ALUMNI from
the archives Xavier Herbert (Class of 1919) Considered one of the important figures in Australian literature, Xavier Herbert was born in 1901 and is best known for his 1975 Miles Franklin Award winning novel Poor Fellow My Country. He studied Pharmacy at Perth Technical College before enrolling in medicine at the University of Melbourne, where he began his writing career publishing short stories. Herbert was a great champion for the rights of Aboriginal Australians. His first novel published in 1938, Capricornia, was a fictional account of life in northern Australia and describes a period of history through non-conformist characters who reflect his compassion for the marginalised. In the late 1940s Herbert was Protector of Aborigines in Darwin. He drew extensively on this experience for his final novel, Poor Fellow My Country, which he was writing at the time of the historical 1967 referendum. During a trip around his home state in 1983, Xavier Herbert returned to CBC Fremantle and presented a signed copy of his famous book
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to Ms Trevanna Cooper, nee Letizia, which is still available in the CBC Library. Xavier Herbert died in 1984 in Alice Springs, where he was buried with his wife’s ashes.
William Wallwork (Class of 1920) Born in 1903, William Wallwork was a brilliant student who passed his leaving certificate at the age of 13. After graduation, he went into Law and in 1933 took up the post of Resident Magistrate at Broome before moving to Bunbury. His work with the coal industry in Collie earned him a reputation as one of the state’s most successful industrial arbitrators. An outgoing and friendly fellow, Wallwork was also the founding president of the Bunbury Apex Club. In 1940 Wallwork returned to Perth with his family and took on the role as Senior Police Magistrate. He served as chairman of the Local Coal Reference Board and the Western Australian Coal Industry Tribunal, where he tackled some of the biggest disputes in the history of Western Australian mining. Typical of a CBC gentleman, Wallwork served
