swan River and under this bridge is Heirisson Island. Due to dredging and land reclamation Heirisson Island is now one island but, in the past, it consisted of several islands and mud flats. Living on these islands (throughout the early 1900s and up to the 1920s) were many old age pensioners with the most notable being Edwin Wilcocks (sometimes spelt Wilcox)  who became known to everyone as ‘Old Ned’.

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